Despite their reliance on natural resources to sell cruises, the cruise line industry defends its right to treat the oceans like a sewer and a waste dump.

On a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a few years back, Shauna and David Schober were snorkeling off the coast with a tour company that took them by boat to explore some underwater caves. But their snorkel excursion was cut short when less than a mile away a cruise ship discharged its septic tanks.

Under some of the most beautiful parts of rural New York State in the pre-Jurassic era formation called the Marcellus Shale is an unimaginable fortune in natural gas. Getting that gas to market has become an obsession of Wall Street and the biggest gas drilling companies in the world. In this gas rush, New York is fast becoming a geological science experiment that many experts fear will have profound, dire environmental and health consequences. The drilling companies use a witch’s brew of water, pressure and chemicals to force the gas from the shale. It is the secrecy of what is in that brew that has New Yorkers worried and many suspicious. Even the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has not yet identified all of the compounds in products proposed for use in fracturing shale.

[Editor’s Note: DCBureau.org sent a pair of reporters to Atlantic magazine's October 29th Water Summit. Our reporters were prevented from videotaping the conference by The Atlantic who arranged to exclusively tape the event, but did not offer it live. We present our Atlantic — approved video report by Allison Sickle and a companion piece by correspondent Byron Moore that was not shared in advance with Atlantic’s team of editors and advertisers.]

The main Ballroom at the National Press Club was packed with individuals from nonprofits, government and business (lobbyists, media relations and a few executives) who traded business cards, overused acronyms and buzzwords, asked long questions, and got short answers. As a large camera in the back panned the room, The Atlantic Water Summit was officially live.

When it comes to reducing garbage in the world’s oceans, the political angle is just as important as the scientific, to judge by industry’s behavior. On Aug. 18, Seattle voters passed by a 53-47 margin a referendum to overturn a 20-cent fee approved last year by the city council for using plastic bags at supermarkets, pharmacies and convenience stores.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other public information, the referendum was backed primarily by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the plastics industry trade association, and the 7-11 chain of convenience stores. The ACC made local headlines with its all-out summer media blitz to promote the referendum, ultimately spending $1.4 million before the vote was held. In comparison, the Seattle Green Bag Campaign to support the fee raised less than $100,000.

Recent research has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concerned that the huge quantities of metal, plastic, paint chips and other man-made debris floating at sea, hundreds and even thousands of miles from land, may be working their way into the American diet. NOAA, a part of the Commerce Department, largely exists to track weather patterns and hurricanes, and its entry into the public health sphere serves as an indication of how severe the problem has become. It is not too much to suggest that millions of seafood lovers might be ingesting the very chemicals that land-based health and safety regulations are designed to keep out of reach.

LONG BEACH, CA-Massive cargo ships have long motored into the nation’s busiest ports here and next door in Los Angeles, trailing plumes of sulfurous soot. They disgorge containers of toys, VCR’s and sneakers, then chug out again loaded with scrap tin and waste paper. They are literally the slow boats to and from China, Singapore, and Japan, mighty container ships that have managed to elude air pollution regulation for half a century.

When it comes to the pace of regulating deadly shipping emissions, not everyone is content to adopt a wait and see (or “follow the IMO”) attitude. As it has done before, California recently passed its own regulation in the absence of federal standards. Since July 1, any ship longer than 400 feet or heavier than 10,000 gross tons has been required to limit its sulfur fuel content to 5,000 ppm, dropping to 1,000 ppm in 2012, within 24 miles of the state’s coastline.

Although the original shipping emissions standards established in the MARPOL treaty went into effect in 2005, they were written in 1997, and getting the more stringent 2008 revisions past the onerous IMO regulatory process was a battle that exhausted the few environmental groups that even engaged in the first place. Furthermore, the rules still do not address CO2 or other global warming risks, and some observers fear it is now too late to make a push to change the rules again.

The shipping industry is an invisible and nearly unregulated environmental disaster, and if you haven’t heard much about its poor record, you’re not alone. Compared to power plants, cars and even commercial aviation, shipping has drawn little scrutiny ─ it gets few mentions in the media, and activist groups tend to focus their attention elsewhere. Seen as little more than an expensive tourist option or a humdrum conveyor of goods, the modern sea vessel is a mystery to the average person, either a love boat or a floating tractor trailer. If there were no pirates or seasick honeymooners, the shipping industry would barely register in the public consciousness.

Madison, Florida – It takes a smart and politically well-connected company like Nestlé to get a drought-stricken state like Florida to give it tens of millions of dollars worth of water to resell at enormous profits to its neighbors in states like the Carolinas and Georgia.

For Nestlé, finding new sources of fresh spring water and securing the right to pump the water requires political influence: the ability to secure support with high-level state and local officials. Nestlé, like other large corporations, believes residents see dollar signs when they hear a large corporation is coming to their town. They often use local residents as straw men to keep the cost of expansion cheaper, all the while extracting tax and water pumping concessions by promising good paying jobs.