Grab your gun, Florida wants help saving some endemic species. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced this week that it is holding a special hunting season to target invasive Burmese pythons.

For $26, anyone with a hunting license can take a range of introduced, feral reptiles, including Indian python; reticulated python; northern and southern African rock python; amethystine or scrub python; green anaconda; and Nile monitor lizard, according to the Miami Herald.

One million live Burmese pythons were legally imported into the U.S. between 2001 and 2006, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife. Half of those were imported through Miami. But lazy pet owners often toss the animals into the Everglades when they get too big to keep as pets.

Environmentalists have long derided the false profits of energy companies. Take coal for example. Sure coal is cheap, but factor in the destructive power of mountain top mining and related health problems for workers and the surrounding degraded watersheds, and the real cost of "cheap energy" is passed along to local communities.

According to a new unpublished report by the United Nations, the cost of pollution and other damage to the environment by the world's largest companies was an estimated $2.2 trillion in 2008.

If the 3,000 biggest companies were held accountable, the cost would wipe out more than one-third of their profits, according to the UK's Guardian.

The full report is due out this summer, but it already has its critics. Andrew Simms wrote in the Guardian that the figure is likely much higher.

"Any precise figure, however, is a matter of how risk is quantified and of where you draw the line," he wrote. "In 2006, for example, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), of which I am the policy director, looked at the oil companies BP and Shell, who together had recently reported profits of £25bn. By applying the Treasury's own estimates of the social and environmental cost of carbon emissions, we calculated that the total bill for those costs would reach £46.5bn, massively outweighing profits and plunging the companies into the red."

No matter where the line is drawn, quantifying the value of healthy ecosystems does not equate change in business practices. With the world still suffering from a sluggish economy, this report is unlikely to see a broad shift in how governments regulate their natural resources.

While this report is sure to offer valuable think tank fodder, there could be some subtler real world repercussions. Besides empty rhetoric (think clean coal ads), there are various companies that are seriously examining their ecological footprint and being transparent about it.

Besides encouraging your politicians to strengthen the Clean Air and Clean Water Act, you can take a closer look at some of your favorite companies to see how transparent they are about their environmental impact.

While governments are not about to bankrupt energy companies by holding them responsible for the total of the environmental damage, there are small changes to laws that can ease the burden on the environment. Electronics recycling laws, that ensure companies responsibly recycle electronics, are popping up around the country.

Obviously some of the biggest offenders are energy companies. Are you signed up for renewable energy? By creating demand it forces companies to build up sources of clean energy.

On a smaller scale, look around the house. Do you know if the wood you're using to build a deck is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified? Go take a look in your closet. Some companies, like Patagonia, let you track your clothes from design to delivery. Apple also accounts on its website for the complete life cycle of its products. Take a turn around your bathroom, are your cleaning products and body products made from earth (and human!)-friendly materials?

While some small changes in governance have boosted sustainably-sourced products such as FSC timber, as consumers we can do our small part to make sure that we are not encouraging environmental destruction.

Olivia Newton-John and her husband, John Easterling, recently sat down with GreenDaily to talk about their passion for the environment (Newton-John was a former ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program).

They told us about what they'll be stuffing stockings with this year, and their work in the Amazon to preserve the biodiversity of the vast rainforest through empowering local populations and sustainably sourcing everything from the energizing drink, Zamu to all natural beauty products offered by Easterling's Amazon Herb Company.

Down the endless web of concrete hallways at Arthur Ashe Stadium, past framed photos of former champions, there is a large chute on a loading dock with a single purpose: Collecting recyclables.

There are 500 containers for bottles and cans peppered across the 46-acre Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The bins are the public face of a campaign to show that, while the courts may have painted blue years ago, this year the message is green.

"You don't know what you don't know," says Rita Garza, director of public relations and Green Task Force chairwoman for the USTA. Garza is honest about how much she had to learn about paper cups, renewable energy and tennis ball cans when Billie Jean King called for the U.S. Open to green its practices at the complex that bears her name.