Set environment for Craft CMS console application/plugin. The following php script is put in a directory like $WEBSITE_ROOT/utils.

yiic_frontend.php

<?php

/**
 * a front end for yiic.php that looks for env on cmdline and sets CRAFT_ENVIRONMENT
 * accordingly. I put this script in a folder called "utils" in the root of my website
 * install. So instead of doing something like
 *     php $root/craft/app/etc/console/yiic.php plugin cmd
 * you would call
 *     php $root/utils/yiic_frontend.php --env=envname plugin cmd
 * where "envname" is the config environment you wish to use.
 */

for ($i = 1; $i < count($_SERVER['argv']); $i++) {
    $arg = $_SERVER['argv'][$i];
    if (strpos($arg, '--env=') === 0) {
        $env = explode('=', $arg)[1];
        printf("---- setting env \"%s\"\n", $env);
        define('CRAFT_ENVIRONMENT', $env);
        array_splice($_SERVER['argv'], $i, 1);
        break;
    }
}

require(__DIR__ . '/../craft/app/etc/console/yiic.php');