Phil Mattera, the research director of Good Jobs First, reflects on the rise and fall of greenwashing during the 1990's and asks whether we are "now seeing a green business boom that will also turn out to be nothing more than hot air?" While a marketing consultancy company, TerraChoice, last year identified what it dubbed as "six sins of greenwashing", Mattera believes that

Waste Management, the U.S. waste disposal company that Rachel's Hazardous Waste News once called "the nation's largest polluter," has been trying to clean up its reputation.

"Here's a recipe for academic controversy," observes Richard C. Paddock: "First, find dozens of hard-core teenage smokers as young as 14 and study their brains with high-tech scans. Second, feed vervet monkeys liquid nicotine and then kill at least six of them to examine their brains. Third, accept $6 million from tobacco giant Philip Morris to pay for it all.