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The article focuses on environmentalism in the mid-1990s and states that some environmental rules have created fast-growing clean-up industries. Businesses in many Countries have been complaining that environmental regulations push up their costs. Greens and economists have long recognized that growth should not be the only goal of government policy. But it is not yet time to write environmentalism off. The green movement has been cultivating new allies, and devising a new argument. Green rules have created a fast-growing clean-up industry, which is joining hands with green groups to lobby governments for stricter rules on emissions. There is a perfectly good reason for having regulations to protect the environment. It is to protect the environment. That is a public good that even economists recognize, and see the need to pay for, though they will rightly quibble about the price.

The article informs that cleaning up contaminated land has become the most expensive and controversial aspect of American environmental policy. Obligations to clean upland arise under a number of programmes. Some of the them impose burdens mainly on the private sector. Others, such as the need to treat old military sites owned by the departments of energy and defence, will fall on the tax-payer. Most of the debate about cleaning contaminated sites has concentrated on the Superfund programme.

The article reports that the British government may soon have to oblige industry to take back and recycle the packaging it ships its product in. The British government tends to see itself as a bastion of common sense where European environmental policy is concerned, weighing benefits against costs which more dogmatic governments ignore. Now, foreign dogmatism threatens to drive the government down a road it abhors- forcing it to oblige industry to take back and recycle the packaging it ships its product in. In practice, lots of "recyclables" slip out of Germany, looking for buyers abroad. In Britain, the government has been trying to encourage commercial recyclers such as waste-paper merchants to join forces with the packaging industry to give more packaging a second life.

The article reports that twelve states, along with several other organizations in the U.S., are suing to force the country to limit emissions of carbon dioxide. The Supreme Court heard argument in the case on November 29, 2006, and while the outcome is yet to be determined, it is speculated that the political mood seems to be shifting in favor of stricter government action to counter climate change. Further details of the case and the debate are explored.