LAS VEGAS — Trade show organizer Bob Peters is a trend watcher.

Ten years ago, amid the cigar craze, he put together shows for stogie makers and retailers. Fifteen years ago, when video arcades were popular, he organized conventions for operators of family fun centers. Before that, it was confabs for Beatles memorabilia vendors.

Peters’ latest trade show? A convention for “green” businesses selling goods tied to the environment.

His EarthNow Expo opening here today is attracting dozens of businesses, mainly small ones, willing to shell out $2,000 per booth with hopes their products will become the next big Earth-friendly product.

Miami-based Eco Concepts, for instance, is touting environmentally friendly cleaning solvents “from the power of sea kelp.”

Another South Florida company registered for the show, Earth-Saver Bags, makes natural-fiber shopping totes.

There’s a California company peddling organic cotton baby booties, and a Colorado company that makes reusable food wrappers designed to replace plastic sandwich bags.

Attendees can also take in seminars on subjects such as “Go Green and Add More $$$ to Your Bottom Line” and “How to Promote Your Business through Social and Environmental Responsibilities.”

Some exhibitors don’t even bother wrapping themselves in the environmental flag.

WD-40 Co., known for its squeak-stopping oils and chemicals, is introducing a nontoxic, biodegradable carpet cleaner.

WD-40 is green?

But “to say WD-40 is green … well, it’s petroleum and steel,” acknowledged company spokesman Bill Trumpfheller.

The fact that the company’s new carpet cleaner is nontoxic and biodegradable was something researchers “stumbled across while they were creating a new product,” Trumpfheller said. “If you do that and you can make something that still works, why not do it?”

Eco-focused trade shows are not exactly new. Dozens have sprung up around the country in recent years, from Fortune magazine’s April “Brainstorm Green” conference in California to media company Hanley Wood’s “Green Products and Technology” conference in Austin, Texas, in October.

Usually, organizers and exhibitors try to obscure the money-making side of going green.

Not Peters. “I care about the environment, don’t get me wrong,” he said, but “I’m a capitalist.”

“In a capitalistic society, if there’s an opportunity to be seized, people will seize it,” he said.

In some ways, the EarthNow Expo is an inflection point in the corporate environmental revolution.

A few years ago, the term “green business” was an oxymoron. With few exceptions, the environment was for hippies and tree huggers, not entrepreneurs and executives.

But then many businesses began warming up to the idea that climate change is happening.

Companies started internal environmental programs and then started passively marketing their environmentalism and eco-friendly products. Now, many are unapologetically looking for ways to make money from green goods.

Perhaps surprisingly, the idea of using the environment to sell stuff doesn’t disturb many tried-and-true environmentalists.

“On the whole, I think it’s good,” said Kert Davies, research director for environmental group Greenpeace.

He said that green products help raise consumers’ environmental consciousness, even if it happens in the grocery checkout line.

Environmentalists like Davies have problems when companies overstate their eco-friendliness, or position themselves as environmentally friendly when they’re really not.

For his part, one of Peters’ biggest concerns is that he may have hopped on the green bandwagon too late.

Originally, Peters had hoped for 2,500 attendees and 500 exhibitors at his EarthNow Expo. On Tuesday, as he was setting up in a back corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center, he was planning on 50 booths and hoping for 2,000 attendees.

“The market may be oversaturated already,” he said. “I think we’ll be all right … but if someone else decided to come along and start a show like this (next year), they’re going to be a year too late.”