These days, it seems like everyone is jumping on the green bandwagon. Most consumers start with recycling and using reusable bags, while others commit to composting and even living off the grid – but how can you tell if you’re truly an “environmentalist?”

The Natural Marketing Institute, a strategic research and business development firm, developed a list of clues during the recent LOHAS 13 forum. How many do you relate to? Personally, I’m not sure about the visions of polar bears, but I’ve definitely been known to have a dish rack full of Nancy’s Yogurt containers and plastic bags!

Top 10 Clues That You’re an Environmentalist:
1. Your workplace doesn’t have recycling so you bring everything home
2. Your Tupperware® collection consists of reclaimed takeout containers, yogurt containers and salvaged jars
3. You have maximized the number of places to dry Ziploc® bags in your kitchen
4. You glare at people at the store who don’t have a canvas bag
5. You double-glare at the ones who ask for things to be double-bagged
6. You don’t blink when paying $5/pound for local, heirloom tomatoes
7. Your conscience prevents you from jet skiing, despite it looking SO fun
8. You worry about cow flatulence
9. You have visions of drowning polar bears each time you adjust the thermostat
10. Your friends have finally stopped asking you for advice on how to be green, knowing you will offer it soon enough…

It’s kind of funny to be seated in the heart of Portland, Oregon with the alternative energy, green building and sustainable living movements swirling all around…and then to take a drive down the Columbia River Gorge and see what it really looks like.

Here in Portland, we’re such vehement advocates of progressive living that it’s hard to fathom anyone NOT wanting, for instance, layers of windmills stacked onto the hillsides of the Columbia Gorge. But for just a second, I could understand. It’s a big change.

Honestly, I’m a big fan of renewable energy solutions and, particularly, of wind power. But I grew up in Goldendale, Washington, about 2 and a half hours east of here and a few miles up from Maryhill on Highway 97. The view of the Columbia Gorge in this area is etched onto the back of eyelids so, I have to admit, I was a bit shocked to round a bend and suddenly see, on every inch of the hills, massive white columns with gently spinning blades not dotting, but blanketing, the horizon.

Over the course of the weekend at my grandparents’, even as they grumbled about the windmills sprouting all around them, they grew on me. Instead of “violators” of the landscape, they became beautiful, artful additions.

I wanted to accept the change. Change is good. But sometimes it’s also good to realize that what’s theoretical change in the big city is real, towering, heavy construction change to otherwise relatively undisturbed landscapes.

My hope is that these changes now are what ultimately preserve what’s left of the natural environment for later. And it’s ok with me if the view of the Columbia Gorge that’s etched onto the backs of my kids’ eyelids includes fields of giant, hazy, lazily spinning windmills. Better than nothing at all.

Ahem. Yes, we realize this is another entry about our balcony garden, but we can’t help ourselves. Since we planted back in early April, our two garden boxes have taken off, growing leaps and bounds every single day. We made a big salad last week with fresh lettuce, and now we’re starting to see other crops pop up.

Here’s the south balcony box:

Check out our soon-to-be giant artichoke just starting to grow!

And the north balcony:

So far, we’ve sampled radishes, strawberries and parsley, with lots more to come. We’ve all been enjoying picking fresh salad greens every day for lunch instead of going to the grocery store! If you’re in the neighborhood, maybe for the tasty Moreland Farmers Market, come over for a visit to sample a few leaves yourself.

Today was a red letter - or shall I say green letter - day at Maxwell PR. Diane harvested romaine, mezuma and red leaf lettuce from our balcony garden and prepared a delectable salad for our lunchtime munch time. We planted it only five weeks ago and the garden is, as Erica says, exploding!

Props to Whole Foods for embracing the Twitter craze. (I recommend following @WholeFoods.) But I’m curious to know how many people are actually going to find this “worth twittering about,” though. Also, I see a high likelihood that if people do tweet this, they’ll do so while driving. Isn’t that when you typically see billboards? Hmmm…

Every time I hear of another newspaper closing, I get a pit in my stomach. Leisurely reading the daily newspaper with a good cup of coffee in the sanctity of my home is one of my favorite parts of the day. The thought of trying to do the same with a Kindle is a concept I don’t want to consider.

What will the world do without newspapers? Where will radio and TV stations get their news? How will we know what’s going on around town?

While pondering these questions, I was delighted to hear that Washington State is considering a 40% business tax cut for its newspaper printers and publishers. ‘Atta girl, Gov. Chris Gregoire!

This is a good first step but it won’t solve the problem. Newspapers need to evolve and figure out how to best serve their readers today and in the future.

The TerraChoice folks have updated the Six Sins of Greenwashing with a seventh: The Sin of Worshiping False Labels “committed by a product that, through either words or images, gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement actually exists.” So true. Add it to the sins of the hidden trade-off, no proof, vagueness, irrelevance, the lesser of two evils and down right fibbing. See the updated report for details.

I got this in my email this morning. That’s right, I got an invitation to a tweetup in my email. Don’t get me wrong, I think the concept behind the tweetup is great and I’m sure it will be very well attended. The problem I have is that this is the wrong delivery method. If you’re having an event and you invite people to it over email, is it still a “tweetup”? Am I splitting hairs or being too sensitive to the unique memes of each social media platform? Maybe I just don’t like chocolate mixed in with my vanilla.

No, here’s my problem. I don’t know the guy who sent it to me. I don’t follow him on Twitter and I don’t recall ever getting an email from him before. I know I’ve never met him or had any sort of conversation with him, virtual or otherwise. So, getting invited to a tweetup over email seems disingenuous to me. If we don’t have a Twitter relationship OR at least any other kind of relationship, I’m not going to tweetup with you. Which is a shame because the event sounded pretty cool.

We thought this was really cool.