I don't need to care what sort of world we pass on to our children — I don't have any, and I'm not terribly concerned about yours — but I do anyway. Not enough to go to extremes of effort or expense, but if I can give a beer bottle or hummus tub a second life by putting it in an orange bin rather than a trash bag, you can count on me.

I'm not a true scuppie — a Socially Conscious Upwardly Mobile Person — because newspaper people are not so much upwardly mobile as backwardly noble. I can't afford to blow the rent money at Whole Foods on organic cruelty-free, hand-churned onion dip or imported free-trade hemp dental floss.

It's the latest in must-haves for any self-respecting Scuppie (Socially Conscious Upwardly Mobile Person). Bamboo is a mobile phone that is about as green as it gets. It is powered by winding — with a little crank. A three-minute session produces enough power to make one call so it never runs out of energy (and the user benefits from the mini-workouts).

Still the acronyms flow in. The bobos — "burnt-out but opulent". The dimbos — "delightfully interesting male, brain optional". The scuppies — "socially conscious urban professionals".