Your Leaf Logo Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore

Coming soon: a collage of pictures from "green" websites featuring dripping leaves, Photoshopped-to-be-impossibly-green leaves, worn hands holding tiny sprouting leaves, and even cartoon depictions of leaves. Even the EcoLogo (one of the good ones!) is made up of doves with overlapping plumage shaped like leaves.

Even only peripherally aware consumer during the "lite" craze knows that many labels and logos found on common products really don't mean squat. A quick Google search on misleading logos found over 400,000 hits. It's a testament to today's media trends that the top hits talked about fake organic food logos and misleading recycling terminology. (It's also worth nothing that most articles were from Canada or Europe.) We're all aware, or we should be, that just because a product is stamped "Certified by the Jesus Loves Green Priuses and Eats Free Range Eggs Council" doesn't mean it's actually good for you or healthy for the environment. In fact, I could doodle a green say... dolphin, write a bogus name around it in a circle of smudgy letters, and stamp it on a freeze dried pack of fried baby seal meat. Then, some tired consumer after a busy day of playing tug of war with Bangalore for her job would inevitably feel a little bit better about chunking mystery meat into her grocery cart. Let's face it. A logo without any scientific backing is just a teensy picture with some words cavorting around it.

And that brings me back to the subject. A brief, visual and non-scientific survey of the Green and Sustainability web presence showed me... a bunch of pristine, fragile, greener-than-green leaves. We haven't forgotten what they look like yet, folks.

Not that I'm complaining about the web presence. I'm glad I open four godzillion Firefox tabs worth of green websites in my research every day. But could we maybe branch out a little? (No pun intended.) How about a whole gosh darned tree? Or maybe a cityscape without smog cloud? A solar powered house? What the heck does an installed solar panel look like anyway? I'm pretty sure it doesn't look like the cartoony representation on Solarhome.org. I suppose what I'm saying is that, in the Green Movement, I'm looking for a little more substance and a little less, well... roughage.

Now for those questions I promised. Is there a logo you trust? What is it and why? If you're feeling adventurous, go poke around your house right now (I suggest the fridge and pantry) and scope out any suspicous looking logos. Shoot me a pic or describe them for me, and I'll investigate them all Mythbusters(c) style.

Is it possible for a young, recently laid-off grad student and wannabe environmentalist to go Green in Atlanta? I have no clue, but that's what I'm going to find out. And I'm going to blog about it along the way.

True confession: When I first decided to "Go Green," I was sitting in the audience as Bill Clinton campaigned for Hillary in a rousing speech at the school where, as if one degree that makes me unemployable wasn't enough, I study toward a Master's in another dubious major. Here's how it went down:

Bill Clinton: Hillary plans to encourage investment in alternative energy and other Green initiatives.

Jennifer: Hmm? Encourage investment? Wha-? Money!

It wasn't that I didn't have a healthy concern for the environment before, but as a 27-year-old on the cusp of having her job outsourced, I was more concerned with making green than going green. However, that involved research. Research involved asking questions. Asking questions led to awareness. Then, somewhere in there, I really began to care about this stuff beyond fodder for a business opportunity. Worse, I got worried. And I met a lot of other wise, educated, experienced and worried people.

But enough of the worry stuff. I also found out that going green can be fun. It can involve farmers. And gadgets. And slaying vampires. What's the only thing better than farmers and gadgets and slaying vampires? Vampire-slaying farmers with gadgets! (Oh, I hope I find one of these in my green quest.)

I want this blog to be more of the positive, "vampires with gadgets" variety than the negative, "we're going to die here" variety. So, I plan to detail my (possibly successful, possibly hilarious) efforts to go green, buy local, reduce energy consumption, and generally be a better citizen of Atlanta and the planet. Wish me luck.

And because I think blogs are more fun and interactive when they ask a bunch of questions, I'll do that now. When's the last time you bought locally grown food? Where'd you get it? Why'd you do it? Was it tasty? And finally, when's the last time you slew a vampire?