Despite the Norwegian government's all-to-true assessment that "cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others," we car crazy Americans are going to continue to pay attention to what the car manufacturers have to say about their brand's environmental "friendliness." After all, I think we'll be lucky to get most folks to do less harm to the environment–doing absolutely no harm seems a far way off to me.

AutoblogGreen is at the forefront of informing and encouraging car buyers to make better choices. As they say:

AutoblogGreen is a website/blog dedicated to any and all environmentally-friendly (or egregiously unfriendly) car news.

Now I'm not sure what the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman thinks of AutoblogGreen, but I find the site to be quite informative. For instance, I now know that Volkswagen is going to beat Honda to the U.S. diesel market, although there's some debate about how "clean" VW's diesel engines will be.

Not at all interested in diesel technology? How about Mazda's "Sustainable Zoom-Zoom" initiatives?

Still a fan of muscle cars? OK, here's a post about the BioConcept Mustang GT RTD–a biodiesel powered racer that  generates 280 horsepower and is fueled by B100 biodiesel.

My point is: for as much as I appreciate the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman's point of view on truth in advertising, we Americans like to be "sold" things. We're bombarded with advertising everyday. The most effective ads cut through the clutter and pique our interest.

Once I'm interested in something, I begin to thoroughly research the pros and cons. Without the ads to get me interested, how would I ever know to look under the hood of the Volvo ReCharge?

Bottom line: I'd much rather see one hundred ads for the Toyota Prius than even one for the unfriendly Toyota Tundra.

Carbon Neutral Journal's choices are brought to you by Jorgensen Associates.

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