Articles by Jess Zimmerman

WWF leaflet campaign reaches 285,142 people with one piece of paper

As certified genius Mitch Hedberg once said, when someone hands you a flyer on the street, it's like they're saying "here, YOU throw this away." But the panda-suited chuggers in this World Wildlife Fund leaflet campaign are saying "here, YOU read this on your way up the escalator where it will be collected by another panda and distributed to the next person who will then bring it back down the escalator to be re-collected and re-distributed by the original panda." It's a little more complicated, but it involves a lot less waste. 

Fox News takes credit for study that debunks climate skeptics

Fox News is patting itself on the back for "inspiring" a recent study showing that China's sulfur output has been masking the effects of global warming. It points to an interview that lead researcher Robert Kaufmann did with the BBC, where he said he looked into the issue because an old man told him Fox News said the planet was cooling. Hooray, Fox News got mentioned on a real news site! Break out the Confederate flag party hats! Too bad the rest of that article is about Kaufmann making that old man, and his Fox News overlords, look pretty silly indeed.

Warning: Climate change causes sun to jerk off

Have we considered the possibility that rising global temperatures are less about greenhouse gases, more about the sun really, REALLY enjoying heatin' stuff up? USA Today has! Forget solar storms, what we should really be worried about is solar onanism. UPDATE: USA Today is so proud of this image that they put a nice high-quality […]

Auto manufacturers don't trust people to buy efficient cars

The federal government is proposing a new fuel efficiency standard of 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025. This is fairly modest, on a global scale -- it would require a 5 percent increase every year from 2017 onwards, but Europe is on track to hit 60 MPG by 2020, so it can certainly be done. Car manufacturers aren't happy about the prospect, though, and are pushing for a lower standard.

Their objections: It could add thousands to the cost of a new vehicle (whereas using less $4-a-gallon gas would probably only save hundreds per vehicle every year). And more to the point, it would require them to make smaller cars. This is America -- who's going to buy a smaller car? Where would you keep your ATV? Where would you mount your buck? For god's sake, man, where would you hang your truck balls? THIS IS NOT WHAT WE FOUGHT THE NAZIS FOR BY JIMINY.