Reality Check: Polar Bears Don't Hug You, They Eat You

Katie Pavlich | January 24, 2011 10:37 AM

Introducing the dumbest commercial of the century. Below is an advertisement for the new Nissan Leaf, a car Nissan totes as the first ever fully electric car that is good for the environment. In the ad, the company shows a polar bear hugging a man for driving one.

There are so many things wrong with commercial I don't know where to start.

First: Polar Bears don't hug people, they eat people. Hence the name Polar Bear. Counter to popular belief, they aren't nice and cuddly.

Second: Polar Bears are not endangered and are the only species ever to be listed on the endangered species list because they "may become endangered in the future," due to a change in the environment/climate (not like that's been happening for billions of years or anything).

Third: The Leaf runs completely on electric power...where does more than half of the United States' electricity come from?....drum roll please....the burning of coal, defeating the claim that the Leaf is really better for the environment than a regular car because it doesn't use fossil fuels.

But, so long as people feel good about themselves and better than their neighbor for driving a Leaf while pretending it helps the environment because it runs on electric rather than gasoline, I guess it makes sense.