That’s the World Wildlife Fund—not the World Wrestling Federation—which has launched a new file format that cannot be printed. (Actually, from my experience, they can save time and effort and just encourage everyone to upgrade their operating system; no one will ever be able to print again.) Anyway, yes, the new .wwf format “is a PDF that cannot be printed out. It’s a simple way to avoid unnecessary printing. So here’s your chance to save trees and help the environment. Decide for yourself which documents don't need printing out—then simply save them as WWF.” Silly? You bet. I mean, do people just compulsively print documents, perhaps in their sleep, and they need the safeguard of a special file format to save them from their own urges? (“Stop me before I print again!”) And if people are sending PDF files, well, they can turn off the ability to print in Acrobat, if they so desire. Because that’s just what the world needs, another file format. But there’s an even bigger issue here, which is that these folks (the WWF and the other “save a tree” people) are veering perilously close to advocating “vegetable rights.” After all, trees used for paper are a crop and, sustainably managed (and, yes, that’s the key, isn’t it?), those crops can remain quite healthy indeed. It’s not like paper companies are raiding people’s backyards and nicking trees wantonly. And, after all, humans have been cultivating corn—another crop—since before recorded history. Go to Iowa and tell me how endangered it is. In a story in Printweek, Two Sides, a UK organization dedicated to promoting the sustainability of paper and print, and countering the misinformation spread by folks such as the WWF, said, “This WWF has made a ridiculous statement based on two false premises, firstly that the paper industry is destroying trees, and secondly that viewing documents on a computer is somehow better for the environment. Trees are a renewable resource and print on paper is definitely one of the most sustainable ways to communicate, obviously as long as it's done correctly. The WWF does a lot of good things but it is dangerous to suggest that electronic communication is somehow free of charge environmentally— it has an impact all of its own in the energy used to power these devices.” Perhaps we need to start a letter-writing campaign (a paper-based letter-writing campaign) to help fight back. And maybe we need a WWF Smackdown... (h/t Dr. Joe)