Gastro Net Zero – It's Gut Check Time

ANN ARBOR – Ann Arbor’s resident Green Guru, Greg Matthews, walks the walk when it comes to showing us how easy it is to lessen our footprint on the planet. If you have ever driven down Elm street, you’ve seen how the Matthews family has transformed a 110-year-old house into a money-generating, state-of-the-art habitat of the future that consumes net zero energy. Their domestic reinvention has inspired countless numbers of other forward-thinking humans to create their own Mission Zero.

Now, Mr. Matthews wants us to know that if we don’t do something about the waste we all personally release into the environment, planet Earth’s atmosphere will no longer be able to support life after 750,000 AD. Not one to sit around and wait for the politicians to do the right thing, he has channeled his green spirit into developing systems that he claims can reverse the trend starting today. And he says he is living proof that his “nutty” ideas really work.

“The idea came to me when I was changing my baby's diapers,” remembers Matthews. “She had just blasted me with a big poopie and I thought, ‘It doesn’t have to be this way.’ If we can recycle plastic and aluminum, why can’t we recycle the foods we eat, literally, internally? Why can’t we all be net zero on the inside?”

In a controlled video presentation, Mr. Matthews silences all the skeptics who thought it was impossible for a man to emit no waste whatsoever. No solids. No liquids. No gases. In the video, he demonstrates how he has retrofitted his 48-year-old digestive track with a system that anyone can assemble themselves for about $80,000, which will pay for itself in only 55 years.

He started with the easiest people polluter, urine. After much trial and error, he has achieved a pee stream that is pure, potable water with only 4-ppm contaminates. You can imagine the side benefits this revelation provides. The implications this will have on drinkable water and irrigation to sustain our species alone are staggering. How did Matthews get “pissed off” you ask? He explains, “I took a correspondence course in self surgery and implanted a 5-stage charcoal filtration system up my urethra (see diagram). The pain was excruciating for only an hour or two and now look, an endless supply of clean water for our backyard chickens.”

His next challenge–merde. Sure, most of earth’s environmentally conscious citizens are happy to drop their biodegradable solid waste off at the pool, but as Matthews points out with the amount of time we humans spend on our cellular phones and computers, there could be trace amounts of rare earth metals that find their way into our feces. Matthews cites an article in Mother Jones making the connection between rare earth metals and dandruff in the southwestern coyote. The technical explanation would take too long for this article, but suffice it to say that Matthews' solution was to turn his stomach into an internal compost heap, one made entirely out of hemp. If you’d like more information on the specs for the hemp heap, visit greenextreme.org/nosh*t.

The final piece of the true digestive net zero puzzle is methane. This greenhouse gas can be silent but deadly. Comparing 2012 F.A.R.T. data with glacier ice samples dating back 15,000 years, the cheese can only be cut one way, anal warming is real. If there isn’t a collective will to put a cork in it, we could be looking at catastrophic backfires, fragrant fuzzies and thunder blasts. Last May alone saw the first ever 7.4 recorded on the Rectum scale. Matthews put an end to his sphincter song by replacing his large intestine with a break wind powered methane dissipater. “Bring on the legumes, prunes, bran and Brussels sprouts! You won’t hear a squeak out of me anymore. I’m healthier and my butt smells like roses,” he says.

It’s been a year now since Greg Matthews went “all in” and he hasn’t looked back. Even his lovely wife, Kathy, has joined the crusade. Methane was not a problem for her, as we all know women don’t pass gas. She has however installed a hemp heap and she’s been able to turn the bathroom into a nursery. Greg and Kathy say their mission is a labor of love and if they can get 7 billion of their friends to take the plunge, it will all be worth it. Speaking for the 7 billion, until we get our methane dissipaters, we toot salute you, Mr. Matthews.

#knews #photo #satire #environment