Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The future of farting

It's a fact: farts harm the planet. Everybody talks about carbon dioxide, but no one mentions methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than the carbon dioxide we breathe out through our mouths.

Extreme offenders, in the post-Kyoto world, will be convicted of crimes against humanity.

Therefore I am founding a company called Fart Neutral.

Fart Neutral will neutralise the effect of your farting by investing the money you give us to compensate your farts in schemes to sequester methane under the earth, or burn it to generate heat and power, capturing the carbon dioxide instead.

We will also invest in educational programmes to teach people which foods - beans, lentils - cause the most methane production from rear ends.

Eventually such diets will be taxed out of existence.

We will also manufacture special rubber underwear, sealed tightly round the waist and legs, with a built in inflatable balloon at the rear. When the balloon has fully inflated from your methane production, it will be sealed, detached and replaced.

We will pay you for the return of full balloons and send you an empty one in return. We will then trade the balloons on the open market - methane trading, or, as the trade refers to it, the Fart Mart.

Variations on the underwear will be manufactured for farm animals and pets. Cows are well known as a major producer of this greenhouse gas.

Under post-Kyoto legislation it will be illegal for animals and humans not to wear such methane-capturing apparel. Eventually farm animals will be phased out for a compulsory vegetarian diet, which will, anyway, release more land for food and biofuel production.

This will give rise to a new age of fashion, a revival of the 18th Century style of exaggerated derrières. Men will wear pantaloons with large flaps at the back, and women long skirts with seams to accommodate the balloons at the rear. These will be considered sexy, and the smelling of farts, since they are forbidden, will provide sexual frissons.


Special offer: Send me £5 ($10) now to neutralise your farts for the next year. Hurry! After June 30 the cost will inflate.

Comments from the earlier posting on MySpace:


Lucy:
David, can I assume that a vaginal fart is harmless?

David Thorpe:
Assume nothing. I will have to come round and test this.

Lucy:
Well, I'll put the kettle on but I don't think I can do them to order ..

David Thorpe:
Thank you. I'll be over soon. Do not fret yourself about 'doing them to order'. The important thing is to be relaxed. I have been specially trained with techniques for just such a situation. And besides, in the disinterested pursuit of scientific truth we must above all have patience.

shell:
My boyfriend emits some right humdingers. It lingers for ages too.
Mine smell of roses so there is no way they can harm the environment.

David Thorpe:
I'm afraid that the delightful feminine smell is caused by your sexually aroused pheronomes, and has nothing to do with the methane, which is the carrier gas.
Therefore you both still need to be neutralised.
We do a special discounted deal for couples - £8 for a year.

Mr. Pillowcase:
Wow, you have certainly planned this out very well!

David Thorpe:
Well, thank you, but let's give some tribute to the European Union's Farting Directive (2007).

Poetica™:
You are a visionary! I will start working on my business plan to design the fluffiest Fartaloons and Firts the world has ever seen.

David Thorpe:
I look forward to seeing them. It's important for the designs to be cute and risque, don't you think.
I'm glad to see you are taking the positive attitude, following the Government's decisive leadership on global warming. Rightfully, they say climate change is not a threat, but an opportunity to make loads of money.
This is why we in the business community welcome climate change as a chance to reinvigorate our faded product lines, introduce new styles and fashions, and find new reasons why the public should continue to buy our products, even when they don't need them and can't afford them.
Let us celebrate climate change with a new line of fluffy, methane offsetted underwear!

Lucy:
We're all immature adults here!

David Thorpe:
Speak for yourself. I have the interests of the planet at heart. And making money. You can't get more mature than that.

Adam Horovitz:
Oh god, as a vegetarian I'm in deep trouble...

David Thorpe:
No, Adam, you are half way to salvation, for your meat-free diet is not dependant on the unseen emanations of distant ruminants.
The best way to narrow your methane footprint is to eat less beans and become anorexic.
The most selfless act would, of course, be suicide - that way you have no footprint at all, and we at Fart Neutral can give you a zero methane funeral, by offsetting the methane produced by your decomposing body - for a small fee of course.
However such martyrdom is for the saints amongst us only, and at Fart Neutral we know there are few of those - that is the reason for our existence - to provide guilt free farting for everyone.
Hence our motto: Supporting Farters with a Clear Conscience.

Adam Horovitz:
Beanless anorexia it is, then. No more being mistaken for a passing herd of cattle for me!! Thank you Fart Neutral - I don't know what I would have done without you...

No comments: