Credit: Skip Showers/YouTube -- "Kiki" shows how she has learned to clean herself with a baby wipe for the "Skip Showers for Beef" movement.Would you give up your personal hygiene routine for a nice cut of beef?
It sounds crazy, but that’s exactly what some people are proposing – as a joke to raise awareness about the role of factory farms in California’s ongoing drought.
Reportedly, the factory-farmed beef industry in California uses almost half of California’s water supply.
The Yes Men and the Merkin Bros from FunnyOrDie fame have teamed together with Courage Campaign for the fake “Skip Showers for Beef” campaign. They’ve created videos, organized street teams, and enlisted the help of musician Moby for the call to action.
It jokingly encourages people to skip 26 showers for every four-ounce hamburger they consume. The 26 showers are meant to offset the water used in the production of the beef in the hamburger.
But really, the men behind the campaign believe that the factory farms should be held accountable, not the citizens of California.
"We're constantly hearing about consumer action—shorter showers, no flushing, no glass of water in restaurants. Yet the water used for industrial-scale beef absolutely dwarfs what consumers could save in a million years," said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men in a press released.
"Why don't we just shut down factory-farmed beef in California? If we can't make decisions that are good for people, there's no hope of fixing a problem like the California drought—let alone climate change," Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men said.
"The idea that individual consumers should carefully monitor their 20% of the water-use pie, while major industries do whatever they want with the rest, is the real joke here," said Bonanno.
