TVSquad

This week's episode of 30 Days (if you don't know the premise, check out the site) is all about living off the grid. Jahari and Vito, two friends that work together at a club, are fossil fuel-guzzling Americans. They don't have many concerns about the environment and simply scoff at all the warnings all around them about resources running out. They're completely confident that it won't happen... at least in their lifetime. They have an 'ecological footprint' (which is pretty much an analysis of how much you waste). According to the report, if everyone in the world lived like Jahari and Vito, it would take the resources of 12.5 Earths to power the lifestyle. So can these two make it in a world without modern "necessities"?

Jahari and Vito are being sent to live in an experimental community that is entirely self-sufficient. It's totally unplugged from normal power plants (because they're "off the grid", off the power grid). Everyone must work together as members of a community (which means plenty of hard labor). And of course, they must recycle everything. And by everything, they mean human waste too (humanure).

Alright, so Jahari and Vito are set for this new adventure. They're feeling a bit unsure though. Vito is imagining a lot of hippies walking their goats. They meet Cecil, a scrawny guy with one of the largest white guy 'fros I have ever seen, who will be taking them to the Dancing Rabbit eco-village (where there really are dancing rabbits) where they will be staying for the next thirty days. The car he drives is completely powered by vegetable oil. This fact sends Jahari into a fit of giggles. She completely falls apart, though, when he opens the trunk to reveal several jugs of the vegetable oil.

The Dancing Rabbit eco-village consists of about thirty people. Their common goal is to save the environment. Jahari gets sort of weirded out because it seems like a cult-ish thing to do. But Cecil says that it's not a religion, it's an experiment. He also adds that despite what most people think, each person does have an impact. The world may not collapse due to one person's actions but there is a huge impact when hundreds of millions of the people think the same thing and don't take care of the earth.

Jahari and Vito get the full tour. The grain bin is where they'll be staying. There's absolutely no power in there and the structure is built out of straw and clay. Solar panels should be arriving soon though. There is also a common house where everyone can wash up. The restrooms are simply toilet seats with buckets under them. Seems like crapping in a bucket is a little too extreme for the two friends. The Dancing Rabbit people don't use regular flushing toilets because it's like wasting precious drinking water. Instead, they use the bucket and then cover it all with sawdust. Jahari and Vito don't understand what the whole point is because it's extremely inconvenient. As for showering, since they don't use fossil fuels, they need to stoke a fire to heat their water. Some of the people in the village shower only every five days (Jahari then understands why everyone reeks of body odor).

Just a few days in, Vito realizes he has a big problem: food. All the people in the village are either vegetarians or vegans and this guy misses his meat. By meat, he doesn't mean the fake soysauge stuff but real meat. He admits the cuisine's a big difference from the Bronx.

Time for show creator Morgan Spurlock to pop up and enlighten the viewer. Apparently, coal, oil, and natural gases provide 2/3 of our electricity. Nuclear power is another 20%. There's actually a much more efficient way of getting power that's been around for many, many years: Crap. That's right, you can use poo for electricity. There's actually places out there that take cow poop and process it. For every 100 cows, they can provide the power of a barrel of oil. It just might be the future of power. All I know is, I've never seen so much crap in my life.

Speaking of crap, humanure is used as fertilizer at the village. The purpose of doing this is to deal with their own waste in a responsible manner and not simply dumping it anywhere (no pun intended, I swear) and polluting water. They're pretty much just recycling everything that they can. Year-old crap used as fertilizer isn't as disgusting as it sounds though... it just turns into dirt. Cecil holds some up to demonstrate and Jahari has a fit out of disgust.

While Vito has his meat problem, Jahari has a products problem. She is a self-proclaimed product queen and can't live without her special shampoos and fragrances. When the two of them are informed that their bathwater goes out into a wetland and must therefore be extremely careful what they use (must use biodegradable soaps), Jahari is shocked. How will she live?!

Vito's craving for meat starts driving him crazy. Eating meat is actually a strain on the environment. We have to grow grain, corn, and soy to feed the animals and that means needing lots of land, water, and pesitcides. After that, we have to truck the animals away and then truck the actual final meat product another place too. The people at Dancing Rabbit are self-reliant and grow their own food. Jahari and Vito (still meatless) help out with gardening. Jahari looks quite amusing because she's still got lipstick, eyeshadow, and dangle earrings on.

Later, the solar panels that the village ordered finally arrive and they install them in the grain bin. Jahari and Vito are extremely excited about not having to use candles all the time anymore. The lightbulbs are compact fluorescent. Cecil says that if everyone in America changed over to these, there'd be enough power saved to close down a nuclear power plant.

Vito finally snaps and grabs a pellet gun and goes rabbit hunting. He's a big guy and the pure-vegetable diet isn't cutting it. He shot a rabbit and brought it back to cook, cackling the whole way. Jahari is surprised by her friend's behavior. "He pulled a damn Glenn Close! He pulled a Fatal Attraction". She finds hunting nasty. This also prompts a commune meeting between the other villagers about their new neighbor's behavior. Many disapprove of Vito's hunting and some others disapprove of Jahari's product use. The "chemically smells" bother them. Jahari is confronted by this and she agrees to not wear anymore perfume.

The two of them also learn about the vegetable oil powered cars. The biodeisel is created from soybeans and is less toxic than table salt and can reduce carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming by 75%. Unfortunately, these cars tend to smell like french fries a lot. This might prevent the rest of America from catching on. But now another nice alternative is starting to become popular: cars can now run on hydrogen (like the Honda FCX). It can completely reduce our dependence on oil. The only emission from these cars is water. Morgan Spurlock demonstrates this by collecting some of the water from the car and drinking it. It's got a funny aftertaste to it, but it's still water.

The villagers go dumpster diving to salvage doomed trash and they bring Jahari and Vito along. Vito is disgusted by this because it's for hobos. He did, however, find a hairdryer for Jahari. His good mood was soon spoilt after he found out appointment with a meat-seller was canceled because he was late. He needs his meat! He goes out and kills another rabbit. Nice. To express his frustration, he takes out a couple of puppets to represent himself, Jahari, and a rabbit. It reminds me of a child therapy session where they have the child express themselves through dolls...

Towards the end of their journey, Jahari is starting to feel more at home (she's still wearing lipstick and dangly earrings, by the way). She's very excited over seeing little seedlings sprout, the fruits of her labor. Vito finally gets his meat from a local meat seller and cooks it happily. He then plops down a big plate in front of everyone during a meal and eats it. Jahari finds this rude and there's a definite sense of awkwardness at the table.

But in the end, the friends say that they learned a lot. They do another 'ecological footprint' and they find that if everyone lived like they just did in the past thirty days, it'd take 1.3 planets to supply them, a big change from their earlier 12.5. Content with their experience, they tell their new friends that back home, they will try to be more enviro-friendly with new lightbulbs like the ones in the grain bin, more public transportation and walking, and looking into buying a lot more locally grown foods. Before leaving, they throw a big party for all the Dancing Rabbit folks. The puppets come along.

I doubt they have changed their ways much now that they're back home. But that's just me... What do you think? Is thirty days enough to change someone's wasteful habits? Next week's episode is about a binge-drinking mom. Hm.