Yes, this is real. It is a Brazilian public service announcement. You can see their campaign website here.

Orwell – I gave up on my son – he pees everytime he gets in the shower and thinks it is funny. Truly we are nearing the end of the world when even the elect are deceived

This ad is a load of crap. First of all, “up to 12 litres per flush” is deceptive. Even when toilets weren’t restricted as they have been for the last 17 years, very few of them actually used 12 litres.

Second, in the US, the toilets have flushed a max of 6 litres since 1992. Shower heads flow at between 2.2 and 2.5 gallons per minute. Chances are that if you’re peeing in the shower, you’re not washing your hair at the same time, meaning that it’s likely that unless you’re going to go pee in less than 43 seconds, you’re wasting water by stopping to pee while the shower water is running.

I don’t have a serious problem with peeing in the shower — I have it on Madonna’s authority that urine kills fungus that can infect the feet (she said so on David Letterman, so it has to be true). But I can’t stand this environmental ethic that wants to use sheer propaganda to shape people’s behavior in order to convert them to environmental whackyness — like when kids were told to collect gum wrappers for their metal foil to support WWII.

That is classic.

DKL,

Clearly you’ve never enjoyed the miserable flow rate of a typical Brazilian shower. Of course if there were any more water flowing through the shower head the even more miserable built in electric heater (!!!!!) could never keep up.

My concern is actually centered around the water heater. If you were to somehow pee on a shower handle you could shock yourself via… well you get the picture/micture. As it was you had to e very careful about what order you touched things in.

BrianJ, I think you’re right. The problem isn’t translation, though, it’s the low-quality audio — the “s” in “metade monstro” doesn’t come through (or maybe that kid just can’t say his esses). Anyway, I had heard “metade de um outro” when I first watched it instead of “metade monstro” (mumble “metade monstro” to yourself without the “s” and you’ll see what I mean). Thanks for catching that. I’m not going to fix it, though, because every time I try to change something in this post, the embedded video disappears.

I am. That’s the only mode allowed right now. The “visual” mode hasn’t been working for a while (at least from my login).

BrianJ, anyone who’s had to wait for someone else to finish peeing knows that it takes a lot more than 9 seconds.

That would have been way funnier if I had translated Brian’s quote into Portuguese. Dang.

BrianJ — dude, it’s cool, seriously… my ego on that subject is way too big to be bruised here; I really appreciate you pointing the monster thing out.

When I read your comment and listened to it again, I was actually really relieved because the unnecessary (but common) use of the indefinite article in the way I heard it first was irritating me (remember the old Portuguese translation of the Book of Mormon?). I remember thinking to myself, “Who’s the joker that wrote that line?” It’s funny you thought the “monster” version made more sense, though, because when I heard “half one man, half another” I thought, well, that’s what Frankenstein’s monster is, a guy cobbled together from others, so since it seemed to make sense I didn’t go back and double check.

In defense of Brazilian electric showers… when they work, they work really well — and more of them work than missionaries sometimes think because missionaries often live in crap places with prehistoric shower heads that the mission is too cheap to replace. I’ve never had a shower head spark or blow up on me personally (though it’s happened to people I know). Besides, I love not having to wait for the water to warm up. But I digress…

Edje, as far as potable water is concerned — I wouldn’t have described the water used in the shower, in most areas, anyway, as “drinkable.” But if you’re dying of thirst, it’s not the worst water you could find, that’s for sure.

Where have you seen problems with people dying for lack of clean water? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen; it’s just not something I’ve observed as a major problem in any of the areas I’ve lived. For example, even the famous favelas of Rio, for the most part, have accessible plumbing.

This campaign, though, is purely environmental. You can see it in the name of the organization: Fundação SOS Mata Atântica — the Amazon Forest SOS Foudation. According to (pt.)Wikipedia, their mission is “defender o que resta da Mata Amazônica” — defending what’s left of the Amazon Forest.

Ben Pratt, I can’t figure out why you’re going to be sorry in the morning if you didn’t go in the shower… or is it because you’re letting it mellow.

Neener neener Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica.

The one and only true and living response to this video on the face of the earth.

If you really want to go all out with this time thing, it would be best to record the amount of time it takes you to urinate first thing in the morning (when most people’s bladders are at their fullest) for a week and then post the average.