Climate change activists claim that global warming is already resulting in lots of deaths (although the number they claim varies widely) and will cause more in the future – to the point of extinction in the next decade (at least according to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and that overexposed precocious brat, Greta Thunberg).
We do not hear much from climate activists about the effects of … dying. We humans – and the rest of the earth’s fauna — tend to pass gas as we pass on. Quite a bit of it, as it turns out. And especially we humans because of our funereal rituals.
The major problem is the typical American funeral. It has a very large carbon footprint. You have the machinery to dig those graves … the caravan of cars … the production of headstones … etc. But the real polluter is preserving the body, itself.
To preserve the remains for posterity, there is the construction of those fancy casket and cement vaults– but why? I am okay with creating monuments for prominent folks as a symbol of their accomplishments and as an inspiration to future generations.
I can understand preserving and creating a mortuary monument for a guy like President Lincoln – who incidentally was one of the earliest corpuses to be embalmed in America. It was necessitated by his body being on display for 14 days as it traveled the country before being laid to rest in Springfield, Illinois. It could be argued that Lincoln launched the current craze of preserving the body in America – although the Egyptians were famous for the mummification method of preservation several millennia prior.
But do we really need to preserve the local hairdresser or auto mechanic – or even folks who write commentaries – for far beyond the time there are any family members left to visit the gravesites?
If there is anything natural about nature, is that human remains should be recycled. The nutrients in our bodies is a feast for supply-chain fauna and flora that we humans will later consume in the form of a Big Mac or a slice of watermelon.
There has always been a segment of the populace to advocate for “natural burial” – no casket, no sarcophagus, not even a linen cloth. Bury the bodies au natural has many benefits — and there is more than one way to do that.
Discovery magazine covered several of them – many of which I would not recommend. In Africa and outside of Katmandu in Nepal, there are cultures that believe in consuming the flesh ritualistically. Yes, cannibalism.
Air burials are the custom of such places as the Tibetan regions of China. The corpses are disrobed and placed on the ground to be consumed by vultures, wild dogs and any other creature looking for a meal.
In India, the bereaved watch their beloved being consumed by fire – whereupon the ashes and skeletal remains are dumped into the river. Other cultures simply throw the body in certain areas of a river. It is said that they do not eat the fish from the river. Good thinking.
Just so you do not think that our modern burial customs are the only threat to the future of the planet. Burning bodies – ashes to ashes, as the religious ritual tells us – is not a good way to replenish the earth. Actually, we did not start life from ashes … or dust for that matter. Cremation destroys much of the body’s nutrient value – and then there is all that smoke, hot air and Carbon emission. In America, it is even worse. We use lots of fossil fuel to bring the nutrient-rich human body to biblical ashes.
Space technology has given us another way to preserve the body while providing no particular benefit to humanity. The proposed idea is to launch the bodies into outer space. Imagine the carbon footprint on that option.
Fortunately, the natural cycle has been given a boost from technology and innovation. Discover also reported on efforts to turn the human body into compost. Yep! Fertilizer. That is actually what the dead body is supposed to be in nature … fertilizer. It is just that we humans have sidetracked the process with arrogant beliefs in a sort of memorialized immortality.
Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, of Washington State University, has proven the benefits of composting cow bodies to return much-needed nutrients to farm soil. Picking up on the idea, Katrina Spade’s company, Recompose, has designed honeycomb-style pods (pictured above)v in which human remains are decomposing in a dignified park-like setting.
The human body is a motherlode of essential nutrients. In addition to carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, we are depositories of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and calcium – all essential building blocks for life. Instead of making them the inheritance for future generations, we lock them up forever in a vault.
This would be one climate change crusade I could get into. I have been a critic of our ceremonial burial customs since I was a teenager. It was when a family member had passed, and the local mortician offered a splendiferous metal casket in which the dearly departed would be enclosed in a waterproof, bug-proof cement sarcophagus. He proudly guaranteed that the body would be “preserved” for more than 100 years.
Having been to scores of funerals in my life, I never attended one that made sense or seemed necessary. And I am a person who puts beliefs into practice. When I cross the bridge to the great perhaps, there will be no funeral — no gathering of mourners. The book of those who loved me or hated me is closed. No amount of prayer can influence God’s judgment – if there be such a judgmental God. Consequently, my body will be picked up by a service that may get me into medical school – after which my remains will be returned to the earth. I suppose I could wind up in one of those places where they allow bodies to naturally decompose for research purposes.
And what about that climate change issue. A typical American burial can result in a 350 kg of CO2 footprint. A compost burial is a negative 864 kg CO2. Take that 486 kg difference and multiply it by all the folks on earth. The potential is phenomenal.
If people really want immortality, this is the way to go. My nutrients may one day be living in another human being. And just think of all the flowers that will not have to be picked in the prime of their lives. Maybe one of them will be me.
Next time all the smarty-pants climate-change enthusiasts gather, I hope they will put this on the agenda.
So, there ‘tis.