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| Down Under |
| Cremation Contributes to Global Warming: Australian Expert |
| 2007-04-19 |
| An Australian scientist called Wednesday for an end to the age-old tradition of cremation, saying the practice contributed to global warming. Professor Roger Short said people could instead choose to help the environment after death by being buried in a cardboard box under a tree. Where's my bat... The decomposing bodies would provide the tree with nutrients, and the tree would convert carbon dioxide into life-giving oxygen for decades, he said. "The important thing is, what a shame to be cremated when you go up in a big bubble of carbon dioxide," Short told AFP. "Why waste all that carbon dioxide on your death?" I'll forgo the obvious comment, here... Short said the cremation of the average male in Australia, during which the body is heated to 850 degrees Celsius (1,562 degrees Fahrenheit) for 90 minutes, produced more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of carbon dioxide. And that doesn't include the carbon cost of fuel, or the cost of the emissions released during the production and burning of the wooden casket. Short, a reproductive biologist at the University of Melbourne, said the contribution of cremation to harmful greenhouse gases was small, and he did not wish to prevent people from choosing how their body was disposed of according to their religion. But to bury the hatchet with environmentalists, he suggested it would not be a bad idea to bequeath one's body as food for a forest. "You can actually do, after your death, an enormous amount of good for the planet," he said. "The more forests you plant, the better." Unbelievable... |
| Posted by:Dave D. |
| #16 What do I care? I'll be friggin dead. Screw all you living, breathing bastards! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-04-19 21:13 |
| #15 While Professor Short does have a point, I could probably pull a more important theory out of my own ash. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-04-19 20:47 |
| #14 Surely you mean #11, Barbara dear. Otherwise you're being frighteningly self-referential. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-04-19 16:47 |
| #13 Sorry, #12 - didn't see yours before I commented. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-04-19 15:35 |
| #12 #2 'moose: " I wonder if any study has been done on the best combination of insects to decompose a recently deceased human body." Sure - there's at least one "body farm" in Tennessee, and probably more. (Forensic studies) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-04-19 15:33 |
| #11 I think my Grandmother was n to something many years ago when she told Mom and Dad to just toss her body in the swamp behind our house. She wanted to save $$, but we didn't do it; i think it had to do with the prevailing winds and our open windows. or something. On a somewhat serious note, i believe it is the University of Tennesee (one of those southern states)that has a forensic curriculum that has an extensive outdoor labratory of corpses in various stages of decomposition. they stuff the stiffs inside old cars and under cardboard and leave out in the open and the student plot the process. one of their biggest problems early on was figuring out how to keep the wild boars away from the lab projects. took rebar and heavy fencing to create an open air tent for the dearly departed. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-04-19 15:05 |
| #10 Thou shalt have no other gods but the environment, huh? |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2007-04-19 12:26 |
| #9 If cremation is a problem, so is spontaneous human combustion. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-04-19 11:57 |
| #8 Come to think of it, so does your breathing, Dr. You CO2 and water vapor pollutant. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-04-19 10:01 |
| #7 Green burial is a growing movement. I was gong to be cremated, but I find green burial preferable because it will probably be cheaper and will certainly be less wasteful. The world does not seem to be much the worse off because most animal life is left to decompose naturally. I doubt my mouldering naturally will hurt the world either. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-04-19 09:34 |
| #6 No, Raj. You have to stop farting, since farts contain methane, which is a worse global warming gas than CO2. In fact, it is almost as bad as dihydrogen monoxide vapor. (For the chemically challenged, dihydrogen monoxide is water.) |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-04-19 09:27 |
| #5 Does this mean I have to stop lighting my farts? |
| Posted by: Raj 2007-04-19 08:53 |
| #4 I imagine the forensic pathologists already know from empirical evidence, Anonymoose. There was a special on such things, I think on PBS, recently. Lots of time lapse photography of Nature disposing of corpses at crime scenes. It was called something like "Animal Crime Witnesses." I was really interested in the concept, until they showed the lockstep sequential activity of the different species of maggots, by which the pathologists can establish the date of death. Ugh! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-04-19 08:29 |
| #3 -moose, don't give them any ideas how to waste more money for another useless "study"! |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-04-19 00:44 |
| #2 I wonder if any study has been done on the best combination of insects to decompose a recently deceased human body. Most likely it would involve fly maggots plus a combination of different beetles to "lick the platter clean", leaving only clean bones. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-04-19 00:37 |
| #1 "You can actually do, after your death, an enormous amount of good for the planet," he said. "The more forests you plant, the better." I hate to bring it to him, but the state after death is hardly conductive to planting forests. He may have watched one zombie movie too many. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-04-19 00:14 |