There’s a low-energy alternative to cremation

The choices you make in life affect the environment. And so do the choices you make about death. For example, a traditional burial involves embalming chemicals that can seep into the ground. And cremation requires a lot of energy. So some people are now turning to a process that’s been called “flameless cremation.”

The alternative to traditional burial and cremation.

Cattoni: “The process is very similar to what the body intended us to do originally when we pass away, and that’s just to break itself down.”

Ryan Cattoni of Aquagreen Dispositions in Illinois says a warm alkaline solution is used to break down the remains.

Read the story by Eileen Mignoni from Yale Climate Connections - “There’s a low-energy alternative to cremation.”

Corpses: compost or carbon capture and storage?

Compost or carbon capture and storage?

Frequently we hear of “carbon capture and storage (CCS)” and it rolls off the tongues of many so easily that surely it is a proven and workable technology. It’s not!

The idea makes sense, but how we do it effectively and economically is as yet not known.

However, the fact the each of us is a walking, talking example of CCS and rather than “wasting” our corpses burying them strategically in cemeteries, maybe we should be doing as Katrina Spade suggests and turning them into compost.

Having been to a few traditional funerals of late, but using a friend or a family member’s body as compost doesn’t have the same romantic ring about it, but it is decidedly more practical.

Pragmatism and utilitarianism, opposed to romanticism, will need to prevail if we are to have any chance of slowing climate change, its impacts, and implications and so using our corpse as compost will be one of those pragmatic and utilitarian decisions we must make.

Cremation is popular with a relative handful of people, but that, when considering all the facts, could be ann individual’s greatest ever contribution to the world’s carbon dioxide excess troubles.

Katrina Spade wants us to make a useful contribution for those who follow when we take our leave, die that is.

“You get the sense that our useful life doesn't end when we fall,” Maureen O’Hara writes in concluding her story.

Read Maureen O'Hagan’s story in the Yes! Magazine  - “Compost Your Corpse? This Woman Wants toMake It Legal.”