Welcome to procrastination station, where this blog post is two months in the making. On January 30th we were asked to think about the culturally varying methods of body disposal. In a funerary sense, NOT in a serial killer sense - so don't get too excited you creeps. This isn't Criminal Minds.
My experience with this in my own culture is mostly limited to what I've seen on television and what I've heard from others. My only experience with funerals are when I attended the services for my grandma Williams, my grandpa Meek, and a memorial service for my friend's father, who passed tragically. After that service (the most recent that I've been to), I am thankful that the only dead relatives I have are the ones that got to live full lives. My friend's dad's funeral was much harder to listen to, much more somber, and generally heart wrenching. In comparison, what I remember of my grandparent's services were of positive memories, acceptance, and love.
Even though I was young when my grandma passed (1997 - I was 10), I remember pretty distinctly both services held for her. My grandma was pretty religious and the services represented that. The service held in Calgary on what would have been her birthday included an open casket viewing of her body. I feel so strange about this. I remember the fact, but have no vivid image of it in my mind. I've either blocked it out, or I never looked in the first place. She was cremated prior to a second service held in Prince Albert. My grandfather passed when I was in my second year of University. His service, though also religious, seemed less somber. Maybe it was my age? Maybe it was sunnier outside that day? Anyways, he was also cremated.
I've come to realize that where I'm from, not only are burial or cremation generally the only accepted methods of burial, they seem to be the only methods known at all. Until recently I was under the same impression. Curiosity, wisdom and concept sharing, and a higher education have opened me up to the wide range of body disposal methods that are accepted across the globe. This class in particular has motivated me to research the minority of ways that our culture has access to (legally).
We did a couple assignments earlier in the semester using cemetery data. My conclusions based on these assignments are that burial is expensive, wasteful, environmentally unfriendly, and just plain strange. The costs spent on preparing and transporting a body, the casket, the headstone, and the actual process are unbelievable. I would much rather spend that money on something to be enjoyed in life! Be it by me, or by my loved ones. And in considering the sheer number of dead people piling up, the space needed for the burial of some elaborate casket is selfish. There are more dead people than living people on this earth, and that ratio is ever-increasing. The space that could hold the remains of the dead should rather be enjoyed by the living.
Okay, so cremation > burial then, right? I thought that too, at first. I had never considered how much damage turning a body to ash would cause the environment. This source states that cremation releases 6.8 million metric tons of CO2 each year in addition to mercury pollution from vaporisation of dental fillings. It has a huge initial energy cost to reach and maintain high temperatures during the process. It seems that in my mind, the only real benefit of cremation is that it reduces the space taken up by an entire body. So what are the alternatives?
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2022206,00.html (Aquamation)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/green-funerals-options_n_1880096.html (Green funerals)
http://earthsky.org/human-world/how-to-dispose-of-a-dead-body-legally
http://www.mylastsong.com/advice/439/148/107/funerals/funeral-planning/funeral-ashes-options
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/28/body.after.you.die/index.html (Donation)
http://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee.html
body worlds?
donation to science?
diamond rings?
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