Categories
Population

Green Burial-7-2011

“…for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Genesis 3:19

This has been a sad spring for me, first with the death of a friend, then of my only sibling, my sister Clara. Both these people chose cremation for disposal of their remains. I want to explore the way I hope to be buried; it is an alternative to either cremation or traditional interment.

Different societies have various ways to honor their dead. The Egyptians perfected a method of preserving a person’s body that was effective—but could only work in an arid climate. Egyptian mummification was incredibly intricate so only pharaohs were preserved in perpetuity. In the days of epidemics it was important for an infected body to be rendered harmless after death. Cremation and burial have been the mainstays in the western world.

Most bodies now are preserved with formaldehyde, which slows deterioration and also kills any possible contagious organism. This allows a funeral to be held safely several days after death. A disadvantage of traditional burial, however, is that it uses a lot of resources and space in a burial ground. Many cemeteries have two layers of burials to make sufficient room. Funeral homes tend to push expensive interments; the average cost in the USA is $9000. Fortunately funerals here in La Plata County tend to be less expensive.

Burial cost typically includes a casket and a burial vault. The former is usually wood and is decorative. The latter is concrete or metal and is designed to last forever—to protect the casket and body from deterioration.

With modern burial techniques, when we “return to dust”, our remains are isolated from the surrounding earth. This is probably wise, since the formaldehyde and other chemicals in embalming fluid are very toxic.

Direct cremation is a simpler process. The body is not preserved, but goes into the cremating oven shortly after death. Fire reduces the body to ashes and destroys any infectious agent.

Cremation is less expensive than burial. Another advantage is that the ashes can be buried in a small urn or safely spread over land or sea. Disadvantages include the amount of energy needed for the process, and the amount of greenhouse gas generated. Furthermore, mercury is released into the air if the deceased has silver amalgam dental fillings.

There are environmental disadvantages to both traditional burial and cremation. The former uses toxic chemicals, wood and metal, and takes up precious land area. Cremation requires valuable energy and spreads mercury and other pollutants. Both are expensive.

There is an appealing alternative. “Green burial” is uncommon but worth considering. It is less expensive and much better environmentally than either traditional burial or cremation.

Green burials use no embalming fluid. The body is placed in an eco-friendly coffin or wrapped in a burial shroud, and there is no burial vault. Coffins are made out of simple wood, woven basket material or even cardboard. The body and its coffin follow the Biblical injunction above and biodegrade, returning nutrition to the soil.

Many green burials bypass the funeral industry with its professional mourners. The viewing and service are done at home. The body can be safely preserved with dry ice until buried, but no refrigeration is necessary if the body can be placed in the ground within 24 hours of death.

Recently I spoke with Ryan Phelps, owner of the local Hood Mortuary. I was impressed by his knowledge and flexibility. Ryan told me that it is not necessary for a body to be buried in a cemetery. There are rules, however, about burial on private land, including subdivision regulations. In Colorado a form must be filed with the County Clerk and Recorder with the GPS coordinates of the grave.

Ryan also told me about another type of burial he has facilitated. A “frontier burial” is what cowboys have done for years. The person is put into the ground shortly after death, close to the place of death. His body is wrapped in a shroud or in placed a simple wood coffin. Of course, there is a lot of paperwork that must be done properly—and Hood is willing to help with that.

The human impact on Earth is huge. We can reduce it, however, in some important ways. One of them is to consider what happens to our bodies after death. Instead of being a detriment to the environment after we die, with a green burial we can give back what has nourished us during life.

© Richard Grossman MD, 2011

Categories
Population

Remember Red (and why population matters to me)-6-2011

“Speak Truth to Power”

Saying of the Religious Society of Friends

 

Leonard “Red” Bird was one of the first people we met after moving to Durango in 1976; he sold us an old Scout. Earlier this month our community said good-bye to him in a stirring memorial service.

For years I held Red up as a role model. He got a rough start in life, but became one of Fort Lewis College’s most revered professors. After auditing his class on Shakespeare, a doctor friend said that Red was the best professor he had ever had.

On a clear Saturday morning a couple hundred people gathered at the College’s amphitheater for a beautifully orchestrated series of remembrances of Red’s life. My cool concrete bench was never uncomfortable as each speaker illustrated new facets of Red’s complex life. Fortunately there was much laughter to help dry our inevitable tears.

Here are some highlights. Red and his half-sister, Jan Marini, grew up in a single bedroom house in southern California. The boys slept on cots in a garage with a dirt floor next to the house. Red’s father disappeared when he was young. The day before Red’s uncle left for the military, he took Red aside and told him that now he was the man of the family; Red was only eight years old.

Describing their reasons for joining the Marines, he wrote about his tent mate Washington (a black man from Alabama) and himself. “Eighteen-year-old high school dropouts who had been in trouble with the police, Washington and I had not joined the Marines in quest of world peace; neither of us had ever given the subject a moment’s thought. Our motives were other. I had joined because I had been expelled from the eleventh grade less than halfway through the year; … because I was lost and didn’t know what to do….”

Red found himself along with other Marines in the Nevada desert before daybreak too close to a nuclear test explosion. His haunting description of a mourning dove caught by the blast was read from Red’s 2005 book “Folding Paper Cranes: an atomic memoir”. “…the torn dove flops and twitches. We smell the stink of charred flesh. Melted eyes ooze gray pus, and from the throat of this scorched, twitching dove bubbles nothing but a faint ‘sqwick sqwick sqwick’.”

That detonation made Red sterile. That was not the worst of what he would suffer from that brief atomic experience, however. In his sixties he contracted a deadly form of cancer, multiple myeloma, likely due to radiation exposure.

Red’s life took an abrupt change when he shared a tent in Japan. His tent mate suggested that he should finish high school with a GED, and then inspired him to start taking college classes. He earned his doctorate on the GI Bill.

“Folding Paper Cranes” also describes the devastation we caused in Hiroshima. I had not thought of him in this way, but someone at the memorial service described Red as a peace activist. What a change—from Marine to pacifist!

Dr. Bird was an independent thinker and activist. He looked at our society, detected inconsistencies with his beliefs, and spoke up. In order for his voice to be heard, Red made a major sacrifice. He decided to have painful and risky treatment of his cancer in order to warn us about the destructive power of the atom. More than any other reason, he wanted to finish writing “Folding Paper Cranes”.

Sometimes we need reminders of who we are, what we believe and why we do what we do. Red’s memorial service served that purpose for me. Listening to a summary of his life, accompanied by gentle flute music and followed by a beautiful dance performance, I remembered how my interest in human population started.

Fifty years ago, as a senior in high school, I vowed to dedicate my life working for peace. The obvious path was as a politician, but I realized that I lack political aptitude. Science was more to my liking, and Albert Schweitzer one of my heroes. Knowing that high population density can lead to war, I headed toward medicine to work on family planning.

Red probably didn’t plan on being a college professor when he was in high school. His sister told us that, at one time, his goal was to be a second-hand car salesman. I am glad that our first encounter helped him realize this goal—and started a friendship of more than three decades.

© Richard Grossman MD, 2011