An Australian scientist has questioned the age-old tradition of cremation by highlighting that it adds to global warming. He said that people could instead choose to get buried in a cardboard box under a tree.
Professor Roger Short, a reproductive biologist at the University of Melbourne, said that the high temperatures needed to incinerate a body necessitate high emissions. Short added that the contribution of cremation to emissions, though small, needs to be debated upon.
Short said that the cremation of an average male in Australia produced more than 50 kilograms of carbon dioxide. And that doesn’t include the cost of emissions released during the production and burning of the wooden casket.
He said a green alternative was available and people could choose to be buried in a cardboard box, standing up, under a tree of their choice. The decomposing body would provide a tree with nutrients and the tree, in turn, would convert carbon dioxide into ‘life-giving oxygen’ for decades.
However, he emphasized that he respected people’s religious views and their right to choose the manner in which their bodies were disposed of after death.
Here are some excerpts from Short’s thought provoking speech – delivered at an international conference for science journalists in Melbourne:
What a shame to be cremated when you go up in a big bubble of carbon dioxide. Why waste all that carbon dioxide on your death?
Photosynthesis in trees is the single most efficient way of sequestering carbon dioxide – not only that, but they do what no other method of carbon minimization can do, and that is to produce oxygen.
You can actually do, after your death, an enormous amount of good for the planet. The more forests you plant, the better.
Source: rawstory
