WEBVTT - The Future of Burial 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:15.079 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcomed up Forward Thinking the 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.640 podcast and looks at the future. It says, I'm all 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.000 dressed up with nowhere to go. I'm Jonathan Stricker, I'm 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:25.239 La and I'm Joe McCormick. And today, Yeah, we're gonna 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.320 talk about something cheerful, right Lauren, Nope, Nope, We're We're 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.360 going to talk about the future of burial. Yeah. This 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.000 was actually when I when we started talking earlier this 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.279 week about what podcast sort of topics do we want 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.680 to look at? Um, this was one I sent around 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.600 Buried if you will, in a list of several, and I, 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:49.800 being the goth kid at heart that I am, was like, oh, hey, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.400 let's do this. Let's let's do the one talking about death. 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.040 Part of this is because I've kind of had it 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.320 on the brain more than usual lately, because I got 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.760 to be on a on a pan with Julie Douglas 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.479 for her new show Stuff of Life, in which we 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.959 were talking about how how people process death in our 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.920 culture and and it was a really interesting discussion. Um uh, 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.759 Julian I got to go interview a professor who studies 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.000 death culture and and that was a really fascinating thing. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.200 The one of those episodes is up and other should 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.240 be up soon. Let's let's mention it now while we're 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:24.840 talking about other shows. Joe, you guys over and Stuff 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.759 to Blow your Mind. Recently did an upset about burial correct? 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.920 Not well, depends on what you mean by recently. Robert 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.880 Lamb and I on the other podcast I do. We 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.560 did the Stuff to Flow Your Mind episode called Human Remains, Past, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.600 Present in Future in September. Wait September, No, it wasn't September. 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:47.280 It was October. It was October, sort of kind of 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.400 getting into the spirit of Halloween. I am right, Yeah, 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.720 it fit our October theme all all all months we 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.960 do creepy stuff. That's fair so as opposed to other 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.080 times when nothing you say is creepy. All okay, since 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.400 we're talking about other shows, I'll alway mentioned this. Uh, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:03.040 not that you could listen to it or see it, 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:07.320 although there's a documentary where I briefly appear in in it. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.000 Where I was doing this, I did a a two 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.720 man show. I wrote and acted in a two man 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:17.960 show about the history of burial practices and funeral practices, 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:23.560 and we performed it at uh at a cemetery, historic 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.840 cemetery here in Atlanta, historic Oakland Cemetery where Margaret Mitchell 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:33.320 is buried. Yes, and uh, two different people acted in that, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:38.680 um besides myself, Bernie Clark and Nick Takowski, who are 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.760 both local artists madmen types here in Atlanta, and I 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.679 think they would appreciate those labels. But so we did 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.079 this this sort of comedic uh grave diggers from Hamlet 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:57.320 type presentation. So I've been fascinated by this for quite 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.040 some time, not just the future of rural practices, but 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.760 the present state and how we got to that. Now, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.919 we're not gonna go too far looking into the past. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.320 We're really going to talk about what goes on today 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.320 and how that might change over time and why it 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.080 might change. Yeah, and so okay, so we're gonna we're 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.239 gonna be talking about some some very serious kind of topics. 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.920 But but we're all going to die, you guys. And 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:23.239 and this is the thing that we all have to 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:27.320 deal with. Well, Kurts is not okay, well fair to everyone, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.799 but Kurtswile is going to die. So yeah, so so 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.960 so let's so let's get into it today. UH. And 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.200 apparently in countries other than the United States, embalming is 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.840 not very it's not a very common practice at all, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.680 but here it's it's quite common. Yeah. Yeah, I think 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:47.040 a lot of like the average American might assume that embalming, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.160 the way we typically very dead in funeral homes in 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.120 the United States is just how it's always been done. 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.280 It's not the case. It's not the case here, and 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:57.840 it's not the case in other parts of the world. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.480 We're largely going to be talking about the way it's 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.640 done here in the United States because that's where we live, 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.120 and also to cover all the different variations all over 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.960 the world, that would be a series unto itself, certainly. UM. 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.720 But embalming is not mandated in the United States except 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:19.400 in certain states under certain conditions. UH. A few will 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.800 require embalming if a body needs to be transported across 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.040 state lines, for example. But that's not all the states, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.960 it's just a few. But it still has become kind 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.599 of the standard practice, UH, for multiple reasons. UM. There 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.440 are some religions that forbid embalming. It is against their 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.359 religion to to treat the body in that way. Orthodox 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.440 Jews and Muslims both hold those beliefs. Uh. There are 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.880 others as well that other faiths that require the body 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.880 to be cremated rather than buried, so it's not common 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:53.640 all the way across the board. You might often find 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.440 cremation in Hinduism exactly as that is one of them. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.480 So embalming in the United States didn't even become that 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.839 standard practice until the Civil War, which makes sense. The 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.960 Civil War you had thousands of soldiers dying and so 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.719 they would be embalmed before the bodies would be shipped 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.880 back to their hometowns. From that point forward, embalming became 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.039 more of a standard process in funerals in the United States. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.159 It's really all about preservation. Yeah, in a weird way, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.640 I would almost say that embalming is a physical It's 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.720 like the science of the denial of death, a technological 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.600 realization of pushing death out of our out of our 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.840 view by making it look for as long as possible, 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.640 like you, you're really pretty much still alive. Yeah, it's 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.560 it's mainly to stave off the decomposition process as long 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.640 as possible. And I agree with you, Joe, that that 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.640 is largely I think due to our our our philosophy, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:02.480 our feelings about death, and they're pretty complicated. But ultimately, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.720 I think a lot of people like the idea of 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:14.039 of this this preservation so that you can almost compartmentalize 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.520 it in your mind and and it it doesn't have 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.080 as strong an effect emotionally on you in that way. 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:21.440 Julie and I got to talk to to to live 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.719 stuts doctor Lives stuts Is is the professor's name, a 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.560 little bit about this very subject, and she she put 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:32.320 forth a theory that has been discussed in the industries 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:37.480 some that that death practices, like death rituals for the living, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.760 are a sort of way of of dealing with an 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.680 in between state of the body of the deceased. Uh, 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.359 it's sort of sort of like a transitional state, a 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.680 sort of coming of age ceremony almost like a like 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.560 a like like an end of age ceremony, sort of 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.440 like like prom but for you know, dead bodies. And 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:02.400 which makes sense considering the SONGNI this very much like 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.520 a problem for it for dead people are right and 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.120 so um and so yeah. So it's it's letting the 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:12.160 living take the deceased through this this in between stage 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:16.680 into the finality. Of being buried, right, but so when 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.280 so there are psychological reasons we do this, but doing 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.000 it doesn't come without cost. Oh yeah, yeah, that the 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:29.120 practical application is pretty morbid. Yeah, and uh yeah, there's 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:34.640 their costs, both psychologically, financially and environmentally as it turns out. So, 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:36.320 and that's sort of what we're going to focus on 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.840 today is some of these alternative methods of dealing with 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.160 bodies after we have died in ways that might be 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.840 less costly and less environmentally destructive. In some cases they 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.200 might be more so, but there are super cool we'll 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.400 get into that. So if you're talking about the traditional 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.920 involving process, the way it works is the body is 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.560 is stripped of cloe oaths, it's washed h then you 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.440 use a tube with a needle. You inject the needle 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.640 into an artery, and you the tube is connected to 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:12.400 an embalming machine which pumps embalming fluid into the body. UM. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.600 That fluid is specifically designed to prevent bacteria from growing 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.920 uh and other organisms as well, thus leading to the decomposition. 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.800 So it's to preserve the body, usually long enough so 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.600 that you can have your memorial service and your funeral service. 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.480 UM and we're talking about a pretty significant amount of 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.520 this stuff per body, and then you think about how 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.600 many people die every year, it really starts to add up. 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.600 So you use about a gallon of this embalming fluid 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.040 for every fifty pounds of the persons, or three leaders 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.319 per every twenty three or so. That's right. So it's 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.040 a fairly significant amount of this stuff and embalming fluid. 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.840 Typically it's not bio friendly, not in the US. In 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.520 the US, it typically contains formaldehyde as one of the 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:03.920 ingredients and that's a our synogen. So you there are 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:05.880 a lot of people who are concerned about this carcinogen 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.880 finding its way into the water table, you know, eventually uh, 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.240 moving from the body into the soil and then getting 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:19.000 absorbed into that particular call it ecosystem and UH it's 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.120 it's such a big concern in some places that they 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.480 have moved the places that still practice embalming, they have 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.160 moved from that to other types of chemicals. In the UK, 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.280 UH there was actually a call for a band of 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.520 for malde hyde back in and the industry started moving 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:41.520 towards using UH gluterol hide gluderol to hide a boy. 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.480 I don't know if I'll ever say that the way 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.800 it's supposed to be said. But it's glutterol to hide 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.360 based fluids which are less toxic than for malde hyde. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.199 So that's the sounds like. You don't talk about gluterald 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.160 to hide all that much. Not so often, really, I don't. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.840 It doesn't come up. And most of my conversations, Yeah, 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.120 I hang out with the different crowd these days, we 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:07.640 mostly talk about pokemons pokemon. Yeah, we don't know what 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.360 they are. We just talk about them and how you've 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:12.360 got to grab them all we know, we know there's 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.760 some grabbing of pokemons. That's about it. To make a 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.120 little transition, you know what you do with pokemons as 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.680 you put them inside a container like almost like a coffin, 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.400 exceptance of ball. Yeah, we're gonna talk about coffins now. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.880 So also sometimes in the US called caskets, although that 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.839 term is not frequently used in places like the UK 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.920 or Australia, not for a coffin anyway. A casket may 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.480 just be a container for jewelry, but in the US 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.400 coffin and casket tends to be used pretty much interchangeably. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.280 So these days they the standard coffins that you would 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.280 find are really meant as a barrier between the body 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.240 and the elements. They're not impermeable. Normally, they're made out 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.320 of things like wood or metal, and they're lined with 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.079 some sort of plush material. But there are some coffins 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.280 that come with a rubber seal to make them as 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.920 close to impermeable as possible, the idea being that this way. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.880 Really don't want this, yeah, yeah, but the idea being 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.520 that it's supposed to prevent water from coming in, because, 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.720 as the grave digger from Hamlet will tell you, water 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:15.440 will ruin a body. Um, it's actually in the speech. Well, yeah, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.240 it's it's preventing preventing water from getting in and preventing 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.280 the materials that make up the coffin and the contents 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.800 of the coffin from getting out. Yes, so that's really 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.360 what the purpose is. But you don't want to truly 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:33.520 impermeable coffin because as a body decomposes, it produces methane gas. 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:35.920 If you have a container that has no way to 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.880 vent the gas, that pressure builds and builds and builds 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:44.240 until yes, coffins can and sometimes do explode. We mentioned 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.400 this in our stuff to blow your mind episode exploding coffins. Yeah, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.040 it's happened both in coffins that are buried under the 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.000 ground and coffin stored in mausoleums. Did you talk about 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.520 any mausoleums with explosions, because there's been a few cases 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:02.920 where mausoleums have been severely damaged through exploding coffins. Uh. So, 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.920 there are some coffins that are designed to vent this gas. Occasionally, 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.960 they're called burping coffins. They could have called it something else. 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.640 They could They could have called it farting coffins. That 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.200 would have been worse. So I don't know. For some reason, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.880 I'm less grossed up by farting coffins. I mean, that's 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.280 a generational thing, I think at this point. Okay, that's 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.119 that's fair enough. I I just burping reminds me of tupperware. 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:33.000 I anyway, so you can tell it's still fresh. Um. So, 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.600 the coffin is then placed in what it's called a 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.360 burial vault, which is a sealed chamber mint to protect 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.640 the coffin from the weight of the earth that's above it, 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.640 as well as any machinery that has to pass over it. 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.280 So typically US cemeteries you're using something like a backhoe 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.280 in order to dig the grave site or the internment 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.400 site as they sometimes call it in the funeral business 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.040 um because they don't like to they don't like to 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.600 use words that make people think of death, which is 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.520 one of those weird culture things that I can totally 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.800 understand on one side, and I think it's totally weird 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.839 on the other side. It's also relatively recent. A lot 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.880 of the well, I mean funeral homes didn't even really 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.320 exist until around World War two or so, when it 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.000 became it started becoming so common to have in bombings 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.319 that we needed a whole industry to to offset it, 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.160 because embombing isn't the kind of thing that you that 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:23.959 you can d I Y at home. You know, the 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:32.840 big one in my hometown, Strickland Funeral Home. No no relation. Yeah, 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.880 small town in Georgia, Strickland Funeral Stricklands. Yeah, apparently not 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.560 related to it to my branch. Uh. If they were, 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:42.439 those that would be the family members we would be 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.560 mooching off of, because funeral directors tend to make a 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:49.199 lot of money um at any rate. So we've got 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.160 we've got the burping coffins, we've got the vaults that 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.800 we've talked about. The vaults are typically lined with either 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:59.040 concrete or steel so that they can create the support 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.560 system so that the ground does not cave in while 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.000 machinery is driving across it. If you don't have a vault, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.360 the ground will tend to sink. Yes, sure, sure, so 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:09.320 so this right, this, This protects the coffin, and it 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.360 also protects the environment from the coffin and the contents 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.800 of the coffin, or you might say the appearance of 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.600 the burial grounds. That. Yeah, that's also a case, like 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:20.920 it would be somewhat disturbing to walk up to a 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.200 cemetery and see areas of sunken earth around. I mean, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.360 it might feel a little weird. You might feel like 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.200 you're in a Romero film. Also, grass might stop growing 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.080 there because of toxic compounds and the coffins or the 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.160 embolbing fluid that also could happen stuff like that. So 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.600 there is a growing concern, which is probably pretty clear 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.800 from our conversation so far, that the traditional approach in 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:49.880 the United States to funerals is environmentally harmful through many aspects. 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.840 You've got the formalde hyde, which is a chemical concern Again, 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.560 not everyone gets embalmed before burial, so it's not always 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.200 a factor, but it's common enough where it's it's more 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.880 of the rule and less of the exception. Also, you've 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.160 got the fact that you're using woods, often fairly rare 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.480 woods for a lot of these coffins, and they're beautiful 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.920 and that's the point. But yeah, but it's not necessarily 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.960 sustainable wood that you're that's being used for these coffins. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.120 So there's that environmental factor. And there's also the concern 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.400 about just the fact that cemeteries take up a lot 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.080 of open space, right, So that's space that could be 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.200 used for something else, especially in high concentration areas, like 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.560 I've read about the the problem in New York of well, 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:35.640 where are we going to bury people? We're just we're 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.680 out of places. Same in Tokyo. That's another I mean, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.920 it's a really big problem. Mausoleums are off often a 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.240 solution to that because and I'll talk about them a 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.680 little bit more in just a second. Literally in just 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.600 a second, it's like a it's like a skyscraper for bodies. Yeah, 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.960 and we'll talk about more about that idea in greater 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.680 detail later too. So that that kind of brings us 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.400 to this this concept of entombment as post burial. So 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.720 in tum mont often you have a lot of the 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:08.360 same processes that lead up to the stage of burial, 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.960 except of course it's burying someone in the ground. You're 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:12.600 putting them in a crypt or a tomb or a 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.200 mausoleum above ground. And there are a lot of different 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.280 reasons to do this. One is if you happen to 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.480 live in a place where the soil is not good 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.960 for digging in, whether it's too rocky or it's too sandy, 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.600 it won't support itself, it will collapse in on itself 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.320 too easily, or the water table is too close to 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.720 the surface of the ground where you can't dig down 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.680 very far before you get water. There are a lot 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.400 of mausoleums in New Orleans, yeah, which also and it's 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.400 not just the water table there, it's also the propensity 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.600 for flooding that is a big concern. Yeah. New Orleans 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:48.800 cemeteries are amazing. Uh, that was one of my favorite 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.080 things to do. Oddly, I'm not a Michabra person in general, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.960 but but the cemeteries are gothic and gorgeous and creepy. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.920 And awesome all at the same time. And there's so 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:05.000 amazing stonework in some of these these cemeteries in New Orleans, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.639 and it's all above ground because they couldn't dig down 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.800 to to bury their dead. So and tuman is definitely 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.200 one of those things that is common in certain parts 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.280 of the country and the world. But when we get 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.879 to masoleums, the the interesting thing there is that you 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.480 can be more conservative with your space. That's one of 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.760 the solutions to this problem of having a lot of 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:28.439 open space that you would have to dedicate to a 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:34.000 cemetery um. They can hold lots of unrelated people. It's 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.320 kind of like a cemetery, but in almost like a 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.560 file cabinet kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, and that doesn't 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.439 make them make them any less lovely than cemeteries can be. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.199 I've I've had the opportunity to visit a number of 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.959 really beautiful, uh like large structure mausoleums and yeah, like 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.480 in Florida, mostly where at sea above re groundwater issue, 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.840 ground water table, the whole, the whole way these things 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.439 come about. They're very expend of initially, but but that 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:07.080 expense can easily be distributed amongst the population and then individually. 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.680 The process of having someone interred in a mazoleum can 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:16.879 be much cheaper than traditional burial depending upon the situation UM, 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.560 and they can be very lovely, respectful places. It's not 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.440 like it's, you know, a terrible alternative. UM. It also 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.800 depends upon how you view what should happen to someone 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.879 after they pass away. That also leads us to cremation, 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.879 which is the other major way of of of saying 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.000 goodbye to someone after they've passed on, and is one 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:47.080 that is mandated by certain religions as well. So before cremation, obviously, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.560 what you would want to do is remove anything that 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:55.160 would not incinerate properly. Uh, anything artificial like an artificial 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.879 heart or prosthetic um. Sometimes even things like hip replacements 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.280 things like that can be removed moved so that you 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.479 can then place the body in a flammable coffin and 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.560 put it into the incineration chamber. Very high powered flame 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.160 is used to incinerate the body. Usually takes between two 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.560 to three hours, depending upon the size of the body 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.880 that we're talking about. UM. The ashes you get back 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.280 are really sort of the calcified, crumbled bones that are 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:25.760 left all the other tissues are essentially vaporized in this process. Um, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.080 but fire pretty much breaks down everything I wasn't when 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:30.800 I was reading our We have an article at how 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.160 stuff Works about how cremation works that goes into much 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.880 greater detail about what happens to each type of tissue 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.720 throughout the cremation process. And as I read it, I thought, 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.199 that's not necessary for us to include in this for 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.920 it to be informative. But if you want to learn more, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.639 I highly recommend reading how Cremation Works at how stuff 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:53.280 works dot com because it will it will totally inform you. Yeah. Now, 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.200 you mentioned about the cremains people receive or they're often 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.119 referred to as ashes, but of course they're not the 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:02.760 like we're saying. They're not the ashes of the soft 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.200 tissues of your body there the ground up bones. Yeah, 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:08.359 I think that's a lot of people don't know your 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.040 bones calcify and they essentially just crumble in the process 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.800 of this of this cremation um. And so that's what 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.919 you would receive in the cremins. They must be raked 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.960 out in the end, I believe. So. Uh, it's really, 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.920 by the way tricky to estimate what's the carbon footprint 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.480 of this process. So obviously you're talking about using a 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.040 lot of energy to burn a body. Uh, that's going 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.240 to have some sort of carbon footprint. But a lot 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.080 of different factors will take part here. We're talking about 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.920 again the size of the body. It's a larger body, 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.679 it's gonna take longer, so it's gonna require more energy. 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.639 It's also the time of day. Apparently I didn't know this, 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.560 but apparently the time of day also depends on determines 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:54.200 how big a carbon footprint is generated. Um and whether 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.439 or not. Uh the crematorium is doing this on a 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.480 case by case basis or in batches essentially. Uh So 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.840 a lot of those factors are making impossible for us 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:09.760 to really say what the carbon footprint is except to 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.280 say there is a carbon footprint here. Uh so you 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.520 are you know, is is not a carbon negative or 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:21.000 carbon neutral kind of approach to disposing of a body? 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.120 Well in case you are being environmentally conscious when you're 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.280 trying to do that, yeah, which I mean, you know 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.520 is especially especially in these are modern times, that is 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:34.600 absolutely a concern. Uh And and all of these practices 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.600 do have these environmental impacts and and right you know, 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:40.560 like like a lot of people are living a lot longer, 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:42.560 and that's wonderful. But we but we do have to 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.280 take this kind of stuff into consideration. Yeah, no, it's 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.639 it's and I think on an individual basis, it's a 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.320 lot easier to have this conversation than rather talk about 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:53.800 large groups of people, because then when you talking about 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.040 large groups of people, it sounds like you're mandating something, 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.399 and we certainly, of course never do that. It's so 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.320 deeply per sal Yeah, I mean, the grieving process is 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.080 incredibly personal. But there are some interesting alternatives that have 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.840 emerged over the past few years for people who want 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.920 to look into something else for you know, to happen 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:19.359 to their body after they pass on, so that it 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.919 falls in line with their individual philosophies. And one of 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:27.040 those that's growing in popularity is the natural burial concept. 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:29.800 The funny thing about this is there's really not that 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.960 much to it. Yeah, it's actually about as basic as 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.960 it gets. So you're essentially getting rid of a lot 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:40.120 of the stuff that's involved in your traditional US burial 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.320 system by by formaldehyd Yep. You don't use embombing fluid 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:49.160 by vault ye. You use a very simple biodegradable coffin 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.720 made out of or no coffin at all, or no 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.119 coffin at all, maybe just like a shroud or some 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.560 kind of cloth. Yeah, I think I think most people 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:03.000 look at at least some form of coffin. There's probably 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:05.360 a psychological element to that that I am not qualified 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.359