Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcomed up Forward Thinking the
Speaker 1: podcast and looks at the future. It says, I'm all
Speaker 1: dressed up with nowhere to go. I'm Jonathan Stricker, I'm
Speaker 1: La and I'm Joe McCormick. And today, Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about something cheerful, right Lauren, Nope, Nope, We're We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the future of burial. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: was actually when I when we started talking earlier this
Speaker 1: week about what podcast sort of topics do we want
Speaker 1: to look at? Um, this was one I sent around
Speaker 1: Buried if you will, in a list of several, and I,
Speaker 1: being the goth kid at heart that I am, was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: let's do this. Let's let's do the one talking about death.
Speaker 1: Part of this is because I've kind of had it
Speaker 1: on the brain more than usual lately, because I got
Speaker 1: to be on a on a pan with Julie Douglas
Speaker 1: for her new show Stuff of Life, in which we
Speaker 1: were talking about how how people process death in our
Speaker 1: culture and and it was a really interesting discussion. Um uh,
Speaker 1: Julian I got to go interview a professor who studies
Speaker 1: death culture and and that was a really fascinating thing.
Speaker 1: The one of those episodes is up and other should
Speaker 1: be up soon. Let's let's mention it now while we're
Speaker 1: talking about other shows. Joe, you guys over and Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. Recently did an upset about burial correct?
Speaker 1: Not well, depends on what you mean by recently. Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb and I on the other podcast I do. We
Speaker 1: did the Stuff to Flow Your Mind episode called Human Remains, Past,
Speaker 1: Present in Future in September. Wait September, No, it wasn't September.
Speaker 1: It was October. It was October, sort of kind of
Speaker 1: getting into the spirit of Halloween. I am right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it fit our October theme all all all months we
Speaker 1: do creepy stuff. That's fair so as opposed to other
Speaker 1: times when nothing you say is creepy. All okay, since
Speaker 1: we're talking about other shows, I'll alway mentioned this. Uh,
Speaker 1: not that you could listen to it or see it,
Speaker 1: although there's a documentary where I briefly appear in in it.
Speaker 1: Where I was doing this, I did a a two
Speaker 1: man show. I wrote and acted in a two man
Speaker 1: show about the history of burial practices and funeral practices,
Speaker 1: and we performed it at uh at a cemetery, historic
Speaker 1: cemetery here in Atlanta, historic Oakland Cemetery where Margaret Mitchell
Speaker 1: is buried. Yes, and uh, two different people acted in that,
Speaker 1: um besides myself, Bernie Clark and Nick Takowski, who are
Speaker 1: both local artists madmen types here in Atlanta, and I
Speaker 1: think they would appreciate those labels. But so we did
Speaker 1: this this sort of comedic uh grave diggers from Hamlet
Speaker 1: type presentation. So I've been fascinated by this for quite
Speaker 1: some time, not just the future of rural practices, but
Speaker 1: the present state and how we got to that. Now,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna go too far looking into the past.
Speaker 1: We're really going to talk about what goes on today
Speaker 1: and how that might change over time and why it
Speaker 1: might change. Yeah, and so okay, so we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about some some very serious kind of topics.
Speaker 1: But but we're all going to die, you guys. And
Speaker 1: and this is the thing that we all have to
Speaker 1: deal with. Well, Kurts is not okay, well fair to everyone,
Speaker 1: but Kurtswile is going to die. So yeah, so so
Speaker 1: so let's so let's get into it today. UH. And
Speaker 1: apparently in countries other than the United States, embalming is
Speaker 1: not very it's not a very common practice at all,
Speaker 1: but here it's it's quite common. Yeah. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of like the average American might assume that embalming,
Speaker 1: the way we typically very dead in funeral homes in
Speaker 1: the United States is just how it's always been done.
Speaker 1: It's not the case. It's not the case here, and
Speaker 1: it's not the case in other parts of the world.
Speaker 1: We're largely going to be talking about the way it's
Speaker 1: done here in the United States because that's where we live,
Speaker 1: and also to cover all the different variations all over
Speaker 1: the world, that would be a series unto itself, certainly. UM.
Speaker 1: But embalming is not mandated in the United States except
Speaker 1: in certain states under certain conditions. UH. A few will
Speaker 1: require embalming if a body needs to be transported across
Speaker 1: state lines, for example. But that's not all the states,
Speaker 1: it's just a few. But it still has become kind
Speaker 1: of the standard practice, UH, for multiple reasons. UM. There
Speaker 1: are some religions that forbid embalming. It is against their
Speaker 1: religion to to treat the body in that way. Orthodox
Speaker 1: Jews and Muslims both hold those beliefs. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: others as well that other faiths that require the body
Speaker 1: to be cremated rather than buried, so it's not common
Speaker 1: all the way across the board. You might often find
Speaker 1: cremation in Hinduism exactly as that is one of them.
Speaker 1: So embalming in the United States didn't even become that
Speaker 1: standard practice until the Civil War, which makes sense. The
Speaker 1: Civil War you had thousands of soldiers dying and so
Speaker 1: they would be embalmed before the bodies would be shipped
Speaker 1: back to their hometowns. From that point forward, embalming became
Speaker 1: more of a standard process in funerals in the United States.
Speaker 1: It's really all about preservation. Yeah, in a weird way,
Speaker 1: I would almost say that embalming is a physical It's
Speaker 1: like the science of the denial of death, a technological
Speaker 1: realization of pushing death out of our out of our
Speaker 1: view by making it look for as long as possible,
Speaker 1: like you, you're really pretty much still alive. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's mainly to stave off the decomposition process as long
Speaker 1: as possible. And I agree with you, Joe, that that
Speaker 1: is largely I think due to our our our philosophy,
Speaker 1: our feelings about death, and they're pretty complicated. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people like the idea of
Speaker 1: of this this preservation so that you can almost compartmentalize
Speaker 1: it in your mind and and it it doesn't have
Speaker 1: as strong an effect emotionally on you in that way.
Speaker 1: Julie and I got to talk to to to live
Speaker 1: stuts doctor Lives stuts Is is the professor's name, a
Speaker 1: little bit about this very subject, and she she put
Speaker 1: forth a theory that has been discussed in the industries
Speaker 1: some that that death practices, like death rituals for the living,
Speaker 1: are a sort of way of of dealing with an
Speaker 1: in between state of the body of the deceased. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's sort of sort of like a transitional state, a
Speaker 1: sort of coming of age ceremony almost like a like
Speaker 1: a like like an end of age ceremony, sort of
Speaker 1: like like prom but for you know, dead bodies. And
Speaker 1: which makes sense considering the SONGNI this very much like
Speaker 1: a problem for it for dead people are right and
Speaker 1: so um and so yeah. So it's it's letting the
Speaker 1: living take the deceased through this this in between stage
Speaker 1: into the finality. Of being buried, right, but so when
Speaker 1: so there are psychological reasons we do this, but doing
Speaker 1: it doesn't come without cost. Oh yeah, yeah, that the
Speaker 1: practical application is pretty morbid. Yeah, and uh yeah, there's
Speaker 1: their costs, both psychologically, financially and environmentally as it turns out. So,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of what we're going to focus on
Speaker 1: today is some of these alternative methods of dealing with
Speaker 1: bodies after we have died in ways that might be
Speaker 1: less costly and less environmentally destructive. In some cases they
Speaker 1: might be more so, but there are super cool we'll
Speaker 1: get into that. So if you're talking about the traditional
Speaker 1: involving process, the way it works is the body is
Speaker 1: is stripped of cloe oaths, it's washed h then you
Speaker 1: use a tube with a needle. You inject the needle
Speaker 1: into an artery, and you the tube is connected to
Speaker 1: an embalming machine which pumps embalming fluid into the body. UM.
Speaker 1: That fluid is specifically designed to prevent bacteria from growing
Speaker 1: uh and other organisms as well, thus leading to the decomposition.
Speaker 1: So it's to preserve the body, usually long enough so
Speaker 1: that you can have your memorial service and your funeral service.
Speaker 1: UM and we're talking about a pretty significant amount of
Speaker 1: this stuff per body, and then you think about how
Speaker 1: many people die every year, it really starts to add up.
Speaker 1: So you use about a gallon of this embalming fluid
Speaker 1: for every fifty pounds of the persons, or three leaders
Speaker 1: per every twenty three or so. That's right. So it's
Speaker 1: a fairly significant amount of this stuff and embalming fluid.
Speaker 1: Typically it's not bio friendly, not in the US. In
Speaker 1: the US, it typically contains formaldehyde as one of the
Speaker 1: ingredients and that's a our synogen. So you there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are concerned about this carcinogen
Speaker 1: finding its way into the water table, you know, eventually uh,
Speaker 1: moving from the body into the soil and then getting
Speaker 1: absorbed into that particular call it ecosystem and UH it's
Speaker 1: it's such a big concern in some places that they
Speaker 1: have moved the places that still practice embalming, they have
Speaker 1: moved from that to other types of chemicals. In the UK,
Speaker 1: UH there was actually a call for a band of
Speaker 1: for malde hyde back in and the industry started moving
Speaker 1: towards using UH gluterol hide gluderol to hide a boy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll ever say that the way
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be said. But it's glutterol to hide
Speaker 1: based fluids which are less toxic than for malde hyde.
Speaker 1: So that's the sounds like. You don't talk about gluterald
Speaker 1: to hide all that much. Not so often, really, I don't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't come up. And most of my conversations, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hang out with the different crowd these days, we
Speaker 1: mostly talk about pokemons pokemon. Yeah, we don't know what
Speaker 1: they are. We just talk about them and how you've
Speaker 1: got to grab them all we know, we know there's
Speaker 1: some grabbing of pokemons. That's about it. To make a
Speaker 1: little transition, you know what you do with pokemons as
Speaker 1: you put them inside a container like almost like a coffin,
Speaker 1: exceptance of ball. Yeah, we're gonna talk about coffins now.
Speaker 1: So also sometimes in the US called caskets, although that
Speaker 1: term is not frequently used in places like the UK
Speaker 1: or Australia, not for a coffin anyway. A casket may
Speaker 1: just be a container for jewelry, but in the US
Speaker 1: coffin and casket tends to be used pretty much interchangeably.
Speaker 1: So these days they the standard coffins that you would
Speaker 1: find are really meant as a barrier between the body
Speaker 1: and the elements. They're not impermeable. Normally, they're made out
Speaker 1: of things like wood or metal, and they're lined with
Speaker 1: some sort of plush material. But there are some coffins
Speaker 1: that come with a rubber seal to make them as
Speaker 1: close to impermeable as possible, the idea being that this way.
Speaker 1: Really don't want this, yeah, yeah, but the idea being
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to prevent water from coming in, because,
Speaker 1: as the grave digger from Hamlet will tell you, water
Speaker 1: will ruin a body. Um, it's actually in the speech. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's preventing preventing water from getting in and preventing
Speaker 1: the materials that make up the coffin and the contents
Speaker 1: of the coffin from getting out. Yes, so that's really
Speaker 1: what the purpose is. But you don't want to truly
Speaker 1: impermeable coffin because as a body decomposes, it produces methane gas.
Speaker 1: If you have a container that has no way to
Speaker 1: vent the gas, that pressure builds and builds and builds
Speaker 1: until yes, coffins can and sometimes do explode. We mentioned
Speaker 1: this in our stuff to blow your mind episode exploding coffins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's happened both in coffins that are buried under the
Speaker 1: ground and coffin stored in mausoleums. Did you talk about
Speaker 1: any mausoleums with explosions, because there's been a few cases
Speaker 1: where mausoleums have been severely damaged through exploding coffins. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: there are some coffins that are designed to vent this gas. Occasionally,
Speaker 1: they're called burping coffins. They could have called it something else.
Speaker 1: They could They could have called it farting coffins. That
Speaker 1: would have been worse. So I don't know. For some reason,
Speaker 1: I'm less grossed up by farting coffins. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a generational thing, I think at this point. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: that's fair enough. I I just burping reminds me of tupperware.
Speaker 1: I anyway, so you can tell it's still fresh. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the coffin is then placed in what it's called a
Speaker 1: burial vault, which is a sealed chamber mint to protect
Speaker 1: the coffin from the weight of the earth that's above it,
Speaker 1: as well as any machinery that has to pass over it.
Speaker 1: So typically US cemeteries you're using something like a backhoe
Speaker 1: in order to dig the grave site or the internment
Speaker 1: site as they sometimes call it in the funeral business
Speaker 1: um because they don't like to they don't like to
Speaker 1: use words that make people think of death, which is
Speaker 1: one of those weird culture things that I can totally
Speaker 1: understand on one side, and I think it's totally weird
Speaker 1: on the other side. It's also relatively recent. A lot
Speaker 1: of the well, I mean funeral homes didn't even really
Speaker 1: exist until around World War two or so, when it
Speaker 1: became it started becoming so common to have in bombings
Speaker 1: that we needed a whole industry to to offset it,
Speaker 1: because embombing isn't the kind of thing that you that
Speaker 1: you can d I Y at home. You know, the
Speaker 1: big one in my hometown, Strickland Funeral Home. No no relation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: small town in Georgia, Strickland Funeral Stricklands. Yeah, apparently not
Speaker 1: related to it to my branch. Uh. If they were,
Speaker 1: those that would be the family members we would be
Speaker 1: mooching off of, because funeral directors tend to make a
Speaker 1: lot of money um at any rate. So we've got
Speaker 1: we've got the burping coffins, we've got the vaults that
Speaker 1: we've talked about. The vaults are typically lined with either
Speaker 1: concrete or steel so that they can create the support
Speaker 1: system so that the ground does not cave in while
Speaker 1: machinery is driving across it. If you don't have a vault,
Speaker 1: the ground will tend to sink. Yes, sure, sure, so
Speaker 1: so this right, this, This protects the coffin, and it
Speaker 1: also protects the environment from the coffin and the contents
Speaker 1: of the coffin, or you might say the appearance of
Speaker 1: the burial grounds. That. Yeah, that's also a case, like
Speaker 1: it would be somewhat disturbing to walk up to a
Speaker 1: cemetery and see areas of sunken earth around. I mean,
Speaker 1: it might feel a little weird. You might feel like
Speaker 1: you're in a Romero film. Also, grass might stop growing
Speaker 1: there because of toxic compounds and the coffins or the
Speaker 1: embolbing fluid that also could happen stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: there is a growing concern, which is probably pretty clear
Speaker 1: from our conversation so far, that the traditional approach in
Speaker 1: the United States to funerals is environmentally harmful through many aspects.
Speaker 1: You've got the formalde hyde, which is a chemical concern Again,
Speaker 1: not everyone gets embalmed before burial, so it's not always
Speaker 1: a factor, but it's common enough where it's it's more
Speaker 1: of the rule and less of the exception. Also, you've
Speaker 1: got the fact that you're using woods, often fairly rare
Speaker 1: woods for a lot of these coffins, and they're beautiful
Speaker 1: and that's the point. But yeah, but it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: sustainable wood that you're that's being used for these coffins.
Speaker 1: So there's that environmental factor. And there's also the concern
Speaker 1: about just the fact that cemeteries take up a lot
Speaker 1: of open space, right, So that's space that could be
Speaker 1: used for something else, especially in high concentration areas, like
Speaker 1: I've read about the the problem in New York of well,
Speaker 1: where are we going to bury people? We're just we're
Speaker 1: out of places. Same in Tokyo. That's another I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a really big problem. Mausoleums are off often a
Speaker 1: solution to that because and I'll talk about them a
Speaker 1: little bit more in just a second. Literally in just
Speaker 1: a second, it's like a it's like a skyscraper for bodies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about more about that idea in greater
Speaker 1: detail later too. So that that kind of brings us
Speaker 1: to this this concept of entombment as post burial. So
Speaker 1: in tum mont often you have a lot of the
Speaker 1: same processes that lead up to the stage of burial,
Speaker 1: except of course it's burying someone in the ground. You're
Speaker 1: putting them in a crypt or a tomb or a
Speaker 1: mausoleum above ground. And there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: reasons to do this. One is if you happen to
Speaker 1: live in a place where the soil is not good
Speaker 1: for digging in, whether it's too rocky or it's too sandy,
Speaker 1: it won't support itself, it will collapse in on itself
Speaker 1: too easily, or the water table is too close to
Speaker 1: the surface of the ground where you can't dig down
Speaker 1: very far before you get water. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of mausoleums in New Orleans, yeah, which also and it's
Speaker 1: not just the water table there, it's also the propensity
Speaker 1: for flooding that is a big concern. Yeah. New Orleans
Speaker 1: cemeteries are amazing. Uh, that was one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things to do. Oddly, I'm not a Michabra person in general,
Speaker 1: but but the cemeteries are gothic and gorgeous and creepy.
Speaker 1: And awesome all at the same time. And there's so
Speaker 1: amazing stonework in some of these these cemeteries in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: and it's all above ground because they couldn't dig down
Speaker 1: to to bury their dead. So and tuman is definitely
Speaker 1: one of those things that is common in certain parts
Speaker 1: of the country and the world. But when we get
Speaker 1: to masoleums, the the interesting thing there is that you
Speaker 1: can be more conservative with your space. That's one of
Speaker 1: the solutions to this problem of having a lot of
Speaker 1: open space that you would have to dedicate to a
Speaker 1: cemetery um. They can hold lots of unrelated people. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a cemetery, but in almost like a
Speaker 1: file cabinet kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: make them make them any less lovely than cemeteries can be.
Speaker 1: I've I've had the opportunity to visit a number of
Speaker 1: really beautiful, uh like large structure mausoleums and yeah, like
Speaker 1: in Florida, mostly where at sea above re groundwater issue,
Speaker 1: ground water table, the whole, the whole way these things
Speaker 1: come about. They're very expend of initially, but but that
Speaker 1: expense can easily be distributed amongst the population and then individually.
Speaker 1: The process of having someone interred in a mazoleum can
Speaker 1: be much cheaper than traditional burial depending upon the situation UM,
Speaker 1: and they can be very lovely, respectful places. It's not
Speaker 1: like it's, you know, a terrible alternative. UM. It also
Speaker 1: depends upon how you view what should happen to someone
Speaker 1: after they pass away. That also leads us to cremation,
Speaker 1: which is the other major way of of of saying
Speaker 1: goodbye to someone after they've passed on, and is one
Speaker 1: that is mandated by certain religions as well. So before cremation, obviously,
Speaker 1: what you would want to do is remove anything that
Speaker 1: would not incinerate properly. Uh, anything artificial like an artificial
Speaker 1: heart or prosthetic um. Sometimes even things like hip replacements
Speaker 1: things like that can be removed moved so that you
Speaker 1: can then place the body in a flammable coffin and
Speaker 1: put it into the incineration chamber. Very high powered flame
Speaker 1: is used to incinerate the body. Usually takes between two
Speaker 1: to three hours, depending upon the size of the body
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. UM. The ashes you get back
Speaker 1: are really sort of the calcified, crumbled bones that are
Speaker 1: left all the other tissues are essentially vaporized in this process. Um,
Speaker 1: but fire pretty much breaks down everything I wasn't when
Speaker 1: I was reading our We have an article at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works about how cremation works that goes into much
Speaker 1: greater detail about what happens to each type of tissue
Speaker 1: throughout the cremation process. And as I read it, I thought,
Speaker 1: that's not necessary for us to include in this for
Speaker 1: it to be informative. But if you want to learn more,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend reading how Cremation Works at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com because it will it will totally inform you. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: you mentioned about the cremains people receive or they're often
Speaker 1: referred to as ashes, but of course they're not the
Speaker 1: like we're saying. They're not the ashes of the soft
Speaker 1: tissues of your body there the ground up bones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of people don't know your
Speaker 1: bones calcify and they essentially just crumble in the process
Speaker 1: of this of this cremation um. And so that's what
Speaker 1: you would receive in the cremins. They must be raked
Speaker 1: out in the end, I believe. So. Uh, it's really,
Speaker 1: by the way tricky to estimate what's the carbon footprint
Speaker 1: of this process. So obviously you're talking about using a
Speaker 1: lot of energy to burn a body. Uh, that's going
Speaker 1: to have some sort of carbon footprint. But a lot
Speaker 1: of different factors will take part here. We're talking about
Speaker 1: again the size of the body. It's a larger body,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take longer, so it's gonna require more energy.
Speaker 1: It's also the time of day. Apparently I didn't know this,
Speaker 1: but apparently the time of day also depends on determines
Speaker 1: how big a carbon footprint is generated. Um and whether
Speaker 1: or not. Uh the crematorium is doing this on a
Speaker 1: case by case basis or in batches essentially. Uh So
Speaker 1: a lot of those factors are making impossible for us
Speaker 1: to really say what the carbon footprint is except to
Speaker 1: say there is a carbon footprint here. Uh so you
Speaker 1: are you know, is is not a carbon negative or
Speaker 1: carbon neutral kind of approach to disposing of a body?
Speaker 1: Well in case you are being environmentally conscious when you're
Speaker 1: trying to do that, yeah, which I mean, you know
Speaker 1: is especially especially in these are modern times, that is
Speaker 1: absolutely a concern. Uh And and all of these practices
Speaker 1: do have these environmental impacts and and right you know,
Speaker 1: like like a lot of people are living a lot longer,
Speaker 1: and that's wonderful. But we but we do have to
Speaker 1: take this kind of stuff into consideration. Yeah, no, it's
Speaker 1: it's and I think on an individual basis, it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier to have this conversation than rather talk about
Speaker 1: large groups of people, because then when you talking about
Speaker 1: large groups of people, it sounds like you're mandating something,
Speaker 1: and we certainly, of course never do that. It's so
Speaker 1: deeply per sal Yeah, I mean, the grieving process is
Speaker 1: incredibly personal. But there are some interesting alternatives that have
Speaker 1: emerged over the past few years for people who want
Speaker 1: to look into something else for you know, to happen
Speaker 1: to their body after they pass on, so that it
Speaker 1: falls in line with their individual philosophies. And one of
Speaker 1: those that's growing in popularity is the natural burial concept.
Speaker 1: The funny thing about this is there's really not that
Speaker 1: much to it. Yeah, it's actually about as basic as
Speaker 1: it gets. So you're essentially getting rid of a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff that's involved in your traditional US burial
Speaker 1: system by by formaldehyd Yep. You don't use embombing fluid
Speaker 1: by vault ye. You use a very simple biodegradable coffin
Speaker 1: made out of or no coffin at all, or no
Speaker 1: coffin at all, maybe just like a shroud or some
Speaker 1: kind of cloth. Yeah, I think I think most people
Speaker 1: look at at least some form of coffin. There's probably
Speaker 1: a psychological element to that that I am not qualified
Speaker 1: to speak on, but uh, the ones I've seen have
Speaker 1: largely been biodegradable materials, sustainable materials as well. That's another
Speaker 1: important part of it, because part of the philosophy of
Speaker 1: the natural burial is to reduce the environmental impact of
Speaker 1: your passing as much as possible, and so you want
Speaker 1: the body to be able to deteriorate naturally, and that
Speaker 1: includes the whatever coffin or other like wrapping or whatever
Speaker 1: is around you as well. So I've actually seen some
Speaker 1: really interesting solutions to this, a lot of interesting coffins,
Speaker 1: like some that are gorgeous in their simplicity made out
Speaker 1: of stuff. I've seen cardboard coffins, so those would degrade
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Um. I've seen bamboo and banana leaf coffins,
Speaker 1: ritan coffin, sea grass, lots of these sort of natural
Speaker 1: materials and they look really nice. I mean, there It's
Speaker 1: almost like a very large basket in many of these cases,
Speaker 1: but they look very nice. Uh. And then there's also
Speaker 1: the Eco pod, which sadly right now is no longer available.
Speaker 1: It's at least temporarily unavailable. I guess the the operations
Speaker 1: in the UK uh in neerd in some sort of
Speaker 1: financial difficulty or something. I know that the company hopes
Speaker 1: to open up h handmade operational system in the North
Speaker 1: America continent somewhere, but I don't know what the status
Speaker 1: is on that. But the eco pods were really cool,
Speaker 1: made from recycled newspaper, and they have a very interesting
Speaker 1: shape to them. The very outside was actually coated with
Speaker 1: a different type of paper, so it has a very
Speaker 1: kind of classy look to it doesn't quite look like
Speaker 1: a coffin. It has as almost a sort of a
Speaker 1: space age type of shape. You really have to look
Speaker 1: at a picture at one of these things to kind
Speaker 1: of get an idea. But I like this idea because
Speaker 1: if I went this route, I could ask that they
Speaker 1: just coat my entire coffin with the Braves win a
Speaker 1: j C front page from when the Braves won the
Speaker 1: World Series. I would have been amazing. Uh. But you
Speaker 1: know that's not necessarily what I'm planning on doing. And
Speaker 1: also eco pod is not currently available. And if you're
Speaker 1: interested in having a open, open casket memorial service or
Speaker 1: anything like that, there are options for using dry ice
Speaker 1: to preserve the body rather than embalming fluid. Right dry
Speaker 1: ice or refrigeration, both of which are much more environmentally
Speaker 1: friendly than using embalming fluid and won't won't halt the
Speaker 1: or or slow down the decomposition process once you're buried.
Speaker 1: So for this to work, you also have to have
Speaker 1: a place to bury people. You can't just bury him anywhere.
Speaker 1: It's frowned upon it anyway. Yes, no, I mean you can.
Speaker 1: Disposal of corpses is a highly regulated thing and it
Speaker 1: should be. Yeah, there's a lot for lots of different
Speaker 1: reasons it should be. But in the United States there
Speaker 1: are there are several natural burial grounds. In the UK
Speaker 1: there are more than two hundred, so the UK it's
Speaker 1: been embraced much faster than here in the United States.
Speaker 1: They tend to be in areas that are, you know,
Speaker 1: these natural landscapes. A lot of them are in forests,
Speaker 1: and typically you might just use something as simple as
Speaker 1: a rock or a a native tree as a marker
Speaker 1: for that that burial site, so again very green. Some
Speaker 1: of the places actually use GPS core and it's to
Speaker 1: mark the site, so you would use your GPS system
Speaker 1: to find a particular spot and that would be where you're,
Speaker 1: you know, the person you cared about was buried. I
Speaker 1: kind of like that idea too, the idea of not
Speaker 1: leaving any any physical thing there so that it's as
Speaker 1: untouched a landscape as you can possibly make it. Um
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of different very aitions on this.
Speaker 1: Their hybrid burial grounds that's where you can find both
Speaker 1: the traditional burials and the um the natural burials, all
Speaker 1: in one general region, one general one cemetery. Essentially, there's
Speaker 1: natural burial grounds which are kind of the medium. That's
Speaker 1: where they practice land stewardship and restoration planning, and they
Speaker 1: can only use that land as a green cemetery. It
Speaker 1: cannot be used for any other purpose. And then you
Speaker 1: have conservation burial grounds that go a step further where
Speaker 1: there their conservation strategy goes to the point where they're
Speaker 1: actually looking at ways to protect and restore local wildlife
Speaker 1: and habitats as well as act as a natural burial ground,
Speaker 1: And uh, I really like this idea a lot, like
Speaker 1: if if I didn't have my other plan in place,
Speaker 1: as sinister as it is, then I would probably go
Speaker 1: with this approach. And as a way of not I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what my sinister joke plan is at the end.
Speaker 1: But the the there's an actual group called the Green
Speaker 1: Burial Council that has formed to try and create standards
Speaker 1: for this, because clearly you want to follow very careful
Speaker 1: protocols to make sure that you're being respectful both of
Speaker 1: the land and of the people. It's very important. And
Speaker 1: they also want to make sure that no one gets
Speaker 1: away with calling their operation a natural cemetery or green
Speaker 1: cemetery while practicing things that are against the philosophy. So
Speaker 1: greenwashing is what we're talking about this, and greenwashing is
Speaker 1: a problem in all different industries where they're claiming to
Speaker 1: be where it's a marketing term rather than an actual practice. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: where you're like, hey, we can get more consumers if
Speaker 1: they think we're being very environmentally conscious, So let's call
Speaker 1: this the green approach. Uh. Side note, little tangent, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget when I was I was going to attend
Speaker 1: CS one year and I got a big box in
Speaker 1: the mail UH that was related to c S. I was,
Speaker 1: I wonder what this is, and I opened it up.
Speaker 1: Inside the big box was a long smaller box, but
Speaker 1: it was a long box. I opened that up and
Speaker 1: inside it were a pair of double A batteries that
Speaker 1: were called green double a's. And I thought, if you
Speaker 1: are trying to create batteries that are supposed to be green,
Speaker 1: don't pack them in a long box and then pack
Speaker 1: that in an even bigger box and send it like
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. That would be greenwashing. At least I would
Speaker 1: argue that would be green washing. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: some other UH options besides natural burial. This other one,
Speaker 1: This next one is it gets a little gooey. It
Speaker 1: certainly does. For those of you who desire to be
Speaker 1: literally washed down the drain, you do have an option. UH.
Speaker 1: This is known as alkaline hydrolysis, and it's often used
Speaker 1: to get rid of animal carcass is and also medical
Speaker 1: conduct could average at the Mayo clinic. So this is
Speaker 1: not like a We might think of it as a
Speaker 1: future technique, not because it's something that's still being developed,
Speaker 1: but just because it hasn't been so widely adopted. Culturally speaking,
Speaker 1: it's futuristic, so it's known by several different names. The
Speaker 1: process itself is alkaline hydrolysis, but it's also known as
Speaker 1: resummation or liquid cremation or sometimes bio cremation. And here's
Speaker 1: the basic gist of it. You put the body inside
Speaker 1: a gigantic steel container. Uh, and this this big steel
Speaker 1: cylinder with a mixture of water and potassium hydroxide which
Speaker 1: is lie and then you heat that up to like
Speaker 1: three hundred or three fifty degrees fahrenheit under high pressure,
Speaker 1: and this liquefies all of the soft tissue, leaving only
Speaker 1: the bones behind. And then the liquefied body can simply
Speaker 1: be washed down the drain and the bones then head
Speaker 1: on to the cremulator, which is not unique to this process.
Speaker 1: A crimulator is also used in cremation. But great name
Speaker 1: for a thing, very cromulent name. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: was the name for that thing, cremulate. I thought immediately
Speaker 1: that that had to be one of the robots from Futurama. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: there were next to the crushing eader, right exactly. But
Speaker 1: the cremulator, well, it is sort of a crush in eader.
Speaker 1: It it turns your bones into a fine powder that
Speaker 1: can then be taken away by the family or loved
Speaker 1: ones of the deceased and so. Uh. This process reportedly
Speaker 1: uses less energy and produces fewer airborne pollutants and carbon
Speaker 1: emissions than traditional cremation. But it is not without its opponents.
Speaker 1: It has faced some political opposition, like it's only legal
Speaker 1: in some places and not in others. I found one
Speaker 1: interesting article in June article for the Springfield News Sun
Speaker 1: in Ohio by reporter Kelly Wynn, and it was called
Speaker 1: a controversial liquid cremation sought in Ohio. And so this
Speaker 1: was talking about how at the times some funeral homes
Speaker 1: in Ohio we're trying to adopt alkaline hydrolysis, but they
Speaker 1: were facing opposition. Um, I'll just read a little section
Speaker 1: from it. Uh, the Catholic Church is opposed to the idea,
Speaker 1: and that opposition has prompted State Representative Ron mag chairman
Speaker 1: of Government of the Government and Elections Committee, to remove
Speaker 1: language from House Bill four eighty one that would have
Speaker 1: made alkaline hydrolysis an acceptable form of disposition. That's a
Speaker 1: great word, disposition in Ohio. Mag who is a Catholic,
Speaker 1: said he felt uncomfortable about the process and spoke to
Speaker 1: a Catholic church leader. The process didn't seem respectful to me,
Speaker 1: and that's why I contacted the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to
Speaker 1: get their opinion. Mag said they objected to that type
Speaker 1: of disposal of the body. So there are obviously some
Speaker 1: cultural factors at play here with with the acceptance of
Speaker 1: new methods of dealing with the body, and and that's
Speaker 1: to be expected, I think, because how we deal with
Speaker 1: our dead is something that's very emotionally charged for people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think there's a lot of association between
Speaker 1: decomposition and corruption. I think there's this idea that decomposition
Speaker 1: is somehow representative of corruption of the body, and any
Speaker 1: process that would speed that up, I think would automatically
Speaker 1: create kind of a bulk response with people who who
Speaker 1: sort of made that association. And it's I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that it's an uh one that should anyone should feel
Speaker 1: badly about me. Again, this is very personal sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Um Personally, this this approach I thought sounded very interesting
Speaker 1: to me. I don't know how I would feel knowing
Speaker 1: that someone I loved had chosen to go through this process.
Speaker 1: I like, intellectually, rationally, I'm perfectly fine with it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how I would react emotionally if I were
Speaker 1: actually in the position where I knew someone I loved
Speaker 1: was going to be uh dissolved in this way. It
Speaker 1: might that might make me bulk at it. I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't thinking about it really see that
Speaker 1: there's anything less respectful about this than about burning people
Speaker 1: with a flame, or about pumping them through full of
Speaker 1: formaldehide and burying them in a box, other than the
Speaker 1: fact that we just have the cultural inertia of those
Speaker 1: other methods that you know, And again, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's necessarily a rational thing. It's purely emotional. But you know,
Speaker 1: cultural mores and social moras, that sort of thing. They
Speaker 1: have a big impact on our personalities, sometimes larger than
Speaker 1: we expect. Uh And so you know, but that that's
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting way. What if I wanted to,
Speaker 1: I don't know, turn myself into an icicle then explode
Speaker 1: into a million pieces. Their their method for that, yep,
Speaker 1: and this one, I'm I had never heard of it
Speaker 1: before we started composing these notes, and I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about this one that sounds like like if you'll forgive
Speaker 1: my like Mr Freeze style pun he the coolest way
Speaker 1: to go, It is the coolest. You're welcome, Joel Schumacher.
Speaker 1: He directed that one. I know, no, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: chill out, Jonathan um So. So this is called promission,
Speaker 1: and essentially this is freezing shattering and then freeze drying
Speaker 1: your body into a powder that can be buried. So
Speaker 1: so after death, you take the body and you freeze it.
Speaker 1: You submerge it in liquid nitrogen to deep sub zero temperatures,
Speaker 1: and this makes it brittle and crystalline. So once the
Speaker 1: body is frozen solid in this crystalline state, it is
Speaker 1: subjected to mechanical vibration. You sort of put it in
Speaker 1: a rock polisher, just a chamber that vibrates high frequency yes,
Speaker 1: and this shatters the frozen remains and eventually transforms them
Speaker 1: into a fine gravel or sandy consistency. And then you
Speaker 1: use a vacuum chamber to sort of boil the moisture
Speaker 1: out of the resulting powder. And this is essentially what
Speaker 1: the process of freeze drying is. So you freeze dry it,
Speaker 1: and then you remove any metal fillings, implants, pros theses
Speaker 1: from the powder, and then what's left behind can be
Speaker 1: buried in a shallow grave. And in this and we
Speaker 1: often say buried in a shallow grave is kind of
Speaker 1: like a like sneak. You know, you kill somebody and
Speaker 1: bury them in a shallow grave. But in this case
Speaker 1: it's a positive thing because the body is not recognizable
Speaker 1: as a body, but it can still contribute back to
Speaker 1: the ecosystem and nourish the soil. I didn't mean to snicker,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that she said we often say it,
Speaker 1: and and and just the way you're putting it, like yeah,
Speaker 1: daily basis, I'm talking about shallow every Wednesday. So so
Speaker 1: is anyone actually doing this? Is this is this hypothetical? Yes,
Speaker 1: right now it is. It is a proposal rather than
Speaker 1: a real process. As far as I know, this hasn't
Speaker 1: been done to any people um or if it has,
Speaker 1: I hadn't. I can't. I couldn't find evidence of it.
Speaker 1: But it's been promoted by the Swedish company called pro Messa,
Speaker 1: which was founded by a biologist named and I'm afraid
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mispronounce her last name, but I'll do my best.
Speaker 1: Your name is Susanne why a Massac and I might
Speaker 1: add the why are uk ran a cool piece on
Speaker 1: her and on promission a couple of years ago called
Speaker 1: freeze drying the dead could help save the planet. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I liked about this
Speaker 1: article was that it also uncovered this interesting turf war
Speaker 1: between this pro promission faction in Sweden and then a
Speaker 1: pro cremation faction who insisted at the time that promission
Speaker 1: was was never gonna work and it would just never
Speaker 1: come to market. Um. But anyway, she gave a quote
Speaker 1: to them in this article where she said, we don't
Speaker 1: see the dead body is the final end. Well treated,
Speaker 1: the body will support something new, life will continue, and
Speaker 1: that is going to create a totally new relation to
Speaker 1: death and and dying of the body. It also makes
Speaker 1: it possible to start talking about death. And I like
Speaker 1: her approach here because she's essentially she's proposing a technology.
Speaker 1: Now I think it has been it's pretty well accepted
Speaker 1: that except among its critics in the cremation community, this
Speaker 1: would work. Um, but it's not being done yet. It's
Speaker 1: weird to think of a cremation community Uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think in many ways it's similar to the idea of
Speaker 1: the natural burial, this idea of returning the body to
Speaker 1: the earth to become part of it again, the circle
Speaker 1: of life. I was going to say that too, so
Speaker 1: I'm glad you beat me to it. Yes, exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: Similar to that is the Eternal Reefs idea. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a company that's actually based out of here in Georgia,
Speaker 1: um and their idea is to take the cremains from
Speaker 1: someone so you God, So it's not an alternative decremation,
Speaker 1: not alternative decremation. It's actually cremation is part of this.
Speaker 1: But you would bring the cremains to eternal reefs and
Speaker 1: they would use the cremains to uh, to mix with
Speaker 1: concrete actually to create artificial reefs or marine life and
Speaker 1: then put those offshore to replace some of the natural
Speaker 1: reefs that have been destroyed over the course of the
Speaker 1: last century. And uh really in this case, again, it's
Speaker 1: since it's not an alternative to cremation or anything, you
Speaker 1: might wonder, well, what's the deal are these artificial reefs? Only?
Speaker 1: Do they only work if you put human cremains in them? No,
Speaker 1: the idea here is that you're helping fund this process.
Speaker 1: You you are returning. Like from a philosophical standpoint, you
Speaker 1: could think, I'm helping give life to other creatures by
Speaker 1: giving them a place to to inhabit. It's it's poetic
Speaker 1: and also right. And instead of potentially doing harm to
Speaker 1: an environment, you're you're you're doing good with your fun
Speaker 1: costs exactly. So it's it's really a way of giving
Speaker 1: back to the earth by paying in as part of
Speaker 1: your your funeral fees to have this happen. So uh,
Speaker 1: I like the idea, although again it's not like it's
Speaker 1: an alternative to to cremation. It actually is just another step.
Speaker 1: So instead of storing the remain cremains and like an
Speaker 1: urn or something, we're putting them in a mile's lamb,
Speaker 1: you would make them as part of a marine habitat. Uh.
Speaker 1: Of course, another process that we should talk about is
Speaker 1: one in which you more definitely preserved the body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like like crazy preservation. We're talking plastination, which was
Speaker 1: developed a nineteen This episode full of great words, yea,
Speaker 1: So plastination, well, I mean, you've got to come up
Speaker 1: with some pretty clever words to deal with with death.
Speaker 1: So people don't think about, you know, dying. But plastination
Speaker 1: is a process developed in nineteen seventy seven by Gunther
Speaker 1: von Hoggins who was looking at a way of preserving
Speaker 1: body parts indefinitely. And it involves replacing the water and
Speaker 1: fat in a body with certain types of plastic. And
Speaker 1: you can use different types of plastic and the different
Speaker 1: types will create different effects. And the process has four steps.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into detail on each of
Speaker 1: the steps, but if you want to know what they're called,
Speaker 1: it's fixation, dehydration, forced impregnation in a vacuum, and hardening. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's a relatively illusionary all on their own. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't really need a whole lot of explanation to
Speaker 1: really get it into what that is all about. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, use different types of plastics for different effects.
Speaker 1: Some of them are more flexible, some of them hardened
Speaker 1: to a point where you could actually polish the body
Speaker 1: part that you have. Uh plastinated. Often used for for
Speaker 1: medical purposes, like if you wanted to do an anatomy
Speaker 1: class and you needed to show slices of the body
Speaker 1: so that medical students could identify where oregons were. That
Speaker 1: sort of thing. That's a very important part. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's very useful and and von Hogen's developed this specifically
Speaker 1: for the medical community so that doctors and scientists would
Speaker 1: have reliable models to look at that could last, you know, indefinitely. Uh.
Speaker 1: Of course we've seen it used beyond that particular application,
Speaker 1: and I'll get more into that in just a second.
Speaker 1: So you might donate your body to plascination if you
Speaker 1: specifically wanted your body to be used in the advancement
Speaker 1: of science. But there is some controversy around this, uh,
Speaker 1: largely around then the concept of consent. Uh. So plascination
Speaker 1: is probably most famously associated with the Body Worlds exhibits,
Speaker 1: which are they originated in Japan and have traveled the
Speaker 1: world multiple times, and there have been several cases of
Speaker 1: people accusing Body Worlds of using bodies that came from
Speaker 1: people who did not concer sent for their bodies to
Speaker 1: be used in this way. Now, supposedly there's a list
Speaker 1: thousands of names long of people willing to donate their
Speaker 1: bodies to plascination for this specific use, but there have
Speaker 1: been at least some cases where there have been accusations
Speaker 1: that some of the bodies we came from Chinese prisoners
Speaker 1: who had been executed. That's a big problem. Uh some
Speaker 1: from uh Russian sources, where again it maybe that the
Speaker 1: case was that the people whose bodies were on display
Speaker 1: never gave their consent for it to be used in
Speaker 1: that way. Now, of course, body worlds said that they
Speaker 1: are very much concerned with this. They don't ever want
Speaker 1: to use any body that wasn't associated with consent. And
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of lawmakers who have said, if
Speaker 1: it comes down to it, we need to be able
Speaker 1: to say, can you show us the death certificate, the
Speaker 1: signed consent, Yeah, to prove that person or at least
Speaker 1: the family. So that's where that controversy is. Um that
Speaker 1: being said, I think that plastination itself, it serves very
Speaker 1: valuable purpose again in that in that medical application of teaching,
Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly valuable. So let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the future of cemeteries. One of the things
Speaker 1: that Lauren mentioned earlier kind of with moles Lambs was
Speaker 1: this idea of skyscraper cemeteries, and I can't believe we
Speaker 1: didn't touch on this in our our Future of Skyscrapers, right,
Speaker 1: we talked about vertical cities, but we did not talk
Speaker 1: about vertical cities of the dead, yes, which could be
Speaker 1: a thing. Uh. Now, we talked about how open space
Speaker 1: is a precious resource in some areas and that you know,
Speaker 1: dedicating that open space to what amounts to dead people
Speaker 1: is problematic, uh in in a lot of different communities.
Speaker 1: But one of instead of taking up a bunch of
Speaker 1: space at ground level, you did the skyscraper approach, so
Speaker 1: you had level after level after level. You could take
Speaker 1: up a relatively small amount of open space and just
Speaker 1: build upward. It's the Morgal approach. Yes. Uh So. In
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, there was an architecture student named Martin
Speaker 1: McSherry who presented a concept called the vertical cemetery. And
Speaker 1: it's a really neat looking design. It's a very kind
Speaker 1: of it looks kind of like a honeycomb from the outside.
Speaker 1: It's white with all these it's almost like a lattice work.
Speaker 1: And the idea is that coffins would fit in the
Speaker 1: gaps of that lattice, and you would use a crane
Speaker 1: to actually lift a coffin up to a higher level
Speaker 1: and slotted into the right spot. It would take up
Speaker 1: less ground space and it was specifically because there's a
Speaker 1: real land scarcity problem in Norway. So this is a
Speaker 1: this is this was seen as sort of a conceptual
Speaker 1: and yet practical solution to a real problem that is
Speaker 1: arising in Norway, and it is something that we could
Speaker 1: possibly see if people continue to choose to be buried,
Speaker 1: then this might be one of the solutions that we'll
Speaker 1: see in the future. Mean, statistically speaking, there's a lot
Speaker 1: more dead people on the planet than there are living people.
Speaker 1: That's true. That funny how that works out. Uh. So
Speaker 1: there's there's also some other interesting ideas, some that are
Speaker 1: kind of similar to stuff we talked about before. Uh
Speaker 1: there's the Urban Death Project, which sounds like a band
Speaker 1: but it's not. Or maybe it is too, but it's
Speaker 1: also it's also an actual project that's proposing a way
Speaker 1: of dealing with the deceased. Oh yeah, it could fit
Speaker 1: in with the concept of natural burial, yes exactly. Architect
Speaker 1: Katrina Spade talks about this, and it's a process that
Speaker 1: would involve turning a body essentially into compost. And the
Speaker 1: process involves taking the body, wrapping it in a shroud
Speaker 1: of linen, and laying that body in a bed of
Speaker 1: wood chips and sawdust. Now the body would then start
Speaker 1: to decompose and over the course of a month turn
Speaker 1: into compost um. New bodies would be added over time,
Speaker 1: and what happens is that the at the end of
Speaker 1: that month, you would extract the soil from the bottom.
Speaker 1: There be an extraction mechanism that would allow you to
Speaker 1: harvest the soil from the bottom of this uh this
Speaker 1: this wood chip and sawdust pit. I guess pit is
Speaker 1: probably not a word that they would They would use
Speaker 1: their own in their own marketing materials, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to think about throwing them into the pit. But
Speaker 1: at anyway, you would extract the soil from the bottom,
Speaker 1: and you could invite loved ones to come and take
Speaker 1: some of that soil home and use that in a guarden,
Speaker 1: a kind of a way of remembering the person and
Speaker 1: incorporating them back into your life in a in a
Speaker 1: symbolic way. But it's also used in like parks and stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, And there there's lots of other companies
Speaker 1: that are working with alternative processes for similar concepts. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that you've seen some of them post posted up
Speaker 1: on your social media feeds because they've they've they're they're
Speaker 1: they're really snazzy headlines. It's you know, like like turn
Speaker 1: your body into a tree that kind of stuff. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a few companies that are offering biodegradable
Speaker 1: urns and tree saplings as like a little paired unit.
Speaker 1: So you know, you plant the urn under the sapling
Speaker 1: and your ashes help feed the tree. A more dramatic
Speaker 1: version is provided by this Italian startup company called Capsula Munda,
Speaker 1: which buries a person in this egg shaped biodegradable coffin
Speaker 1: that the corpses in a fetal position inside of it,
Speaker 1: and it could be planted under a sapling. I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert on decomposition, but you know, while I appreciate
Speaker 1: the artistry of this of this version, I suspect that
Speaker 1: something like the Urban Death Project would would be better
Speaker 1: for the tree overall. I just worry about that particular approach.
Speaker 1: If there's terrible flooding an erosion, then you have a
Speaker 1: dead person emerging from an egg, and that would be awful.
Speaker 1: I think the cool thing about this, the Capsula Mondy proposal,
Speaker 1: is that you could end up with your skeleton entwined
Speaker 1: in the roots of a tree people. People in the
Speaker 1: future who dig you up will find the roots going
Speaker 1: through your eye holes and everything is in their states.
Speaker 1: It's an appealing idea. In the past, trees preyed upon humans,
Speaker 1: these love crafty and trees of the century. Oh you've
Speaker 1: given me such a great idea for a short story
Speaker 1: now alright, so moving on. There's also a concept called
Speaker 1: the future cemetery. This is something out of the UK.
Speaker 1: The UK appears to be really kind of forward thinking
Speaker 1: when it comes to the treatment of the dead. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting to me. For those who want the high
Speaker 1: tech experience, they could look into the future cemetery. It
Speaker 1: offers an interactive approach that incorporates augmented reality, audio installations
Speaker 1: and pico projection or pico if you prefer projection. A
Speaker 1: Pico projection is the They're very tiny projectors that you
Speaker 1: can fit right in your pocket. You can typically connect
Speaker 1: them to something like a phone and uh projected against
Speaker 1: the wall. Anyway. They use that for memorials in the cemetery.
Speaker 1: So imagine recording your thoughts before you die. Obviously, that
Speaker 1: could be displayed to someone using a smart phone apple
Speaker 1: looking at your grave site like hologram style. Even like
Speaker 1: it would be kind of cool. I would imagine, like,
Speaker 1: think about something you would just want to impart to
Speaker 1: future generations, even if it's just, hey, be cool to
Speaker 1: each other. You want to be like do a little
Speaker 1: Waynes World thing, like or not Wayns World, the Bill
Speaker 1: and Ted thing, be excellent to each other type deal.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of a neat idea. Or if you
Speaker 1: want to be cranky, you could be get off my
Speaker 1: lawn whatever you want. And then the person holds up
Speaker 1: the smartphone where they're looking at your grave site, you
Speaker 1: pop up and you say the thing. I love that
Speaker 1: idea nicely for multiple reasons. Um, this particular cemetery is
Speaker 1: actually located at Arnos Veil Cemetery in the UK, so
Speaker 1: it's just one part of their cemetery. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a proof of concept ever changing project to like they're
Speaker 1: always incorporating new stuff into it. And uh, I really
Speaker 1: like that idea. But let's say that you set your
Speaker 1: sights higher than that, much higher up into orbit. But
Speaker 1: since there is no up in space, you could be
Speaker 1: setting your sites much or or or you could be
Speaker 1: saying your sites but direction has no meaning at any rate.
Speaker 1: This is an option that is, for people who are
Speaker 1: less interested in minimizing their carbon footprint. We're talking about
Speaker 1: space burial. Uh. I feel like that's something that's kind
Speaker 1: of in name only, if you know what I mean. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's not really a burial per se by
Speaker 1: by the technical definition of the word. Well, okay, So,
Speaker 1: so there are a few companies out there that will
Speaker 1: send like a gram or so of your cremains up
Speaker 1: into space. Um. And this has been made possible by
Speaker 1: commercial and consumer space travel becoming more affordable and common. Um. So,
Speaker 1: you know, you can you can take like a two
Speaker 1: minute suborbital flight, you can take a full orbital flight.
Speaker 1: You can hit your ride on a cube SAT that
Speaker 1: will lose orbit and burn up during re entry a
Speaker 1: couple of years later. You can crash into the Moon,
Speaker 1: or you can leave Earth's orbit entirely. And these services
Speaker 1: range in costs from about a thousand bucks to over
Speaker 1: twelve thousand, depending on how far out you want to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Someone I know, no is probably too strong a word.
Speaker 1: Someone I met did this. James Dowon also known as
Speaker 1: Scotty from Star Trek, right, Jean Roddenberry did it? Timothy Leary? Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, so there there's plenty of precedents for that.
Speaker 1: So this kind of brings us to the conclusion. I
Speaker 1: thought I would end by talking about what I plan
Speaker 1: on doing once I have shoveled off this mortal coil
Speaker 1: go ahead. So the joke answer, which I would never
Speaker 1: really do, but I like to joke about it, is
Speaker 1: that I have a little bit of a reputation for
Speaker 1: occasionally irritating my wife. And so I said, what would
Speaker 1: be a way that I could continue to do that
Speaker 1: even after I'm dead? And I thought, what would what
Speaker 1: if I set aside a certain amount of money I
Speaker 1: had myself cremated, and that money goes to a person
Speaker 1: whose only job is to come into my house and
Speaker 1: hide my cremains in a different location each day, and
Speaker 1: before my wife is allowed to go to bed, she
Speaker 1: has to find me, and that way I can continue
Speaker 1: to irritate her even after I'm dead. That's very strange.
Speaker 1: I don't deny it, but for some reason it fills
Speaker 1: me with glee. Not that I would expect my wife
Speaker 1: to even entertains, yeah, I'm going to bed, but actually
Speaker 1: she'd be like, I'm not allowing someone into my house,
Speaker 1: which is a perfectly valid response. But no, what I
Speaker 1: really think I'm going to do. Is I really think
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave my my body to science. I
Speaker 1: think we donate my body to science. I have not
Speaker 1: filled up official paperwork which I really need to dose.
Speaker 1: I don't wonder if that means that you may eventually
Speaker 1: be subject to alkaline hydrolysis. If so, so be it.
Speaker 1: I honestly, first of all, I'm going to be beyond
Speaker 1: carrying at that point, so I don't have a personal
Speaker 1: issue that. Obviously it would be something I would have
Speaker 1: to talk with my my wife, because I do respect
Speaker 1: what she wants as well, and obviously it will be
Speaker 1: more for her benefit assuming I predecease my wife, which
Speaker 1: I certainly hope that's the case, because I can't bear
Speaker 1: the thought of the alternative. But yeah, I would certainly
Speaker 1: be something I would talk with her about first. But
Speaker 1: personally that that's like my first choice because I like
Speaker 1: the idea of continuing to contribute in some small way
Speaker 1: to educating future generations. Consider that to be part of
Speaker 1: what I do here. Like it's a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: but I enjoy the idea. I get satisfaction the thought
Speaker 1: that we help educate people, um, not just entertain them,
Speaker 1: but teach them. And to do that after I'm alive,
Speaker 1: you know, once I've gone and passed away. Uh really
Speaker 1: just feeds back into that philosophy. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: why I look toward it. If I didn't do that,
Speaker 1: I think the natural burial is the way I would
Speaker 1: want to go. It was really appealing to me, uh
Speaker 1: very much. So like before I heard about natural burials,
Speaker 1: I was I was leaning much more toward cremation because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to take up space. I'm very I'm
Speaker 1: already very aware of too much taking up too much
Speaker 1: space when I'm in areas. I'm like, I'm constantly apologizing.
Speaker 1: I don't want to feel like that after I'm dead. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we've spent our whole lives extracting energy resources from
Speaker 1: the life all around us in our environment. It seems
Speaker 1: only fair that we should allow them to turn around
Speaker 1: and do the same thing back to us. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: uh yeah, that's that I just thought would conclude with that,
Speaker 1: And you also got some insight into my twisted sense
Speaker 1: of humor with what I if if all things were
Speaker 1: were according to my my design, do you do do
Speaker 1: you have plans to that you would like to share
Speaker 1: with the audience. I guess not in particular, except I've
Speaker 1: had the same thought. Really, I mean, I like the idea.
Speaker 1: I don't have particular attachment to the use of a
Speaker 1: dead body after the person is dead, and so I
Speaker 1: think it would be if if it can be made
Speaker 1: use of for medical reasons or for medical research, any
Speaker 1: kind of scientific research. I think that's a good thing
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah. Absolutely, Yes, I agree with you guys.
Speaker 1: Although I'm pretty excited about this. This freezing and shuttering. Sweet,
Speaker 1: that's pretty rad Like if if if I can't help science,
Speaker 1: then I would like to be frozen in shatter. That's
Speaker 1: that's fair. It's pretty dramatic, that would be. I think
Speaker 1: that'd be you know, that's a dramatic way to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I find a lot of these alternatives very la. You
Speaker 1: need to help defeat that cremation lobby that's keeping it down. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: ice rather than fire. And yes, somewhere somewhere someone can
Speaker 1: can can put up a memorial or tombstone with the
Speaker 1: Robert Frost poem on it. It'll be great. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the only thing, Like I think, would I want any
Speaker 1: physical Marker and Uh. At this point, I think I've
Speaker 1: done enough that's on the Internet that I feel that
Speaker 1: would be It's yeah, that's enough for me. The question
Speaker 1: is again for for those who love me, if they
Speaker 1: want to place to associate uh, then that would be
Speaker 1: more for them than obviously for me. Uh. Otherwise, I'm
Speaker 1: fine with with not leaving anything else, just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who existed. Uh. You know, I have
Speaker 1: no romantic notion about that, although it wouldn't mean that
Speaker 1: I would deny someone the opportunity to do what I
Speaker 1: did to Thomas Hardy's great. All right, On that note,
Speaker 1: I'm going to wrap this up. Guys. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode of forward thinking, let us know. If you
Speaker 1: have questions, send them in. If you want to know
Speaker 1: what I did to Thomas Hardy, I'll tell you. But
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