Unfortunately the opulent coffin chosen by Michael Jackson’s family to bury the King of Pop is about as ungreen as you can get. Made from bronze and coated in gold, the estimated US$24,300 Promethean coffin, from the Batesville Casket Company, is built to last and impress rather than biodegrade.
Mainstream funerals have significant impact on the environment from the overuse of endangered woods, toxic finishes on the coffins, the cement vaults, embalming chemicals, chemically treated lawns, and pesticide-covered flowers. The Natural Burial Cemetery explains that each year US cemeteries bury an estimated 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, 90,272 tons of steel (caskets), 2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets), 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults), 14,000 tons of steel (vaults) and 30-plus million board feet of hardwoods.
However, green burial and eco funeral options are becoming more commonplace. Green funeral advocates suggest using simple, non-chemically treated sustainable-farmed wood boxes or coffins and urns made from biodegradable materials. If using wood is an important part of the grieving process, consider opting for wood certified by the Canadian Stewardship Council.
Coffin and urn makers are looking for more sustainable options with coffins and burial urns constructed from recycled newspaper, cardboard, water hyacinth or banana leaf. Some of the green coffins and urn styles are lined with unbleached organic cotton, and urns are impregnated with flower seeds or tree seeds.
Resources
Eco-Pod: http://www.ecopod.co.uk/
Daisy Coffins: http://www.daisycoffins.com/
Comments (8)
First- I am a cemetery worker who owns a Green Burial company and working to hard to educate the Funeral Industry and the public to make this choice available.
Michael Jackson's funeral so globally highly visible was non the less a very typical African American funeral.
African American funerals are very large, highly glamourous, extremely spiritual , highly respectful and spare no expense no matter what.(I have seen people bring in paper sacks full of cash to the funeral home collected from an entire neighborhood to pay for the very best casket for someone Mother.)
I think Michael Jackson's funeral and the casket choices made for him were perfectly appropriate for his stature , extremely succesful global life and his African American culture.
Just as an observed Hindu cremation is perfect for that culture, a Muslim shroud burial sitting up facing Mecca is perfect and a Green burial in a meadow in a natural shroud is perfect for the person choosing it.
Green Burial is about making this choice available to those who want it - NOT about conversion.
An elderly Catholic Italian matriarch is NEVER going to choose to go straight into the ground wrapped naked in a biodegradable shroud - but her granddaughter might.
People like myself are working hard to have Green choices available to people in terms of cemeteries , products and funeral practices to people who choose it.
written by shroudwoman , July 08, 2009
Michael Jackson's funeral so globally highly visible was non the less a very typical African American funeral.
African American funerals are very large, highly glamourous, extremely spiritual , highly respectful and spare no expense no matter what.(I have seen people bring in paper sacks full of cash to the funeral home collected from an entire neighborhood to pay for the very best casket for someone Mother.)
I think Michael Jackson's funeral and the casket choices made for him were perfectly appropriate for his stature , extremely succesful global life and his African American culture.
Just as an observed Hindu cremation is perfect for that culture, a Muslim shroud burial sitting up facing Mecca is perfect and a Green burial in a meadow in a natural shroud is perfect for the person choosing it.
Green Burial is about making this choice available to those who want it - NOT about conversion.
An elderly Catholic Italian matriarch is NEVER going to choose to go straight into the ground wrapped naked in a biodegradable shroud - but her granddaughter might.
People like myself are working hard to have Green choices available to people in terms of cemeteries , products and funeral practices to people who choose it.
written by shroudwoman , July 08, 2009
Hi there,
I founded the Natural Burial Company (I think you meant that instead of "Natural Burial Cemetery" above for your citation) and want to both thank you for your article and support Shroudwoman in her comments above.
She's right with her perspective of "different strokes for different folks." But the most important issue she raises for me is the importance of choice -- and that's where Green Muze comes in.
Most of us don't have the natural option even presented to us - we're give a narrow list of choices and if we want to express our love or respect we're told that money, as represented in the price of the coffin, is the way to do that.
Worse, when we belong to a particular ethnic group we can be stuffed into a box by even well-meaning people. I've been told recently that blacks and hispanics will never want our woven or natural coffins, because they rely on material status symbols to offset the discrimination they experienced as minorities in their lives.
However, demographer Paul Ray identified a distinct group of people he called "the Cultural Creatives" that want environmentally friendly options in their lives, and this group completely transcended racial, gender, education, and economic classifications that are normally used to segment us. Further, this study was done in the 90's and it suggested that anywhere from a quarter to a third of us fall into this class. I think he was right, and so we want to remind people that racial stereotypes may be dominant, but 25-30% of ANY group is a pretty big group, and those folks ought to be supported by the systems that serve our shared country.
Therefore, I think it's important to hold in mind:
1) Until natural options are presented to us in EVERY major walk of life, there aren't enough natural choices out there and people who are "sick of green" should just chill for a bit til the natural choices can get caught up (over 80% of burial caskets sold in this country are metal, with poly-based interiors, and most of those are imported, only sometimes with parts assembled here in the US)
2) All of us would do well to practice going softly with racial assumptions, especially those in the funeral services sector where generalizations tend to prevail.
3) Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution, and any religious preference for burial should be currently honored by ALL publicly supported cemeteries. This means that Muslims should be able to have a shroud burial in any cemetery; it means that Jews should be able to have a vault-free burial in any cemetery; it means that Pagans (supported now by the Veterans Administration with their own religious symbol on Vets' plaques) should be able to be buried in a forest. All those traditions just happen to be natural, and so we think there's every reason to believe that some of these options will even be mandatory, on religious grounds, in just a few short years.
BTW - A classy options WAS available to Jackson, as you pointed out. The Gold Ecopod you show above actually WOULD have been perfect, in many ways - it's got great style, it's an art-sculpture made from handmade recycled paper, and the hand-rubbed gold-leaf that covers the recycled silk paper on its outer shell will be reincorporated back into the soil much more easily than plate metal. For those who complain about the imported carbon footprint of our UK products (where the movement is going strong) it's much less than someone flying in for the funeral and can be easily offset with tree plantings.
Very prominent people have been buried or cremated in Ecopods, expressing to friends and family that their sense of style and humor lives on, even if their body hasn't. We don't disclose who they are for reasons of privacy, but "natural" is coming, and inspirational coffins like the Ecopod or the Kinkarako Shroud (what Shroudwoman makes and sells) help everyone think about it all quite differently...
written by Cynthia Beal , July 08, 2009
I founded the Natural Burial Company (I think you meant that instead of "Natural Burial Cemetery" above for your citation) and want to both thank you for your article and support Shroudwoman in her comments above.
She's right with her perspective of "different strokes for different folks." But the most important issue she raises for me is the importance of choice -- and that's where Green Muze comes in.
Most of us don't have the natural option even presented to us - we're give a narrow list of choices and if we want to express our love or respect we're told that money, as represented in the price of the coffin, is the way to do that.
Worse, when we belong to a particular ethnic group we can be stuffed into a box by even well-meaning people. I've been told recently that blacks and hispanics will never want our woven or natural coffins, because they rely on material status symbols to offset the discrimination they experienced as minorities in their lives.
However, demographer Paul Ray identified a distinct group of people he called "the Cultural Creatives" that want environmentally friendly options in their lives, and this group completely transcended racial, gender, education, and economic classifications that are normally used to segment us. Further, this study was done in the 90's and it suggested that anywhere from a quarter to a third of us fall into this class. I think he was right, and so we want to remind people that racial stereotypes may be dominant, but 25-30% of ANY group is a pretty big group, and those folks ought to be supported by the systems that serve our shared country.
Therefore, I think it's important to hold in mind:
1) Until natural options are presented to us in EVERY major walk of life, there aren't enough natural choices out there and people who are "sick of green" should just chill for a bit til the natural choices can get caught up (over 80% of burial caskets sold in this country are metal, with poly-based interiors, and most of those are imported, only sometimes with parts assembled here in the US)
2) All of us would do well to practice going softly with racial assumptions, especially those in the funeral services sector where generalizations tend to prevail.
3) Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution, and any religious preference for burial should be currently honored by ALL publicly supported cemeteries. This means that Muslims should be able to have a shroud burial in any cemetery; it means that Jews should be able to have a vault-free burial in any cemetery; it means that Pagans (supported now by the Veterans Administration with their own religious symbol on Vets' plaques) should be able to be buried in a forest. All those traditions just happen to be natural, and so we think there's every reason to believe that some of these options will even be mandatory, on religious grounds, in just a few short years.
BTW - A classy options WAS available to Jackson, as you pointed out. The Gold Ecopod you show above actually WOULD have been perfect, in many ways - it's got great style, it's an art-sculpture made from handmade recycled paper, and the hand-rubbed gold-leaf that covers the recycled silk paper on its outer shell will be reincorporated back into the soil much more easily than plate metal. For those who complain about the imported carbon footprint of our UK products (where the movement is going strong) it's much less than someone flying in for the funeral and can be easily offset with tree plantings.
Very prominent people have been buried or cremated in Ecopods, expressing to friends and family that their sense of style and humor lives on, even if their body hasn't. We don't disclose who they are for reasons of privacy, but "natural" is coming, and inspirational coffins like the Ecopod or the Kinkarako Shroud (what Shroudwoman makes and sells) help everyone think about it all quite differently...
written by Cynthia Beal , July 08, 2009
did they do this to elvis ???
written by unknown , July 08, 2009
written by unknown , July 08, 2009
You beat me to it! When I saw Michael's Jackson's funeral on TV, I also thought , "Wow, THE anti-green burial par excellence". That casket, that motorcade!
I agree with all that Shroudwoman and Cynthia have said and I have something to add.
In the microcosm of burial and cemeteries, more immediate and personally relevant considerations than environmental effects are present. In the last moments of Michael Jackson's world, as well as that of his millions of mourners, the environment was non-existent. This is understandable for mourners, or for someone considering their own final arrangements: the end of a life is no light matter, and for the majority, the environment will always be secondary, maybe the last thing they care about at that point. In ultimate situations, people follow what they believe in, they don’t give a damn about what they are told or forced to do. Hence the only real solution for green burials would be to gradually change the predominating beliefs so that people do the "right thing" willingly, almost instinctively at the moment of crisis.
Such a change will not come about by simplistic "holier-than-thou" green dogma, public indoctrination with the 3-R's, renewable energy, green-industry, etc - or, in the case of green burial, citing fearful statistics about how much formaldehyde and concrete goes into the earth etc. Instead of fear-based negative preaching, green burial should be presented in positive terms of higher human integration into natural cycles, including the non-material spiritual aspects, indeed based on them. Almost all traditional religions (even nature-hostile Christianity in its original form) integrated man far more effectively into the environment than we will ever do with our technical "environmentalism" – so too, our world will only reintegrate itself properly into the earth’s processes if it finds a “higher” reason to do so and then works downwards from the spiritual belief to the material action. The environmental benefits will then be positive side-effects of a different worldview, and not the primary goal.
Death, burials and funeral rituals may present a place for such a worldview to grow. There is no more personal form of recycling than “dust to dust”. To a limited degree, the green burial movement speaks of this. But it should go further and emphasize that our recycled “dust” goes to create new life, and that, in cycles of birth, death and rebirth for as long as the earth exists. All this only on a material level – more importantly, the infinite natural cycles of death and resurrection could lead us to new prospects regarding our own souls, that old forgotten concept in our mundane and nihilistic world.
But for this to happen, we have to integrate the human aspect better than the green burial movement currently does, make it the primary consideration again, and not merely a means to realize an environmental goal.
I thus find the image of a garden more appropriate for green cemeteries than a forest. A forest exists independently of humans, a garden on the other hand exists for and requires humans. Nevertheless it exhibits all the birth, death and resurrection of nature. The only question is of the degree of human involvement in the garden’s formation and maintenance. This is a matter of taste. In our world, where Man’s interference with nature has been radically overdone, a lesser degree of artificiality would be attractive. A Japanese garden for example, where nature’s owns forms are used to go even beyond naturally manifesting beauty.
Michael Jackson’s funeral (and his life for that matter) exhibited all the worst nature- and death-denying aspects of our artificial world. However, the incredible level of interest in his funeral – as in those of in other prominents like Lady Diana, Ronald Reagan, etc - shows that the problem of our mortality is as acute as ever it was in history. We are too afraid to face the fact of our own mortality directly, hence these celebrity deaths become mirrors in which we can work through the problem indirectly, without fear. Far from being disinterested in death and funerals, we are fascinated.
Beautiful garden cemeteries that had NOTHING of the hopeless and morbid atmosphere of traditional western centuries might be another place where we could come to terms with our mortality. Their “greenness” would be a positive side-effect, or a concession to the real needs of an overpopulated and overstressed environment, but not the main thing.
Thomas Friese
http://perpetuasgarden.org
written by Thomas Friese , July 09, 2009
I agree with all that Shroudwoman and Cynthia have said and I have something to add.
In the microcosm of burial and cemeteries, more immediate and personally relevant considerations than environmental effects are present. In the last moments of Michael Jackson's world, as well as that of his millions of mourners, the environment was non-existent. This is understandable for mourners, or for someone considering their own final arrangements: the end of a life is no light matter, and for the majority, the environment will always be secondary, maybe the last thing they care about at that point. In ultimate situations, people follow what they believe in, they don’t give a damn about what they are told or forced to do. Hence the only real solution for green burials would be to gradually change the predominating beliefs so that people do the "right thing" willingly, almost instinctively at the moment of crisis.
Such a change will not come about by simplistic "holier-than-thou" green dogma, public indoctrination with the 3-R's, renewable energy, green-industry, etc - or, in the case of green burial, citing fearful statistics about how much formaldehyde and concrete goes into the earth etc. Instead of fear-based negative preaching, green burial should be presented in positive terms of higher human integration into natural cycles, including the non-material spiritual aspects, indeed based on them. Almost all traditional religions (even nature-hostile Christianity in its original form) integrated man far more effectively into the environment than we will ever do with our technical "environmentalism" – so too, our world will only reintegrate itself properly into the earth’s processes if it finds a “higher” reason to do so and then works downwards from the spiritual belief to the material action. The environmental benefits will then be positive side-effects of a different worldview, and not the primary goal.
Death, burials and funeral rituals may present a place for such a worldview to grow. There is no more personal form of recycling than “dust to dust”. To a limited degree, the green burial movement speaks of this. But it should go further and emphasize that our recycled “dust” goes to create new life, and that, in cycles of birth, death and rebirth for as long as the earth exists. All this only on a material level – more importantly, the infinite natural cycles of death and resurrection could lead us to new prospects regarding our own souls, that old forgotten concept in our mundane and nihilistic world.
But for this to happen, we have to integrate the human aspect better than the green burial movement currently does, make it the primary consideration again, and not merely a means to realize an environmental goal.
I thus find the image of a garden more appropriate for green cemeteries than a forest. A forest exists independently of humans, a garden on the other hand exists for and requires humans. Nevertheless it exhibits all the birth, death and resurrection of nature. The only question is of the degree of human involvement in the garden’s formation and maintenance. This is a matter of taste. In our world, where Man’s interference with nature has been radically overdone, a lesser degree of artificiality would be attractive. A Japanese garden for example, where nature’s owns forms are used to go even beyond naturally manifesting beauty.
Michael Jackson’s funeral (and his life for that matter) exhibited all the worst nature- and death-denying aspects of our artificial world. However, the incredible level of interest in his funeral – as in those of in other prominents like Lady Diana, Ronald Reagan, etc - shows that the problem of our mortality is as acute as ever it was in history. We are too afraid to face the fact of our own mortality directly, hence these celebrity deaths become mirrors in which we can work through the problem indirectly, without fear. Far from being disinterested in death and funerals, we are fascinated.
Beautiful garden cemeteries that had NOTHING of the hopeless and morbid atmosphere of traditional western centuries might be another place where we could come to terms with our mortality. Their “greenness” would be a positive side-effect, or a concession to the real needs of an overpopulated and overstressed environment, but not the main thing.
Thomas Friese
http://perpetuasgarden.org
written by Thomas Friese , July 09, 2009
Part 1 - my reply to Thomas's great points is too long!
This comment is posted in full at
http://www.beatree.com/2007/12/the-be-a-tree-q.html?cid=6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b#comment-6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b
Hi Thomas -
I agree with you about the shortcomings of the current "green burial" movement. Where I part company with you is your statement that a forest is independent of humans. Ursula LeGuinn has a book that always stuck with me - 'the Word for World is Forest' - and the loss of the forest, and our lives within it, may be one of the greatest tragedies of all time. I grew up in a modern house, in a forest...forests and people can co-exist.
Gardens take a lot of tending - forests, by their nature, replicate the full sheltering and watering system that the widest variety of plants need in order to thrive. A forest edge - where sunlight meets shade - supports the most complex array of life's expression.
It's my hope that natural burial re-inspires the forest muse again, and that we see the return of the forest back into the inner workings of our cities. Natural cemeteries, with their initial funding stream when loss is fresh and we're willing to spend money to express that loss, hold potential for cities to afford greenspace.
A "garden" implies a lot of tending. Tending costs money. The Victorian era of intense memorialization separated out the rich and the poor with their "gardens" of stone. The stone lasted longer and was cheaper to maintain than the flowers, until the family members forgot or moved away and the stone toppled and the taxpayers had to foot the bill for maintaining the stone in perpetuity, or until someone got up the nerve to turn the stone back to a wall or path paver and re-use the grave. London in the 1850's tells that story well.
Check out the pics and docs at http://site.baysidecemeterylitigation.com/ to see what the future holds for urban cemeteries that go untended (and the taxpayers and families that have to argue about them)
One of the main features of natural cemetery management is its focus on using nature's own systems to save time, energy, and money. The argument asks "why spend money on the dead when the living are suffering?"
We chould spend a little more money, now, and regenerate our cities' cemeteries so that they use less money and resource down the road, and add all the additional values I describe in "Be a Tree" and elsewhere.
Forests are the core of natural systems on landmasses on planet Earth. Trees bring rain and save water. Trees use up bone. Trees house creatures. Trees give oxygen. Trees recover old industrial land. If you want to compare the 'housing value' of a forest to a garden, a forest wins any day.
I do think the 'garden' has emotional appeal, like the 'preserve'. That emotional appeal will sway a certain group of people and is just as necessary as the 'preservists' in motivating change. That's important work and I'm glad you and others are doing it.
But if it's really about respect - then returning homes to the living creatures that made the world that first made us is one of the most meaningful ways to honor the world of Life that we've all had the blessing to experience.
The Japanese suggest a kind of mastery is evidenced when natural systems are understood, and when our human-built things express our understanding of nature by using natural systems rather than fighting them.
Gardens - managed arenas that grow tightly along a particular design - are often highly manipulated systems of living energy. They do express well the lives of some people and, for those who have the money, gardens will - and are - an option. Indeed, many cemeteries now are already beautiful gardens, and consume a lot of time and resources in their care.
I think that the key point of natural burial is a minimization of resource consumption in memory of ourselves and our dead. It's a vanity to assume that future generations will be obligated to water and weed your grave forever - as if somehow the life you lived is worth requiring people forever to tend your plot.
That vanity is expensive and, for a lot of people who buy graves in modern cemeteries, embarrassing once they realize the work they'll be forcing others to do forever. Once the cemetery is full, the private owners will be long gone with the profits - bankrupted, cemetery abandoned - and the problem of what to do with the cemetery will still be there.
Continued on below....
written by Cynthia Beal , July 14, 2009
This comment is posted in full at
http://www.beatree.com/2007/12/the-be-a-tree-q.html?cid=6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b#comment-6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b
Hi Thomas -
I agree with you about the shortcomings of the current "green burial" movement. Where I part company with you is your statement that a forest is independent of humans. Ursula LeGuinn has a book that always stuck with me - 'the Word for World is Forest' - and the loss of the forest, and our lives within it, may be one of the greatest tragedies of all time. I grew up in a modern house, in a forest...forests and people can co-exist.
Gardens take a lot of tending - forests, by their nature, replicate the full sheltering and watering system that the widest variety of plants need in order to thrive. A forest edge - where sunlight meets shade - supports the most complex array of life's expression.
It's my hope that natural burial re-inspires the forest muse again, and that we see the return of the forest back into the inner workings of our cities. Natural cemeteries, with their initial funding stream when loss is fresh and we're willing to spend money to express that loss, hold potential for cities to afford greenspace.
A "garden" implies a lot of tending. Tending costs money. The Victorian era of intense memorialization separated out the rich and the poor with their "gardens" of stone. The stone lasted longer and was cheaper to maintain than the flowers, until the family members forgot or moved away and the stone toppled and the taxpayers had to foot the bill for maintaining the stone in perpetuity, or until someone got up the nerve to turn the stone back to a wall or path paver and re-use the grave. London in the 1850's tells that story well.
Check out the pics and docs at http://site.baysidecemeterylitigation.com/ to see what the future holds for urban cemeteries that go untended (and the taxpayers and families that have to argue about them)
One of the main features of natural cemetery management is its focus on using nature's own systems to save time, energy, and money. The argument asks "why spend money on the dead when the living are suffering?"
We chould spend a little more money, now, and regenerate our cities' cemeteries so that they use less money and resource down the road, and add all the additional values I describe in "Be a Tree" and elsewhere.
Forests are the core of natural systems on landmasses on planet Earth. Trees bring rain and save water. Trees use up bone. Trees house creatures. Trees give oxygen. Trees recover old industrial land. If you want to compare the 'housing value' of a forest to a garden, a forest wins any day.
I do think the 'garden' has emotional appeal, like the 'preserve'. That emotional appeal will sway a certain group of people and is just as necessary as the 'preservists' in motivating change. That's important work and I'm glad you and others are doing it.
But if it's really about respect - then returning homes to the living creatures that made the world that first made us is one of the most meaningful ways to honor the world of Life that we've all had the blessing to experience.
The Japanese suggest a kind of mastery is evidenced when natural systems are understood, and when our human-built things express our understanding of nature by using natural systems rather than fighting them.
Gardens - managed arenas that grow tightly along a particular design - are often highly manipulated systems of living energy. They do express well the lives of some people and, for those who have the money, gardens will - and are - an option. Indeed, many cemeteries now are already beautiful gardens, and consume a lot of time and resources in their care.
I think that the key point of natural burial is a minimization of resource consumption in memory of ourselves and our dead. It's a vanity to assume that future generations will be obligated to water and weed your grave forever - as if somehow the life you lived is worth requiring people forever to tend your plot.
That vanity is expensive and, for a lot of people who buy graves in modern cemeteries, embarrassing once they realize the work they'll be forcing others to do forever. Once the cemetery is full, the private owners will be long gone with the profits - bankrupted, cemetery abandoned - and the problem of what to do with the cemetery will still be there.
Continued on below....
written by Cynthia Beal , July 14, 2009
Part 2 (continued)
Comment posted in full at
http://www.beatree.com/2007/12/the-be-a-tree-q.html?cid=6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b#comment-6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b
...I agree with you that "green burial" has unfortunately become a funding mechanism for some conservation organizations, and that these groups (of which I'm a supporter because I do believe in the work in almost all its forms!) pride themselves on NOT being a cemetery, without focus on the normal ceremony currently conferred by our custom.
That's their marketing angle - the anti-cemetery - and I think it's right for the niche (whether it deserves federal funding via a non-profit 501c.3 OVER the conversion of an existing cemetery run by a broke municipality is another story. Once the efforts are equally funded and equally lauded I'll relax...)
But this is also EXACTLY what folks supporting this modality want - an anonymous return to nature with minimum impact to memory and resource - and to the extent that it removes a future taxpayer or environmental burden, it must be honored. It's actually my preferred style, too, but in deference to the needs of the larger society I find I must champion existing urban cemetery conversion above all else, until access for all is secured.
You might find its lack of memorialization personally offensive and "missing the point" yet one man's ceiling is another man's floor...
The burial preserve is not the only way to do this, however - it can be done with an existing Pioneer or churchyard cemetery, already in 'trust' and protected, without all the money spent on lawyers, conservation org by-laws, "certification", and meeting time on volunteer boards of directors that may or may not stay convened for 40-60-100 years. If all these costs were fully accounted for, and the natural burial preserve were compelled to do its books as thoroughly as a conventional cemetery and allocate perpetual grave costs properly, it's questionable whether or not a natural preserve burial would be as "economical" as its current billing suggests. I don't know - I've only done back-of-the-napkin math. But none of the preserves I've seen have offered the math publicly either, and I'm not involved with this part of the movement (I focus on biodegradable products, policy reform, and existing cemetery conversion) so I don't know how they're figuring costs yet.
I agree with you it's unfortunate the conservation aspect of the movement has clouded all others, because it's led to statements in the press like "there are only 12 places in North America where you can get a natural burial" so I'm glad to see you're holding forth. You must feel like a lone voice at times!
No matter if you're pro-memorial or ANTI-memorial - it's key to minimize resource use through sustainable cemetery management .
That means fully utilizing (and returning to use) EXISTING cemeteries so that they function with minimal cost to the community in perpetuity, as they're required by law in most countries to do - and I think that all cemeteries should be on a conversion track to sustainability within the next 5-10 years.
In addition to the human element, the cemetery must be considered coolly, from a 'balance-sheet' perspective, because - due to its permanent nature - it creates a liability on future generations that can't be ignored. Right now, we have cemeteries being abandoned and bankrupting - we'll see that more and more as the next decades unfold. To start new cemeteries before we fix the old ones makes no sense.
Thinking about this from an accounting point of view may not be the sexiest way to spend one's time, but if you're a municipal budget manager or a planning person in urban development you'll know EXACTLY how important this under-attended to task is!
To respect the use to which we put our descendants' time is one of the highest forms of respect we could confer. To leave the humans of the future with working social and cultural systems that function in accordance with the laws of nature (NOT collapsing vaults to maintain or elaborate gardens to water and trim) means that THEY can make music, do art, re-create, and have leisure to live their own time rather than being forced to do landscaping homage to ours - in other words, by limiting our legacy to that which can be run on natural systems, we free the future to experience life just as freely (or even more so) as we did.
What could be a better tribute to life - anyone's life - than that? (and yes, forests and gardens CAN get along... without trees, gardens would be hot and dry and very unhappy in a world that's several degrees hotter than it is now...)
in trees,
Cynthia Beal
http://www.naturalburialcompany.com
http://www.beatree.com
written by Cynthia Beal , July 14, 2009
Comment posted in full at
http://www.beatree.com/2007/12/the-be-a-tree-q.html?cid=6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b#comment-6a00d83534a43169e201157203a13b970b
...I agree with you that "green burial" has unfortunately become a funding mechanism for some conservation organizations, and that these groups (of which I'm a supporter because I do believe in the work in almost all its forms!) pride themselves on NOT being a cemetery, without focus on the normal ceremony currently conferred by our custom.
That's their marketing angle - the anti-cemetery - and I think it's right for the niche (whether it deserves federal funding via a non-profit 501c.3 OVER the conversion of an existing cemetery run by a broke municipality is another story. Once the efforts are equally funded and equally lauded I'll relax...)
But this is also EXACTLY what folks supporting this modality want - an anonymous return to nature with minimum impact to memory and resource - and to the extent that it removes a future taxpayer or environmental burden, it must be honored. It's actually my preferred style, too, but in deference to the needs of the larger society I find I must champion existing urban cemetery conversion above all else, until access for all is secured.
You might find its lack of memorialization personally offensive and "missing the point" yet one man's ceiling is another man's floor...
The burial preserve is not the only way to do this, however - it can be done with an existing Pioneer or churchyard cemetery, already in 'trust' and protected, without all the money spent on lawyers, conservation org by-laws, "certification", and meeting time on volunteer boards of directors that may or may not stay convened for 40-60-100 years. If all these costs were fully accounted for, and the natural burial preserve were compelled to do its books as thoroughly as a conventional cemetery and allocate perpetual grave costs properly, it's questionable whether or not a natural preserve burial would be as "economical" as its current billing suggests. I don't know - I've only done back-of-the-napkin math. But none of the preserves I've seen have offered the math publicly either, and I'm not involved with this part of the movement (I focus on biodegradable products, policy reform, and existing cemetery conversion) so I don't know how they're figuring costs yet.
I agree with you it's unfortunate the conservation aspect of the movement has clouded all others, because it's led to statements in the press like "there are only 12 places in North America where you can get a natural burial" so I'm glad to see you're holding forth. You must feel like a lone voice at times!
No matter if you're pro-memorial or ANTI-memorial - it's key to minimize resource use through sustainable cemetery management .
That means fully utilizing (and returning to use) EXISTING cemeteries so that they function with minimal cost to the community in perpetuity, as they're required by law in most countries to do - and I think that all cemeteries should be on a conversion track to sustainability within the next 5-10 years.
In addition to the human element, the cemetery must be considered coolly, from a 'balance-sheet' perspective, because - due to its permanent nature - it creates a liability on future generations that can't be ignored. Right now, we have cemeteries being abandoned and bankrupting - we'll see that more and more as the next decades unfold. To start new cemeteries before we fix the old ones makes no sense.
Thinking about this from an accounting point of view may not be the sexiest way to spend one's time, but if you're a municipal budget manager or a planning person in urban development you'll know EXACTLY how important this under-attended to task is!
To respect the use to which we put our descendants' time is one of the highest forms of respect we could confer. To leave the humans of the future with working social and cultural systems that function in accordance with the laws of nature (NOT collapsing vaults to maintain or elaborate gardens to water and trim) means that THEY can make music, do art, re-create, and have leisure to live their own time rather than being forced to do landscaping homage to ours - in other words, by limiting our legacy to that which can be run on natural systems, we free the future to experience life just as freely (or even more so) as we did.
What could be a better tribute to life - anyone's life - than that? (and yes, forests and gardens CAN get along... without trees, gardens would be hot and dry and very unhappy in a world that's several degrees hotter than it is now...)
in trees,
Cynthia Beal
http://www.naturalburialcompany.com
http://www.beatree.com
written by Cynthia Beal , July 14, 2009
I think jacksons casket was fitting to his lifestyle. Now could we try to focus on the good that he did instead of what he's buried in?
written by avila40 , July 20, 2009
written by avila40 , July 20, 2009
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written by Chris , July 08, 2009