#610 Quiet Eternal Rest

So the other day I’m driving by a cemetery. I had just come from one of those new urban density housing developments.
And I was struck by a revelation.
We’re having to pack people together more when they’re alive because we’re running out of room. How about when people are dead?
That old plot may just be taking up too much valuable real estate. Especially since cemeteries were once on the edge of towns and now the towns have grown up to surround them.
It had me worried. Then, as I kept driving I happened by this huge golf course. Green lawns as far as the eye could see.
And not a tombstone on ‘em.
Hmmm.
I’m thinking maybe there’s a solution lurking near the surface of this one. The words “grass roots campaign” and “groundswell of public opinion” come to mind.
Or maybe even a new type of monumental hazard for a golf course.
But at least we have it better than the Hindus. Apparently, the traditional Hindu send off to the next life is with a funeral pyre. Word has it the demand for funeral pyres is deforesting India.
Yes, India still has forests.
It turns out burning a deceased individual in the traditional Hindu manner uses up about 600 to 1,000 pounds of wood. With 8 million Hindus jumping off the wheel a year that translates into 50 million trees annually.
That in turn means 500,000 tons of ashes to haul and 8 million tons of carbon dioxide. One ton of carbon dioxide per person.
Great.
As if global warning wasn’t bad enough, what with automobiles and cow flatulence, now we got to worry about burning Hindus too.
The Indian government actually offers environmentally friendly gas-powered crematoriums but only the poorest pass the torch that way. Most observant Hindus insist on wood.
Wouldn’t you, if your religion called for a special type of burial?
Before you scoff at the Hindus, remember that the Catholic management has been fighting birth control for centuries. And the population explosion is behind a lot of problems, from poverty to smog to global warming to urban overcrowding.
To, um, lack of space to bury people in the ground.
America, ya gotta love it