Sympathies,solidarity and best wishes to all our friends.Death is a great
mystery and its often mystified further by godbotherers and the states
various monopolies.
To reclaim self management over our forests and our lives we still have
to fight on all fronts.I don't mean to sound insensitive but this is an
important story in a world with over 6 billion of us and pressures
increasing on land everywhere.
PARIS--A Swedish ecologist is proposing the ultimate in
environmentally-friendly funerals: having your body freeze-dried and then
shattered into dust to help fertilize the soil.
Susanne Wiigh-Masak, an environmental consultant, has tested her
technique on dead pigs and cats, which were lowered in a bath of liquid
nitrogen for instant freezing, the British weekly New Scientist reports
in next Saturday's issue.
During their immersion, the cadavers were bombarded with ultrasound waves
to crack open the tissues to let the nitrogen work right to the core. The
frozen bodies shattered into a powder with the tap of a hammer.
"What you are left with is a hygienic, odorless powder that is less
than one percent water," Wiigh-Masak says.
Her plan is to use the same technique on human bodies.
According to her calculation, a human corpse would be reduced to
freeze-dried powder about a quarter of the original weight.
It would then be placed in a biodegradable coffin and buried in a shallow
grave, where it would quickly provide nutrition for the soil.
The freeze-dried funeral has distinct environmental advantages over
traditional departures, argues Wiigh-Masak.
Cremation uses up fossil fuels, thus contributing to global warming, and
often releases chemicals into the atmosphere, such as mercury vapor from
dental fillings. Burials, too, can be a pollution risk, as many bodies
are embalmed in formaldehyde, which can leak into groundwater.
A corpse buried in a coffin can take up to 60 years to decompose, whereas
the freeze-dried way returns all organic compounds to the soil within six
months, Wiigh-Masak says proudly.
Wiigh-Masak hopes that the laws will be relaxed to allow freeze-drying.
The Church of Sweden, a branch of Protestantism, has already given its
blessing.
"My method is very close to their reading of the Bible," she
says. Agence France-Presse
http://www.inq7.net/inf/2001/oct/02/inf_6-1.htm
Again I am sorry if I offend anyone (except religious fruitcakes and statists)My deepest sympathies and solidarity again in this trying time.
