Environment

Green-mania has been with us for a while, and in the People's Republic of Boulder you can never be green enough. From what we eat, drink, drive, wear, or use to bathe; saving the environment from the ravages inflicted by mankind is the ultimate 24-7-365 challenge. The current issue of Boulder Weekly explains, however, that greenology is no longer only a calling we must answer every day of our life. Now, we are called to go to the grave green, too.

Shame is always the tool of choice to coerce the resistant among us to change our anti-earth ways. You know that guilty feeling like when you fail to recycle a newspaper, take your SUV on bike-to-work day, take your groceries home in plastic instead of paper bags, or eat a non-organic hot dog at Coors Field. Well, that same sense of self-disgusting mortification now applies to the afterlife.

According to the Boulder Weekly, for example, "A ten-acre swatch of cemetery ground will contain enough coffin wood to construct more than 40 homes, nearly a thousand tons of casket steel and another 20,000 tons of concrete for vaults." As if that weren't enough of a heavy burden to lay on your already guilty conscience for past anti-green indiscretions, almost a million gallons of embalming fluid is buried along with the deceased across North America each year. There is no evidence that this creates any real threat to the environment, but that's beside the point.

Lest you may be thinking that cremation may be a more environmentally friendly option for committing you or your loved one to eternity, you guessed wrong. Did you know that "the amount of non-renewable fossil fuel needed to cremate bodies in North America is equivalent to a car making 84 trips to the Moon and back each year?" The Boulder Weekly fails to mention what kind of car the calculation is based upon, or why "Moon" is capitalized – although that is probably obvious to most Boulder residents.

The startling, guilt laden facts about the two prevailing options for dealing with one's last remains provides the set up for the probing thesis of the article, "In life, humans struggle to leave this world a better place than we found it. In our final act on this planet, is there a way for us to accomplish that noble goal in death as well?"

Fortunately, the Boulder Weekly found and provides the enquiring minds who make up their readership (no, I'm not a regular) with an answer, and not surprisingly it is known as a "green burial."

At a place called Ramsey Creek in South Carolina where the owners are dedicated to a "higher purpose" just such an earth-friendly experience can be found and it is entirely au naturale. "Unembalmed bodies fertilize the soil and provide nutrients for trees and plants. Only biodegradable caskets or shrouds are allowed, and graves may be marked with a flat stone of native geological makeup." Isn't that a lovely thought?

Consistent with the Greening of Mother Earth, several green cemeteries already exist and more are on the way. And not surprisingly, in Boulder a non-profit agency, Natural Transitions, is open for business "to reclaim after-death care for families and communities, educating and empowering them to make choices that are more meaningful affordable and environmentally conscious." Now, that's fulfilling a high priority national need if ever there was one, and clearly deserving of tax-exempt non-profit protection.

"There's something so elegant about giving your body back to the earth," according to Kimberly Campbell, the owner of Ramsey Creek. Well, maybe, but it might be a little unsettling to realize that the reason for those thick, lush, bright green clumps of grass in the cemetery is the same as it is in the dog's back yard – occasional concentrated deposits of fertilizer.