Is nursing homes, and billions of dollars in medical services to extend life just a little bit longer, not always extending quality of life, just the living itself, really sustainable? Or practical?

Currently there is an intentional community in Costa Rica forming to tackle this very problem. How do we die in a sustainable, and personally rewarding way?

Hoped this article would look at the personal side of death rather than just the monetary side of it. What does death look like in a sustainable world? Does it include biometric devices? (such as my pacemaker?) Or should we even have those if in the long run they may prove harmful to the environment etc?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B04IQ20091201

(Hat tip to Clayton Walls for highlighting this “green” approach to death)

Yes, you’re right, to suggest that we avoid being distracted by gimmicks. The original post about death and its environmental impact was not a gimmick, however, there are serious issues as outlined above regarding waste and materials. Yes, chemical leaching from buried remains is probably minimal.

However, the idyllic idea of everyone opting for a simple self-sufficient life is a pipedream. There are likely to be ten billion people within the next couple of decades, they cannot possibly all live such a life. Moreover, a lot of people don’t want to live a simple life, they like the complexities of the industrialized world.

But, even those that have a choice face problems such as malaria, famine, flood, earthquakes, AIDS, arsenic poisoning, and countless other essentially natural problems that no amount of spiritualism can counter.

Science and technology do not offer perfect answers and certainly some of our modern problems have arisen because of the greed of those who wield them, but abandoning understanding, rational thought, and logic in favour of some Utopian dream is not going to feed the world or address the problems of disease, climate change and imminent major water shortages.

Only simple living can reduce this pollution to 10%. Maybe a new idea for research, yet these are only gimmicks as we are neither united nor seriously thinking of the real causes of concerns to the life of future generations.

See the life run of a self sufficient family in an Indian village. They will be causing no environmental issues, rather using their own wastes. Why are we closing our eyes to the real threats. Perhaps we think them insurmountable due to corporate gangsterism. Actually every one of us wants a happy life for him at present, so we feel, let us forget the future, who knows, what, how and where things will be.

Next will see and bear for themselves. We feel that science will surmount the present problems and make the future safe. I heavily believe that science is creating and keep on creating more issues and concerns and instead of solving these the threat will be increasing to a stage of self dissolution of mankind. Mankind has been made and is becoming too selfish with scientific development of modern amenities, we are forced to leave our spiritual side slowly that the feeling of its loss is being lost. Our direction to destruction is proceeding without noticing it.

So, I plead that we should not be lost in gimmicks but unite & combine to upfront the real issues of modern amenities, and change our life to simplicity where nature plays more role than science in our lives.

Awesome Blog. I found you from your post on Ari Writer.com

Thanks for sharing such good infomation that made me want to click on your link to your site/

I find it fascinating. Good content is always the main reason people keep coming back. Keep up the good work.

Best Regards,

Juliet

As to removing components. I suspect that’s not something that undertakers would do on a deadline, ripping out hip replacements, metal cranial plates and the like is going to mean a lot of patching up above and beyond…but that was my allusion to the WEEE regulations.

* And are amalgam fillings even a problem under burial conditions? Do they do anything at all to raise toxic mercury compound concentrations above background levels?