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	<title>Comments on: Can Death be Sustainable?</title>
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	<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html</link>
	<description>Science Blog from Freelance Science Writer David Bradley</description>
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		<title>By: David Bradley</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-4#comment-630759</link>
		<dc:creator>David Bradley</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:10:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630759</guid>
		<description>Interesting thoughts Ahmad. By the way I corrected the typos in your comment and broke it into more readable paragraphs.

Yes, you&#039;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&#039;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.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Interesting thoughts Ahmad. By the way I corrected the typos in your comment and broke it into more readable paragraphs.</p>
<p>Yes, you&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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&#8217;t want to live a simple life, they like the complexities of the industrialized world.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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		<title>By: H.Ahmad</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-4#comment-630758</link>
		<dc:creator>H.Ahmad</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:05:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630758</guid>
		<description>Being a chemist and understanding the chemistry and leaching of chemicals from dead bodies, it is perhaps one trillionth of the cause of environmental effects due to our modern way of life under capitalist systems.

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 &amp; 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.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Being a chemist and understanding the chemistry and leaching of chemicals from dead bodies, it is perhaps one trillionth of the cause of environmental effects due to our modern way of life under capitalist systems.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>So, I plead that we should not be lost in gimmicks but unite &#038; 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.</p>
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		<title>By: Juliet</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-630701</link>
		<dc:creator>Juliet</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:54:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630701</guid>
		<description>David,

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</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>David,</p>
<p>Awesome Blog.  I found you from your post on Ari Writer.com</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing such good infomation that made me want to click on your link to your site/  </p>
<p>I find it fascinating.  Good content is always the main reason people keep coming back.  Keep up the good work.</p>
<p>Best Regards,</p>
<p>Juliet</p>
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		<title>By: Beatrice Lugger</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-634991</link>
		<dc:creator>Beatrice Lugger</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:26:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-634991</guid>
		<description>&lt;span class=&quot;topsy_trackback_comment&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;topsy_twitter_username&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;topsy_trackback_content&quot;&gt;we  must consider the environmental ethics of death - can death be sustainable? http://is.gd/Pqdw&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="topsy_trackback_comment"><span class="topsy_twitter_username"><span class="topsy_trackback_content">we  must consider the environmental ethics of death &#8211; can death be sustainable? <a href="http://is.gd/Pqdw" rel="nofollow">http://is.gd/Pqdw</a></span></span></span></p>
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		<title>By: David Bradley</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-630685</link>
		<dc:creator>David Bradley</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:15:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630685</guid>
		<description>@August It&#039;s not the leaching of embalming fluid that&#039;s the chemical problem! The embalming issue is to do with the huge volumes of embalming fluid that have to be manufactured in the first place, which uses energy and petroleum reserves, which are then buried or cremated. We&#039;re not concerned with &quot;pollution&quot; from embalming fluid.

As to removing components. I suspect that&#039;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.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>@August It&#8217;s not the leaching of embalming fluid that&#8217;s the chemical problem! The embalming issue is to do with the huge volumes of embalming fluid that have to be manufactured in the first place, which uses energy and petroleum reserves, which are then buried or cremated. We&#8217;re not concerned with &#8220;pollution&#8221; from embalming fluid.</p>
<p>As to removing components. I suspect that&#8217;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&#8230;but that was my allusion to the WEEE regulations.</p>
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		<title>By: AF</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-630684</link>
		<dc:creator>AF</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:01:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630684</guid>
		<description>In the spirit of Shurkin&#039;s comment: Muslims too just wash the bodies and use a plain cloth shroud,  no embalming, no accompaniments.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In the spirit of Shurkin&#8217;s comment: Muslims too just wash the bodies and use a plain cloth shroud,  no embalming, no accompaniments.</p>
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		<title>By: August Pamplona</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-630683</link>
		<dc:creator>August Pamplona</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:12:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630683</guid>
		<description>Sure, to a point, but are these folk who are concerned with embalming fluid even doing anything to strip the cadaver of implanted electronics, fillings*, etc.? It just seemed odd to worry about embalming fluid if there&#039;s no indication that it is potentially a problem (again, I might be wrong --perhaps there&#039;s something in there of great concern). Our own metabolism knows how to deal with formaldehyde and bacteria in the soil should do a much better job as long as concentrations are at a manageable level (i.e. any concentration likely to be attained from leachate from an embalmed cadaver). I don&#039;t know about glutaraldehyde but it can&#039;t be much different than that.

* 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?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Sure, to a point, but are these folk who are concerned with embalming fluid even doing anything to strip the cadaver of implanted electronics, fillings*, etc.? It just seemed odd to worry about embalming fluid if there&#8217;s no indication that it is potentially a problem (again, I might be wrong &#8211;perhaps there&#8217;s something in there of great concern). Our own metabolism knows how to deal with formaldehyde and bacteria in the soil should do a much better job as long as concentrations are at a manageable level (i.e. any concentration likely to be attained from leachate from an embalmed cadaver). I don&#8217;t know about glutaraldehyde but it can&#8217;t be much different than that.</p>
<p>* 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?</p>
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		<title>By: David Bradley</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-630682</link>
		<dc:creator>David Bradley</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:41:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630682</guid>
		<description>@August There are the non-natural components of a modern cadaver to consider - prosthetic metal and alloy implants, electronic implants that might contain heavy metals, arsenic and other elements, dental fillings containing mercury and other metals...

Then there are the clothes and jewellry a person might be buried with and various accompaniments. I am sure there are lots of people that have been buried with their iPods, mobile phones, and other devices over the years, some of those will have nickel-cadmium batteries and such. If someone was murdered there may be unrecovered lead bullets, arsenic, or even these days radioactive materials...

It&#039;s not all about the flesh and blood these days...</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>@August There are the non-natural components of a modern cadaver to consider &#8211; prosthetic metal and alloy implants, electronic implants that might contain heavy metals, arsenic and other elements, dental fillings containing mercury and other metals&#8230;</p>
<p>Then there are the clothes and jewellry a person might be buried with and various accompaniments. I am sure there are lots of people that have been buried with their iPods, mobile phones, and other devices over the years, some of those will have nickel-cadmium batteries and such. If someone was murdered there may be unrecovered lead bullets, arsenic, or even these days radioactive materials&#8230;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not all about the flesh and blood these days&#8230;</p>
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		<title>By: Jen</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-3#comment-634992</link>
		<dc:creator>Jen</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:14:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-634992</guid>
		<description>&lt;span class=&quot;topsy_trackback_comment&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;topsy_twitter_username&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;topsy_trackback_content&quot;&gt;I&#039;m reading: Can Death be Sustainable? by @sciencebase http://bit.ly/bvr5Z Should we consider the environmental ethics of death?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="topsy_trackback_comment"><span class="topsy_twitter_username"><span class="topsy_trackback_content">I&#8217;m reading: Can Death be Sustainable? by @sciencebase <a href="http://bit.ly/bvr5Z" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/bvr5Z</a> Should we consider the environmental ethics of death?</span></span></span></p>
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		<title>By: August Pamplona</title>
		<link>http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/can-death-be-sustainable.html/comment-page-2#comment-630680</link>
		<dc:creator>August Pamplona</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:05:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/?p=3911#comment-630680</guid>
		<description>Is leaching into the groundwater of embalming chemicals a real problem? The main chemicals would probably be formaldehyde and, apparently, glutaraldehyde. I would not think that they would last very long as they travel through soil.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Is leaching into the groundwater of embalming chemicals a real problem? The main chemicals would probably be formaldehyde and, apparently, glutaraldehyde. I would not think that they would last very long as they travel through soil.</p>
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