Future Death: The Dead Human Body as BioMass (Extra Credit)

             Getting off the Union St. R train station in Brooklyn, I didn’t know what to expect from the lecture about Future Death: The Dead Human Body as Biomass.  Secretly I hoped Dr. John Troyer, the speaker, was not going to bore me to death and lead me to believe that he, the possible epitome of boredom, was the model of all informative lectures.  Fortunately, Dr. Troyer was quite the opposite of what I expected: he hadn’t a glimpse of old age or a voice that projected only to display his excess of knowledge but, a hearty sense of humor to go ironically along with his discussion about the benefits and risks of different ways of disposing of dead bodies. I had reached the Brooklyn Observatory, located in a rather questionable alleyway lit by a single light bulb, an hour earlier, leaving me time to explore, with permission of course.  Not only had I found myself in a rather strange place (a deer’s head was mounted onto the wall) but also never had I thought I’d be going to a lecture about death and ways of disposing bodies. 

            Troyer introduced his presentation with, in my opinion, a humorous advertisement of the company that was funding his research and overall work.  He went on to explain that he works at Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) at the University of Bath, which is located in the United Kingdom.  I wondered then, “How much can there be studied on death and the infrastructure we use to deal with death?”  Thankfully, Troyer quickly answered that question by pointing out that crematoriums and burial grounds are instituted, some of which are municipal, in other words, essentially owned by the public (i.e. the Haycombe Crematorium in Bath).  He asked us – not intending for us to answer – When does a way of disposing of the public become accepted?  He points out when cremation was first invented; churches refused to accept it as holy and instead, marked it as sinful because burning the body connoted evil – the devil.  But, as we all know, when things become beneficial to us, practices that once seemed ludicrous and intolerable become dominant social practices.  Cremation allows for a dead body to burn into ashes that can be easily placed in an urn; thus, making dealing with the physical form of a dead body less difficult for some. 

            Already half way through the lecture, a great number of pictures and diagrams were used to inspire the audience to think.  Although burial, cremation, and resomation (liquefying the body) have its practical benefits, they all have their share of disparaging environmental impacts on the earth and its atmosphere.  Troyer uses diagrams that include numbers with no specific origin, making them more or less reliable, to illustrate the environmental impact of cremation on earth.  Cremation’s carbon footprint data reveals its shocking mercury emission among that of other chemicals (the mercury is in our teeth).  There are surely ways to counteract the emissions or rather, compensate the loss, in light of the benefits of cremation.  Bewildered at first, I didn’t know what to think when Troyer said that some cremation emissions could heat up several buildings in a town, keep a pool running, and frankly, save money.  Humored, Troyer showed us articles, with exaggerated titles, that depicted the idea of using the disposal of dead bodies to our advantage.  After some people had realized that using the cremation emissions as energy and as a way to save money, the idea soon became less atrocious and ridiculous as it did in the beginning.  But, I realized then that people would be horrified by the fact that the heat warming their bodies in a building is the result of a body burning to ashes.  Troyer had convinced me that there are several "green" aspects of the different ways of disposing of dead bodies but it was going to take time for society to accept new ways of caring for the dead – surely it is the future of the infrastructure we have already created to care for the dead.