WEBVTT

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When I die,

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I would like for my body
to be laid out to be eaten by animals.

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Having your body laid out to be
eaten by animals is not for everyone.

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Maybe you have already had
the end-of-life talk with your family,

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and decided on --

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I don't know --

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cremation.

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And in the interest of full disclosure,

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what I am proposing for my dead body
is not strictly legal at the moment,

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but it's not without precedent.

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We've been laying out our dead
for all of human history;

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it's call exposure burial.

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In fact, it's likely happening
right now as we speak.

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In the mountainous regions of Tibet,

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they practice sky burial,

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a ritual where the body is left
to be consumed by vultures.

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In Mumbai,

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in India,

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those who follow the Parsee religion

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put their dead in structures
called Towers of Silence.

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These are interesting cultural tidbits,

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but they just haven't really been
that popular in the Western world --

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they're not what you'd expect.

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In America,

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our death traditions have come to be

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chemical embalming followed by
burial at your local cemetery,

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or more recently, cremation.

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I myself, am a recent vegetarian,

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which means I spent the first
30 years or so of my life

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frantically inhaling animals --

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as many as I could get my hands on.

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Why, when I die, should they not
have their turn with me?

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(Laughter)

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Am I not an animal?

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Biologically speaking,

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are we not all, in this room, animals?

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Accepting the fact that we are animals

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has some potentially
terrifying consequences.

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It means accepting that we
are doomed to decay and die,

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just like creature on Earth.

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For the last nine years,

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I've worked in the funeral industry.

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First as a crematory operator,

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then as a mortician,

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and most recently as the owner
of my own funeral home.

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And I have some good news:

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if you're looking to avoid the whole
"doomed to decay and die" thing,

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you will have all the help
in the world in that avoidance

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from the funeral industry.

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It's a multi-billion-dollar industry,

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and its economic model
is based on the principle

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of protection, sanitation
and beautification of the corpse.

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Whether they mean to or not,

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the funeral industry promotes
this idea of human exceptionalism.

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It doesn't matter what it takes,

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how much it costs,

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how bad it is for the environment --

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we're going to do it because
humans are worth it.

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It ignores the fact that death can be
an emotionally messy and complex affair,

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and that there is beauty in decay --

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beauty in the natural return
to the Earth from whence we came.

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I don't want you to get me wrong --

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I absolutely understand
the importance of ritual,

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especially when it comes
to the people that we love.

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But we have to be able to create
and practice this ritual

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without harming the environment,

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which is why we need new options.

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So, let's return to the idea

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of protection, sanitation
and beautification.

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We'll start with a dead body.

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The funeral industry
will protect your dead body

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by offering to sell your family a casket
made of hardwood or metal

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with rubber sealant.

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At the cemetery,

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on the day of burial,

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that casket will be lowered
into a large concrete or metal vault.

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We're wasting all of these resources --

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concretes, metal, hardwoods --

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hiding them in vast,
underground fortresses.

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When you choose burial at the cemetery,

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your dead body is not coming anywhere
near the dirt that surrounds it.

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Food for worms --

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you are not.

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Next, the industry will sanitize
your body through embalming:

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the chemical preservation of the dead.

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This procedure drains your blood,

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and replaces it with a toxic,
cancer-causing formaldehyde.

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They say the do this for the public health

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because the dead body can be dangerous,

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but the doctors in this room will tell you

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that that claim would only apply

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if the person had died of some wildly
infectious disease, like Ebola.

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Even human decomposition,

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which let's be honest,

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is a little stinky and unpleasant,

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is perfectly safe.

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The bacteria that causes disease

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is not the same bacteria
that causes decomposition.

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Finally, the industry
will beautify the corpse.

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They'll tell you that the natural
dead body of your mother or father

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is not good enough as it is.

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They'll put it in makeup;

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they'll put it in a suit.

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They'll inject dyes so the person
looks a little more alive --

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just resting.

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Embalming is a cheat code

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providing the illusion that death
and then decay are not the natural end

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for all organic life on this planet.

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Now, if this system of beautification,
sanitation, protection

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doesn't appeal to you,

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you are not alone.

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There is a whole wave of people --

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funeral directors, designers,
environmentalists --

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trying to come up with a more
eco-friendly way of death.

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For these people,

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death is not necessarily a pristine,

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makeup, powder-blue tuxedo kind of affair.

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There's no question

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that our current methods of death
are not particularly sustainable,

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what with the waste of resources
and our reliance on chemicals.

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Even cremation,

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which is usually considered
the environmentally-friendly option,

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uses, per cremation,

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the natural gas equivalent
of a 500-mile car trip.

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So, where do we go from here?

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Last summer I was in the mountains
of North Carolina,

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hauling buckets of wood chips
in the summer sun.

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I was at Western Carolina University
at their "Body Farm,"

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more accurately called a human
decomposition facility.

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Bodies donated to science
are brought here,

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and their decay is studied to benefit
the future of forensics.

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On this particular day,

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there were 12 bodies laid out
in various stages of decomposition.

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Some were skeletonized,

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one was wearing purple pajamas,

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one still had blonde facial hair visible.

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The forensic aspect is really fascinating,

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but not actually why I was there.

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I was there because a colleague of mine,

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named Katrina Spade,

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is attempting to create a system
not of cremating the dead,

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but composting the dead.

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She calls the system Recomposition,

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and we've been doing it with cattle
and other livestock for years.

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She imagines a facility where the family
could come and lay their dead loved one

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in a nutrient-rich mixture that would,

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in four-to-six weeks,

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reduce the body --

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bones and all --

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to soil.

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In those four-to-six weeks,

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your molecules become other molecules;

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you literally transform.

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How would this fit in with the very recent
desire a lot of people seem to have

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to be buried under a tree,

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or to become a tree when they die?

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In a traditional cremation,

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the ashes that left over --

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inorganic bone fragments --

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form a thick chalky layer

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that unless distributed
in the soil just right,

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can actually hurt or kill the tree.

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But if you're recomposed,

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if you actually become the soil,

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you can nourish the tree,

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and become the post-mortem contributor
you've always wanted to be --

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that you desreve to be.

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So that's one option
for the future of cremation.

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But what about the future of cemeteries?

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There are a lot of people who think
we shouldn't even have cemeteries anymore

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because we're "running out of land."

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But what if we reframed it,

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and the corpse wasn't the land's enemy,

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but its potential savior?

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I'm talking about conservation burial,

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where large swaths of land
are purchased by a land trust.

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The beauty of this is that once you plant
a few dead bodies in that land,

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it can't be touched,

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it can't be developed on --

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hence the term,

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conservation burial.

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It's the equivalent of chaining yourself
to a tree post-mortem --

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"Hell no, I won't go --

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no really, I can't,
I'm decomposing under here."

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Any money that the family
gives to the cemetery

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would go back into protecting
and managing the land.

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There are no headstones
and no graves in the typical sense.

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The graves are scattered
about the property

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under elegant mounds,

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marked only by a rock
or a small metal disk,

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or sometimes only locatable by GPS.

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There's no embalming,

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no heavy, metal caskets.

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My funeral home sells a few caskets

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made out of things like
woven willow and bamboo,

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but honestly, most of our families
just choose a simple shroud.

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There are none of the big vaults
that most cemeteries require

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just because it makes it easier
for them to landscape.

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Families can come here;

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they can luxuriate in nature;

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they can even plant a tree or a shrub,

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though only native plants
to the area are allowed.

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The dead then blend seamlessly
in with the landscape.

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There's hope in conservation cemeteries.

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They offer dedicated green space
in both urban and rural areas.

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They offer a chance to reintroduce
native plants and animals to a region.

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They offer public trails,

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places for spiritual practice,

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places for classes and events --

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places where nature and mourning meet.

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Most importantly,

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they offer us once again,

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a chance to just decompose
in a hole in the ground.

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The soil,

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let me tell you,

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has missed us.

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I think for a lot of people,

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they're starting to get the sense

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that our current funeral industry
isn't really working for them.

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For many of us,

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being sanitized and beautified
just doesn't reflect us.

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It doesn't reflect what we
stood for during our lives.

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Will changing the way we bury
our dead solve climate change?

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No.

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But it will make bold moves

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in how we see ourselves
as citizens of this planet.

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If we can die in a way that is more
humble and self-aware,

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I believe that we stand a chance.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)