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293 comments on DrumBeat: December 19, 2008

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Edgy on December 19, 2008 - 9:57am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

On the local TV station (Austin TX) this morning there was a report on people cutting back on funeral expenses - like selling cemetary plots because burial is too expensive. Choosing cremation vs. burial. Going for the $400 press-board coffin vs. the 10K walnut wood.

Looks like this recession/depression will follow us to the grave.

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NeverLNG on December 19, 2008 - 11:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Looks like the options for future archeologists may be quite limited. No more King Tut's Tombs.

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vtpeaknik on December 19, 2008 - 1:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This may sound crass to some, but "the American way of death" should be negotiated. We don't have the resources (or even the land, in some areas) for the traditional methods. And certainly dead bodies don't need elaborate boxes to be buried.

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RalphW on December 19, 2008 - 3:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The fashion for trendy greens in the UK is woodland or grassland burial. Cheap, biodegradable coffins with no metal, sometimes just cardboard. The grave is either unmarked (except by GPS reference) or has a tree planted above.

My (sadly young) friend was buried this way.

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Geckolizard on December 19, 2008 - 3:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

My wife (who was buried this summer, and passed at age 30 of cancer) was buried in a simple stainless steel urn in a small country cemetary. The most expensive parts of her burial were her funeral, and her tombstone, and combined they cost about $5K. (I went with a highly polished black tombstone, because the lettering is easy to see on black and if it were polished it would withstand the elements a bit better.)

On the flip side, I kept some of her ashes and recently buried a bit under a tree dedicated to her where she worked. I haven't decided what to do with the remainder of her ashes... We'll see.

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jokuhl on December 19, 2008 - 4:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

My sympathies, Geckolizard.

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Geckolizard on December 19, 2008 - 4:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thank you.

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VK on December 19, 2008 - 5:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

So sorry to hear about this. Best wishes to you Geckolizard.

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Will Stewart on December 19, 2008 - 8:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Truly, our thoughts go with you. You have given us a moment to reflect on the blessings we have and the temporal nature of life. The many memories of her must be a boundless treasure to you.

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ccpo on December 21, 2008 - 6:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'm re-married with a 1 year-old now, but lost my wife in her early thirties. (I'm not very lucky except in love - at least in the long run.) I also split her ashes for various reasons... some were spread in her favorite nature spot.

My sympathies.

Cheers

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totoneila on December 19, 2008 - 3:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello VtPeaknik,

Just as FF-compnies are now curtailing new projects, I would be expecting eventually for the same to occur for I-NPK companies-- thus, at some point, I would also expect Peak I-NPK to occur. Obviously, O-NPK will then start ramping faster: we will again recycle human bones, by the untold billions, in a repeat of the earlier days of scavenging the battlefields and graveyards, then dead-heading this O-NPK home.

Since there are No Substitutes for the Elements NPK for leveraging photosynthesis above a Liebig Minimum: we can always cost-justify using depleting FF-energy for running wood chippers and grinding mills to reduce these 'immigrants' to powder for the final application to the desired topsoil square foot. Let's hope that the desperation for NPK doesn't impell some to inject still-living immigrants into the wood-chippers' powerful impellers.

My recent posting that pointed towards possible plateauing of I-NPK vs the rosy trendline projections for 2015 & 2030 is thus worthy of closer scrutiny, especially as the US becomes increasingly reliant upon I-NPK imports. Recall that I-NPK is nothing more than 'transformed energy' suitable for topsoil, but bereft of the benefits of O-NPK for better microbial life and water-retention.

In my 'wild & crazy' imagination: I sometimes picture NYC nearly totally abandoned by humans, but re-inhabited by untold billions of birds and bats roosting in the ruins. These species would be creating naturally-superphosphated guano in far greater quantities than the remaining I-NPK facilities. Their 'footprint' would also be magnitudes less than the 'ecological footprint' of the remaining I-NPK mines and factories.

Picture Wall Street transformed from a pointless center of finance to a real asset as a biophysical center for harvesting O-NPK guano. Will a future Wall Street tycoon be a bat & bird biologist? Please consider that as you hug your bag of NPK today.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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darwinsdog on December 19, 2008 - 5:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have a Troybilt "Super Tomahawk" wood chipper. I'd like to perform the experiment of running some roadkill thru it, to see how well it handles flesh & bone, but I'm afraid it would make quite a mess. I hate to try it with my own machine. Maybe I could rent one & try it. Wonder what the rental people would think when I returned it all gummed up with grease & blood..

What are all those birds & bats occupying abandoned skyscrapers supposed to eat, Bob? They can't all be carrion eating cathartids.

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WNC Observer on December 19, 2008 - 5:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Watch the ending of "Fargo"

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Dryki on December 19, 2008 - 6:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I learned during a composting workshop that chipper shredders are the recommended method for dealing with all the chickens to kill in case of a bird flu outbreak. You'd probably want to through in some wood during the process to balance C-N ratios for composting.

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totoneila on December 19, 2008 - 6:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hopefully we will have the wisdom to let our fishstock regrow so the seabirds can use this as the guano-generating source like the seabirds did for so long in Nauru and other offshore islands. With pesticide and herbicides outlawed [or Unobtainium]: there should be gazillions of bugs for bats. Let's hope these species don't go extinct, or is that too far-fetched?

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darwinsdog on December 19, 2008 - 7:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I sure hope that all bats don't go extinct. I think that the larger, non-echolocating fruit bats will bite it but I'm hoping that at least some tropical clades of microchiropterans make it thru the anthropogenic mass extinction pulse. I often say that the Cenozoic is depauperate and biotically "boring" compared to the Mesozoic, but there are some wonderful exceptions to this trend and the bats are one of them, along with colubrid snakes, hummingbirds, and the great teleost radiation. On the other hand, most avialean clades & all pterosaurs went extinct at the end-Cretaceous and this extinction pulse will be at least that big. I hope that bats make it thru but wouldn't want to bet on it.

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TrueKaiser on December 20, 2008 - 1:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

i think bats will make it. arn't the majority of mammal species either bat's or rats?

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rainsong on December 20, 2008 - 9:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The cockroaches will survive in spite of all types of pesticides to try to eliminate them.

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293 comments on DrumBeat: December 19, 2008

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