“If the U.S. fails to adopt an economy-wide carbon abatement program, we will continue to cede leadership in energy technology to other nations. The U.S. is now home to only two of the ten largest solar Photo-Voltaic producers in the world, two of the top ten wind turbine producers and one of the top ten advanced battery manufacturers. That is, only one-sixth of the top renewable energy manufacturers are based in the United States. To lose our advantage in technologies that were pioneered in the U.S. may cost us dearly if not reversed”

Memorandum dated May 20, 2009, The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board

Or as NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman puts it: “imagine how poor the US would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies.”

China is emerging as a leader in renewable energy technology through extensive financial investment and focus on green technology as a new economic powerhouse industry. At the same time as China is striving to dominant the industry and required its utilities to generate a significant portion of their power from renewable sources several years ago, the US Congress is dithering about passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (the “Waxman-Markey” bill) and weakening the provisions that would likewise require US utilities to incorporate renewable energy in their power sources. The disparity in China’s efforts compared to that of the US led Friedman to worry in a recent NY Times column that China will “clean our clock” in environmental technology.

According to Business Week, China has emerged has an incubator of clean technology because of the need to solve its own environmental problems. Two-thirds of China’s rivers and lakes are too polluted for industrial use, much less agriculture or drinking. Just one in 100 of China’s nearly 600 million city residents breathe air that would be considered safe in Europe. Poisoned floodwaters have ruined productive fields and last year China passed the US to become the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases. The World Bank has estimated that damage from pollution saps nearly 6% of China’s gross domestic product each year. However, Friedman points out that China sees green technology as the next great global industry and wants to be on board. And China has experienced significant success:

• China plans to increase the share of electricity from renewable sources to 23% by 2020, from 16 % currently, which is on target with Europe. The US has no standards at this time.

• China is currently the second-largest market for wind turbines and is on track to pass the US as the world’s largest market for wind turbines this year after doubling wind-power facilities in each of the past four years. Wind turbines are being constructed at such a rapid pace that it is anticipated that it will have 30,000 megawatts of wind energy by the end of this year, which had been its target for 2020

• China is already the largest producer of photovoltaic solar panels, but historically has exported 95% of the panels produced. However, a glut in PV panels have pushed prices down by more than 30% and domestic installation is expected to increase. Chinese energy policy agency recently proposed a new program to provide huge financial incentives for more solar farms and rooftop panels.

• China’s BYD Auto has already launched the first mass-produced hybrid that plugs into electrical outlets and is priced at $22,000 US. They plan to roll out a version in the US in 2011. The Chevy Volt is expect to cost twice as much and won’t be out until 2010. Beijing recently hiked China’s auto mileage standards to a level the US is not expected to reach until 2020.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, the Waxman-Markey bill is being battered by that dysfunctional body known as Congress until it remains a mere shadow of its original self. The legislation originally included a requirement that utilities deliver 25% renewable-derived power by 2025. However, a tentative agreement with the Blue Dog Democrats has reduced this target to 15% by 2020 and other provisions would reduce this percentage even further in certain circumstances. According to a leading scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientist, the revised legislation is “pitiful.” Republicans oppose the legislation with their usual litany of horribles. According to a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, the legislation would be “without question the biggest expansion of federal government control over our economy since the 1930s” and it would “reduce America’s real gross domestic product by $400 billion each year….leading to almost 2.5 million job losses, and raise adjusted electricity rates by 90%.” (Which raises the question why, if renewable energy is so uneconomical, that paragon of capitalism, Wal-Mart, has set a goal of obtaining 100% of its power supply from renewable energy!)

With China’s proven ability to produce products at rock-bottom prices, economists worry that clean tech ventures in the US will not be able to compete. This seems a distinct possibility given the tendency of too many of our Congressional representatives to elevate their own re-election and party politics over the needs of the American people. And if China does become the dominate leader in renewable energy, what will that do to the US economy? To again quote Friedman: “imagine how poor the US would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies.”

The European division of McDonald’s has embarked on a pilot program to significantly improve the welfare of its suppliers’ farm animals and produce higher quality products. Seven suppliers (to be increased by six more this summer) provide amenities to their farm animals unheard of in the US.  (From the International Herald Tribune, June 20-21, 2009)

A Netherlands dairy farmer provides his 200 cows with water beds to increase their sleep time and blood flow. The animals also get weekly foot baths to reduce lameness. The farmer claims that happier cows live longer and produce more milk. About 95% of eggs used by McDonald’s in Europe are reportedly from non-caged birds, but a British supplier of free-range eggs went even further and planted trees in the fields around his hen houses to encourage them to spend more time outdoors. He believes this leads to better-feathered, healthier birds that lay more eggs. For more information about McDonald’s EU program, click here . Since McDonald’s buys more than 200,000 tons of beef, 150,000 tons of milk and one million tons of potatoes in Europe each year, the chief supply officer of McDonald’s EU asserts that the flagship farms have the potential to change the entire industry and not just their own supply chain.

While McDonald’s EU Flagship Farm is forward-thinking and a significant advance in humane animal welfare, we wanted to see what McDonald’s is doing here in the US. We scoured its website looking for stories about US cows sleeping on water beds and getting foot baths. We found none.   The few advancements in animal welfare noted on the website pale in comparison to the European programs. For example, McDonald’s now require US egg producers to use larger cages for their hens, but there is no mention of a cage free requirement as there is in Europe. McDonald’s has formed a USA Animal Welfare Council but the video available about the Council provides only general accolades about how great the Council is and does not refer to a single new policy adopted by the company to improve animal welfare.

Why is McDonald’s EU progressive when McDonald’s US is a laggard? While there may be many reasons for the difference, a significant possibility is the disparity in our laws. US laws demanding humane treatment of farm animals are virtually non-existent whereas European laws are strict .  This may be one more example where the US Congress is lagging far behind it international counterparts.

To learn more about animal welfare policies and McDonald’s adherence to progressive policies in the US, check out the Humane Society of the United States  and the Farm Sanctuary.

A resurgence in the seeming importance not only of coal, but more specifically “clean coal” as the solution to repowering America at relatively low cost and with minimal impact on the environment is underway.  A quick visit to Americaspower.org will have you believing that with this new clean coal technology, backed mainly by studies pointing to the feasibility of carbon capture and sequestration, a still contentious topic, there is absolutely no reason not to be building clean coal power plants.  Further, the Obama administration has been largely on board with this move to clean coal technology as evidenced by their recent declaration of conditional support for a federal-industry partnership to build the FutureGen project in Mattoon, Ill.

 While the move to repower America with clean coal does provide a more immediate solution to breaking our dependence on foreign oil, it is expected that America’s coal reserves will only last through 2100.  Further, from an environmental perspective, the notion of the existence of clean coal is merely a myth.  Recent discussions regarding clean coal generally focus on the end and not the means to that end.  In other words, basing the discussion solely on CO2 capture and sequestration is off point.  Just because technology exists to burn coal without releasing more GHGs into our atmosphere does not make coal clean or green.

 A recent study published in the journal Public Health Reports points to health costs that far outweigh the economic benefits of coal mining in Appalachia.  More specifically, there are roughly 11,000 more deaths every year than in other areas of the United States.  Of these deaths, approximately 2,300 are the result of environmental factors exacerbated by mining such as air and water pollution.  The researchers studied over 25 years of health and economic data for the Appalachia region juxtaposed with the federal government’s Value of Statistical Life (VSL).  Their conclusion being that “We know that in West Virginia we have high rates of poverty and illness, and we’ve been led to believe by government and industry that the coal companies help by creating jobs. But that’s not true. Premature mortality is strongly linked to socioeconomic conditions where people live, and the evidence is that those areas of West Virginia that do not have coal do better.”

 Beyond the effects on human health, coal mining has significant environmental impacts as well.  Here the question becomes, with the move to clean coal, what is being done to make coal-mining practices less environmentally invasive?  Unfortunately, a recent ruling from the Supreme Court gave an Alaskan mining company the go-ahead to dump waste from a gold mine into a nearby lake, a move that will not only adversely affect the water quality, but also kill all the fish in the lake.  Although this dumping is in direct violation of the Clean Water Act, it has been allowed to continue due to regulatory maneuvers by the Bush Administration.  Additionally, many mountaintop permits during the Bush era were fast-tracked for approval.  

 While the current picture looks bleak at best, it appears the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the other departments that regulate clean water laws are getting serious.  In doing so, they are beginning to subject mountaintop-mining permits to significantly more thorough, case-by-case reviews as well as exercising more control over state regulators.  The Obama administration, though sending mixed messages, also seems to be more or less standing by their commitment to finding viable alternative energy sources and protecting the environment.  In March, they blocked several mountaintop removal projects on the grounds that further review was necessary to determine the impacts of such projects.  More recently, the administration announced new restrictions on mountaintop removal in six Appalachian states, but only after sending a letter to Rep. Nick Rahall II (D-W.VA) in May stating that the EPA would not stand in the way of at least 24 new mountaintop projects

 So take a moment to ask yourself, “truly at what cost does clean coal come to the American people?”  When will mountaintop removal mining stop?  What about the health of not only the people working in the mines, but also the families living in the vicinity of those mines?  What about the wildlife habitats that are being destroyed?  How can we so ardently oppose drilling in ANWR because of the disruption it will cause to the natural habitats and pristine land, but not be outraged over mountaintop removal mining which is destroying plenty of pristine land and habitats much closer to home?

by Kyle Voorheis

President John F. Kennedy claimed that world peace is the most important topic on earth.

It is estimated that around 180 million people have been killed in one 20^th Century atrocity or another — a far larger total than for any other century in human history.  This means 4 to 5% of all deaths were the result of political violence. Moreover, according to Search for Common Ground,

• in  2003 global military spending was 170 times greater than what the world spent on basic education.
• some of our worst environmental disasters are the result of violent conflict: a) 17 million gallons of Agent Orange was used in Vietnam; b) 40 tons of depleted uranium were left behind in Kuwait and Iraq after the Gulf War; c) 90 countries are still heavily affected by landmines that endanger human lives and render large areas of land unusable
• 16 out of 20 of the most destitute countries in the world have recently suffered civil wars.

“Our permanent enemy is the noted bellicosity of human nature.  Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be in the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species. …[N]on-combatants by trade and nature, historians in the studies, and clergymen in their pulpits, have been war’s idealizers.”

To promote world peace, James recommended putting “peace-men” in power, educating editors and statesmen to responsibility, seizing every pretext, however small, for arbitration methods and multiplying the precedents, and fostering rival excitements and inventing new outlets for heroic energy.

International organizations have repeatedly been formed to promote world peace. Most notably, the League of Nations was formed after World War I to prevent future wars but was disbanded after it failed to prevent World War II.   Following World War II, the United Nations was formed to also promote peace, yet the continued wars, terrorism and regional conflicts evidence its inability to do so.   Nevertheless, international bodies keep trying.

The UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the “Culture of Peace” and defined it as a set of values, attitudes, modes of behaviour and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations. It has proclaimed the decade 2001-2010 International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the children of the World and set September 21 as the fixed annual date for Peace Day. It also drafted the 2000 Manifesto which has to date been signed by more than 75,000,000 citizens of the world.

The “Culture of Peace” Initiative seeks to:

1. foster a culture of peace through education
2. promote sustainable economic and social development
3. promote respect for all human rights
4. ensure equality between women and men
5. foster democratic participation
6. advance understanding, tolerance and solidarity
7. support participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge
8. promote international peace and security

While the vast majority of humanity crave peace many, many doubt that it can be achieved.   But I think we each need to ask ourselves the following questions:  Can we really  accept the status quo of bloodshed and grief; do we really have any humane choice but to work towards world peace?   While international organizations are often belittled for their bureaucracy and ineffectiveness, is there an alternative vehicle to promoting global cooperation and peace?  What can each of us do to speak out for world action towards peace? The 2000 Manifesto was adopted by the United Nations to ask individual citizens of the globe to commit to live the culture of peace and non-violence in his or her daily life, family, work and community.  The following six principles are included in the Manifesto:

1. respect all life
2. reject violence
3. share with others
4. listen to understand
5. preserve the planet
6. rediscover solidarity

At this time, more than 75,000,000 individuals have signed the pledge – this includes more than 38 million people in India, almost 16 million in Brazil and 12 million in Columbia.  Americans who have signed number less than 46,000.   If you want to make the pledge, click here.  If you want to join with family and friends to celebrate Peace Day this September 21, you can find information about specific events at the website of Pathways to Peace.

“Acting in concert, we do make a difference in the quality of our lives, our institutions, our environment and our planetary future. Through cooperation, we manifest the essential spirit that unites us amidst our diverse ways.”

Pathways to Peace

Agriculture causes 14% of the world’s greenhouse gases, a big portion of which comes from methane, which is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. And it is estimated that methane output could increase by 60% by 2030. It turns out that cows, which emit methane primarily through belching with a smaller amount through flatulence, are a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Estimates of how much methane a cow emits each day vary widely ranging from 26 gallons to 132 gallons of methane per day – generally considered comparable to the amount of pollution daily produced by a car. Cows belch so much methane because they are ruminates, having four stomachs in which they digest their food. Their stomachs are filled with bacteria that help with digestion but also produce methane. Since much of our greenhouse gases result from human-created activities, have you ever wondered how a cow, one of God’s creatures, is making such a profound contribution to global warming? It turns own that we humans and our manipulation of nature plays a big role here too. Click here.  Accordingly to How Stuff Works, early grazing areas for cows were filled with a variety of grasses and flowers that grew naturally and offered a diverse diet for cows. When eating this natural bounty, cows did not emit that much methane. However, cattle ranchers figured out that feeding cows could be more efficient if they reseeded pastures with perennial ryegrass. Aided by artificial fertilizers, ryegrass grew quickly and in huge quantities. But ryegrass, referred to as the “fast food” of grasses, lacks the nutritious content of other grasses and prevents more nutritious grasses from growing. For cows, ryegrass is much more difficult to digest, it ferments in their stomachs, and it causes the cow to belch and fart.

Scientists are now studying different ways to reduce methane produced by cows. One study, which is examining whether garlic added to cow feed will reduce methane gas, suggests that garlic may reduce it by as much as one-half. Other studies show positive results where cows are fed more diverse, naturally growing and nutrient grasses and other plants.

Even if scientists are able to prescribe proven ways to reduce methane gas from cows, getting cattle ranchers to adopt these methods will be a struggle. The cost of re-planting naturally growing grasses and plants will be substantial and most likely be resisted. And attempts to tax methane production from livestock have so far been unsuccessful. While the EPA briefly floated a US methane tax on cows,  it appears to have quickly died, possibly because a tax proposed on methane in New Zealand, where 34% of greenhouse gases come from livestock, met resounding defeat in 2003 when it became commonly known and derided as the “fart tax.”

We recently went through a stack of “intend to read when we have time” magazines and found a fascinating article on failure in an issue of Ode entitled In Praise of Failure.  Marisa Taylor, the author, retells JK Rowling’s commencement address to Harvard in which she described her earlier failures as the catalyst for her success in writing the Harry Potter books.   At one time, JK Rowling was jobless, broke and “as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless.”  JK Rowling told the class that “failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.   I stopped pretending to be anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me…. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.” 

According to Ode, Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, has found that the way people view their own intelligence has a profound effect on how they handle failure.   She believes that some people have a “fixed” theory of intelligence; they believe that they have a finite talent for learning and handle failure by blaming themselves, or becoming discouraged or defensive.   They tend to focus more on tasks they can already do well and have a fear of trying things that might involve making a mistake or making them look stupid.  Other people have an “expandable” theory of intelligence; they believe they can increase their ability by putting in more effort and they tend to enjoy a challenge, even if they fail at first.  In a study she conducted of 400 middle school students in New York City, students with fixed mindsets, when they encountered failure, tended to study less and consider cheating.  Those with expandable mindsets studied harder and spent more time on learning the subject.    Dweck further explored whether students with “fixed” theories of intelligence could become more adaptable and she found that, after working with students with fixed mindsets to teach them that the brain was a muscle that grows stronger the more it is used and that they could expand their thinking, the group showed a marked improvement in their scores.

The Ode article goes on to talk about failure in business and includes many intriguing quotes of very successful people about why failure can be essential to success.  According to Henry Ford, who went bankrupt multiple times before making the Ford Motor Company a success, “failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”  Or as Michael Raynor, author of The Strategy Paradox, in examining the Betamax  and MiniDisc Player failures of Sony,  says “the lesson is the opposite of success is not failure, but mediocrity.   To achieve big successes, you need to take big risks; if you take little or no risks, mediocrity is guaranteed.”  Or as (our personal favorite)  Winston Churchill, who failed the sixth grade and was booted out of office after World War II, put it “success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” 

Many economists endorse the policy of establishing taxes to reflect the cost to society of an economic activity. For example, a tax on coal would incorporate the increased health care costs from breathing polluted air and the cost of global warming. These economists believe such taxes are necessary to reflect the “truth” of market activities and endorse reducing taxes on income while raising taxes on environmentally destructive activities.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote a column entitled (No) Drill, Baby, Drill. He describes Costa Rican policy that economic growth and environmentalism work together. Costa Rica utilizes a holistic strategy to think about growth – one that demands that everything gets counted. Its citizens pay for using natural resources, polluting the air, or engaging in other activities that produce social cost. They call it “payment for environmental services” and the water, fish, forests, and climate are not treated as free anymore. It has been able to accomplish this by putting energy, environment, mines and one all under one government agency. By putting energy and the environment under one minister, the environmental sector was able to influence energy choices by pointing out the need to think 25 years ahead rather than six months and pointing out that, in the long run, renewable energy is the cheapest energy. Today, Costa Rica gets more than 95% of its energy from hydro-electric power, and wind and geo-thermal. In 1985, they got 50% from hydro, 50% oil.

Costa Rica decided that landowners who keep their forests intact or rivers clean should be paid, because this benefits everyone downstream and the forests absorb carbon To pay for environmental services, Costa Rica imposes a tax of 3.5% on the cost of fossil fuels. The tax goes into a fund to pay indigenous communities to protect their forests. Users of water pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine. As a result of these taxes and payments, Costa Rica has reversed deforestation and has twice the amount of forest it had 20 years ago.

Costa Rica is not the only country enacting taxes that reflect the indirect costs to society of an economic activity. Nine countries in Western Europe have enacted environmental tax reform. Activities taxed in these countries include carbon emissions, emissions of heavy metals, and garbage generation. The Nordic countries, led by Sweden, Germany, Italy, France and the UK have all implemented tax reform without increasing the level of overall taxes but by shifting the burden of taxes. In 1999, Germany implemented a program to shift taxes from workers to energy users and, by 2001, this had lowered fuel use by 5%. A tax on carbon emissions adopted in Finland in 1990 lowered emissions there by 7% by 1998. The city of Victoria, British Columbia, adopted a trash tax of $1.20 per bag of garbage and reduced its daily trash flow by 18% in one year.

Several cities have imposed congestion taxes. London adopted a congestion tax in 2003 when the average speed of an automobile was 9 miles per hour. A tax of $8 was imposed on motorists driving into the center of the city during working hours. The tax immediately reduced the number of cars by 24%.

The economists believe that environmental tax shifting brings a double dividend: by reducing taxes on workers, labor becomes less costly and more jobs are created while the environment is protected. Economist supporters of environmental tax shifting include eight Nobel Prize winners. Former Harvard Economist Professor N. Gregory Mankiw, wrote in Fortune that “Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would lead to a more rapid economic growth, less traffic congestion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming – all without jeopardizing long-term fiscal solvency. This may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer.” Read more here

The US government has yet to broadly embrace environmental tax shifting that takes into account the long-term costs of environmentally destructive activities, in large part due to the anti-tax movement and its unrelenting mantra that such taxes not only would not be a free lunch but would ruin western civilization as we know it. While Congress refuses to take strong action, they may be missing an extraordinary opportunity to restore their credibility and popularity. According to World Watch Institute, a recent poll indicates that 70% of US and European voters support environmental tax reform once it is explained to them.

In 1997, Thomas Harabis, a itinerant photographer in the Czech Republic and now its foreign minister, created the Kingdom of Wallachia about 230 miles from Prague. The fictional kingdom captured the imagination of the Czechs and has become one of its most successful tourist enterprises. Harabis says that “the Kingdom of Wallachia is a parody of Czech identity because nothing is holy for the Czechs.” But a battle royal has arisen over who owns the fictional kingdom.

Wallachia is a real place, its most famous native son being Sigmund Freud. The fictional kingdom had its own currency called the Juroalsar, a university with faculties of Distillery Science and Funeral Studies, consulates in the Arctic Circle and Togo, a Royal Wallachian Navy consisting of 40 wooden canoes, a Royal Air Force consisting of five Cessna’s (bearing the Wallachian crest of an emaciated chicken falling through the sky), a bright yellow Communist-era limousine for use by visiting dignitaries and a burgundy passport covered with a picture of the Pagan God Radegast.

The Wallachian passport is the kingdom’s biggest source of revenue, costing about $8 each . There are about 90,000 citizens of the fake kingdom. When a Pakistani recently demanded political asylum, Harabis had to explain that Wallachia is not a real country. The passport now includes the warning “This passport is not yet an official document of the Czech Republic.” “A lot of people think we are a new country like Kosovo and that we have seceded from the Czech Republic,” says Harabis.

A classically trained clown and actor, Bolek Polivka, was crowned King of Wallachia at its creation. Polivka reportedly had already crowned himself “Wallachian King, Boleslav I the Gracious Forever” on a popular TV show and seemed a fitting king. His crowning was televised nationally and attended by 5,000 guests.

In 2001, the fight for control of the kingdom exploded. Harabis alleges that Polivka began to open Wallachian consulates without his permission and demanded one million Czech koruny to remain king. Harabis dethroned him and installed a local construction worker as the new monarch. Polivka went to court over who owned the kingdom’s trademark. Last October, a court ruled that Polivka had no right to profit from the kingdom.

Sociologists say that the Kingdom of Wallachia reflects a distinct Czech attraction to black humor and fantasy developed as a national defense mechanism during centuries of foreign rule and decades of Communism.   Read more here

Zhang Shihe, a blogger who is an online folk hero in Beijing for his blogs on injustices he witnesses in the streets in Beijing and the impoverished countryside and is known as Tiger Temple, has taken up the cause of the Beijing homeless. He began collecting donations on his website to take care of homeless south of Tiananmen Square, despite his concerns that people might be reluctant to donate after news reports of organized begging rings that exploited children as beggers. He credits the transparency of his blog for the donations he had received – he documents each donation as they made. Zhang focuses on. Instead of encouraging the hawkers to leave the streets, for instance, the volunteers are buying them carts so they can sell more goods.  Zhang keeps his comments about the Chinese governments care of the homeless toned down to avoid confrontations; Web censors had already deleted some of his other posts.

One resident of the shelter financed by Zhang is a 26 year old man paralyzed from the waist who was abandoned by his sister and brother when they traveled another region in search of work. Despondent, he traveled to Beijing so he could see Tiananmen Square before committing suicide. Before doing so, he met another resident of the shelter who convinced him to come there instead.  The Chinese government has provided “relief stations” to provide the homeless short-term room and board and tickets home to those who request them. However, many homeless people avoid the relief stations out of a belief that they will be shipped home. Read more here

We all know about the environmental benefit of using reusable bags, reusable mugs, driving cars with good gas mileage, installing energy saving appliances, but how many of us have thought about the environmental impact of disposing of our bodies on our death. Which is more “environmentally correct” – cremation or burial? Mother Jones, a nonprofit investigative magazine and one of our favorite news sources, has the answer. According to Mother Jones, the average cremation releases more than 35 pounds of carbon whereas burials generate fewer than 9 pounds. And the high temperatures of cremation can vaporize dental fillings and release mercury emissions; in the UK, it is estimated that cremations create up to a sixth of the country’s annual mercury emissions.

So, according to Mother Jones, cremation is more EC than burials.  But how EC are traditional burials? According to Be A Tree: the Natural Burial Guide for Turning Yourself into a Forest, by C.A Beal,  some really bad, and definitely not EC, materials are buried along with our loved ones in US Cemeteries every year:

                    • 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid
                    • 90,272 tones of steel (caskets)
                    • 2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)
                    • 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)
                    • 14,000 tons of steel (vaults)
                    • 30-plus million board feet of hardwoods (much tropical; caskets)

Mother Jones and Be A Tree both advise that the most EC way to dispose of your remains is by natural burial in a biodegradable coffin where you will become a nutrient for the soil and help push up the daisies. Accordingly to Be A Tree:

“On the continuum of processes, a natural burial that makes one’s body available as a full-spectrum nutrient source for the soil web does more for the planet’s biological system than cremation…..The complex and self-organizing, self-regulating biological and geophysical systems that help to balance temperature, moisture, and atmospheric gases and support life as we know it on Earth are created and maintained by the continuous recycling of the organic and inorganic matter that are the elemental building blocks of all animate beings. Sterilization (from the formaldehyde) and the combustion of cremation destroy the integrity of fundamental molecules, enzymes, and microbes present in your body and the soil it’s buried in.”

We also learn that, while many of us make think that embalming is legally required, this is not true. No state in the US requires embalming in normal circumstances so we can all return to the earth in our natural, unembalmed state and reduce the contaminants put back into the earth. And embalming fluid does contain a number of chemicals, including methanol, ethanol, and formaldehyde, a suspected carcinogen which is banned in the EU.

So to be EC even after you die, think about a natural burial – no embalming and burial in an eco-friendly casket.  Innovative entrepreneurs have designed a number of artisan caskets you can choose from, including biodegradable caskets, Fair Trade bamboo caskets, kosher caskets and the very modern and stylish Ecopod recycled paper casket.   You can also choose to be buried in a certified natural burial ground. www.greenburialcouncil.org. And why not plant a tree, a bush or a collage of flowers to mark your burial place in place of the traditional marble headstone.