Cremations and burials should be made illegal

I thank FormAndTheFormless (hereinafter referred to as FATF) for his intelligent and eloquent contribution. I do concede that undertakers are not the main driving force behind global warming, we all have to do our bit for the environment, so why shouldn't they? Also, whilst I certainly agree that increased regulation of crematoria could, in theory, reduce the amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere, there is a major flaw in FATF's plan - that is that businesses resent and resist legislation that increase their costs and, wherever possible, will attempt to avoid conforming to regulations in order to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. That's why a blanket ban on cremations is required. By the way, I think FATF's assertion that human flesh may enter the human food chain is overstated. I know we can't all afford to be connoisseurs of haute cuisine but even the type of person that dines at McDonald's should be able to distinguish between burgers made with lightly-seasoned beef and burgers made with rancid human flesh. Moving on to burials, I am aware that some corpses are buried without being embalmed or being placed in a coffin in order to minimise their impact on the environment. However, this can and does lead to problems with scavengers. In London, for example, people who cannot afford a private funeral are buried in paupers' graves – open pits into which dozens of corpses are thrown before being covered. In the meantime, and even after these communal graves are closed, the stench of rotting flesh attracts scavengers such as foxes who dig up and carry off the bodies. (1) Luckily, England has no large carnivores and foxes usually just make off with the carcases of stillborn babies, but what about people who live in other parts of Europe, or America? There are some huge and dangerous predators that roam wild in those places – beasts such as wolves, bears and big cats – animals that would pose a real threat to society if they developed a taste for human flesh as a result of scavenging from graves. That's why burials should be banned outright. Now, to address the issues FATF raised regarding the variability of supply of human corpses and the disruption this might cause to the undertakers' zoological customers. Actually, there really isn't a problem here. In times of reduced death rates, zoos would simply supplement their captive carnivores' diet with the low-grade meat they currently feed them. Conversely, when people are dropping like flies because of AIDS, SARS, BSE or whatever the latest pandemic is, and there is too much human flesh for the animals to consume, dead bodies will have to be disposed of in other ways. For example, the authorities in places like Hawaii and Iceland, where there is continual volcanic activity, could dispose of corpses by firing them out of canons into the craters of erupting volcanoes. The fluid in the bodies would be vaporised instantly while the pollutants would be entombed forever in the magma, thus posing no threat to the environment. In other places, the corpses could be dropped into disused mines or they could be simply shot into a low orbit so that they burn up harmlessly upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. I haven't really put my mind to it, but I bet there are many other ecologically sound methods of disposing of dead bodies in addition to the one's outlined above. In conclusion, the only reasons that I can see for burials and cremations relate to outmoded and discredited religions and they are not good enough to excuse the continued destruction of our planet. Thank you. (1) http://www.thisislondon.co.uk...