Mankind is putting more and more Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere and global heating is happening.

• In 2003 the temperature in England went over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time in recorded history.
• By the end of the twenty-first century temperatures in Southern England will have risen by 5 degrees Celsius.

And global heating is a killer.   In 2003, 2000 people died in the UK from the rise in temperature.   At least its cool in the morgue.

• Sandra is 5 feet nothing tall and weights 110 lbs (pounds) in her black socked feet. (That's about 50Kg).
• She is 18% carbon (Mad Scientist), that means she contains 9 kg (20 lbs) of carbon
• 12 grams of carbon combine with 32 grams of oxygen to form 44 grams of carbon dioxide. (Chemistry Textbook).
• So the cremator will turn Sandra into 33 Kg (73 lbs) of carbon dioxide.
• Sandra's "cremator needs to operate at 760-1150C for 75 minutes " .... [to cremate her] ... " and it's easy to see how much energy is required .... about 285 kiloWatt hours (kWh) of gas"
  (The Guardian)
• 1 cubic metre natural gas generates 11.06 kiloWatt hours of energy.
  (Marches Wood Energy)
• So 25.8 cubic metres of gas are needed to cremate Sandra.
• One cubic metre of gas produces 1.9Kg (4.2 lbs) of carbon dioxide
  (City of Kingston).
• So that's 49 Kg (108 lbs) of carbon dioxide from the natural gas to run the cremator.
• Sandra doesn't wear tights often, but she does wear them for special occasions.   Hey she'll only get cremated once so this is a special occasion!   And a pair of black fishnet or sheer tights won't add much CO2.

Sandra likes trees.   She would like her ashes sprinkled somewhere nice and woody.   Perhaps she could ease her conscience about the pollution from her cremation by arranging for trees to be planned after she has been incinerated.   Trees absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide during photosynthesis.   (Photosynthesis the process by which plants convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, using sunlight as the source of energy and with the aid of a molecule called chlorophyll).   So Sandra, in the form of CO2 from her cremation, can be turned into a tree. Plant enough trees and her cremation will be carbon neutral - Sandra will add nothing to the CO2 in the atmosphere.

• One tree absorbs about 2.5 pounds of CO2 a year (How much CO2 does a tree take up)  
• Ahhh That's over 145 years for one tree to absorb all of Sandra and her casket and the gas they burn her with.
• A mini forest of 145 trees would do it in a year.   (Or maybe not see below).
• Sandra has been around for about 40 years, 4 trees would take about the same about of time to mop up the CO2 she turns into.
• Of course its more complicated than I just made out.   2.5 pounds of CO2 per year is an average for maple-beech-birch forests. 25 year old trees absorb 2.5 pounds, 120 year old trees 5.5 pounds, younger tree less.

It matters where Sandra's trees are planted. Forests in the wrong location can actually make the Earth hotter.   Trees may be good at capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but their dark leaves are also very efficient at soaking up sunlight, which is later released as heat.   At certain latitudes, the net effect of these two processes is warming, rather than cooling.   Forest growth in equatorial areas, on the other hand, reduces global temperatures because the warmer air in these regions allows more moisture to evaporate from the leaves of trees.   This produces substantial cooling that cancels out the effects of heat absorption.   See Careful Where You Put That Tree for details.

If this it true - and it is from a computer simulation which will be only as good as the assumptions put into it - Sandra's trees cannot be in Golders Green.   It's a nice idea having trees absorb some of her atoms as they come out of the chimney and drift over the city, but it won't help the planet.   Sandra will have to leave instructions for her trees to be planted in some nice equatorial area.

How environmentally unfriendly is the 165 Kg (363 lbs) of carbon dioxide produced when Sandra is cremated?   Compare this with Sandra's contribution to global warming while she is alive.

Last year Sandra made a 13,767 km (11,868 mile) round trip London to Bangkok.   Distance from Thai air.   That's about 2000Kg (4400lbs) of CO2.   (Based on 0.146 Kg of CO2 per passenger per km excluding take-off).

But there's more to Sandra's eco-crime.   Last year she travelled around 1600 km (1000 miles) in her car.   Her car's fuel consumption is 7L/100 km (about 40 miles/ gallon).   That's 112 litres of fuel in total.   One litre of petrol produces 2.42 Kg of CO2.   So in driving Sandra added 271 Kg (600 pounds) of carbon dioxide to warm to the world.

To save a little CO2 Sandra could take this stylish motorcycle hearse to the crematorium.

Maybe 165 Kg still seems a lot of CO2 from the hour and quarter Sandra will spend in the cremator.   Well, here are some other ways of producing 165 Kg of CO2....

You could produce the same amount of CO2 as Sandra will when cremated by heating your house for 14 days.

(It takes 2200 cubic metres of gas to heat a house for one year (City of Kingston).   Burning 1 cubic metre of natural gas produces 1.9 kg of CO2.   That is 2200 x 1.9 = 4180 Kg (9200 lbs) for the whole year.   So you would produce 165 Kg in
165 / 4180 x 365 = 14 days.)

It's important not to get cold while putting your tights on.

The 165 Kg of CO2 made by cremating Sandra is also produced when a power plant generates electricity to meet your lighting and cooking and other needs for 23 days.

(A house uses 9000 kWh in a year.   A power plant releases 0.295 kg CO2 to produce 1 kWh.   That makes 9000 x 0.295 = 2655Kg [5800lbs] in a year.   Therefore 165 kg of CO2 would be produced by powering a house for 165 / 2655 x 365 = 23 days.)

Of course if your electricity comes from nice clean nuclear power you will be able to cook with a clear conscience.   Why do sock and sandal wearing eco-feminists hate nuclear so much, when it is so good for the earth?

You could drive 974 Km (600 miles) in your compact car and emit the same amount of CO2 as Sandra will when she is incinerated.

(A compact car consumes 7 litres of petrol per 100 km.   Burning one litre of petrol produces of 2.42 kg CO2. That's 16.94 Kg of CO2 every 100 km or 0.1694 Kg every Km.  
165 / 0.1694 = 974.)

Alternatively you could drive 455 Km (280 miles) in your Sports Utility Vehicle and produce as much of carbon dioxide as Sandra's cremation.

(A SUV consumes 15 litres of petrol per 100 km.   Burning one litre of petrol produces 2.42 of kg CO2. That's 36.3 Kg of CO2 every 100 km or 0.363 Kg every Km.   165 / 0.363 = 455.)

All data in this section from City of Kingston

Q: How much air travel could you do for the carbon cost of Sandra's cremation?
A: 900 km or 560 miles.

Each take-off releases about 34 kg of CO2 per passenger, so that leaves 131 Kg for the actual flight.   Each km of travel releases 0.146 Kg of CO2 per passenger.   So you could travel 131 / 0.146 = 897 km (560 miles).

Again the data is from City of Kingston

Does a cremation really require 26 cubic metres of gas?   One posting on the The Yahoo Cremation Group said "Usually a busy crem will not require the use of the burners much after the first one of the day if the units are efficient for heat storage".

Why so little burner use?   Because people are such good fuel.   As Hollie said in the guest book to this site   "I thought that they loaded you in and just blasted you with flames until you had gone, but by using such high temperatures you basically combust and burn with your own fuel."

Or as a technician from a London crematorium said while a young woman peered into the cremator "... On Mondays it takes longer because there is not heat in the brickwork ... The perfect cremation is a nice bit of oak and the fat of the human body"   (Quoted in Vigor Mortis by Kate Berridge).   I wonder if he was thinking about incinerating the young woman because... "women do burn faster especially those of us blessed with ample breast tissue" (Hollie in the guest book to this site). Well Sandra should provide plenty of fuel then in her tits, arse and thighs.

More scientifically, according to Iserson (Death to Dust), a 140 pound (64 kg) body and 90 pound (41 kg) coffin generates 800,000 BTU of heat.   Sandra is smaller and needs a smaller casket, let us say that she generates 600,000 BTU of heat.

1 BTU = 0.0003 kWh (Marches Wood Energy Network).   Therefore 600,000 BTU is 180 kWh.   So of the 285 kWh of energy needed to incinerate Sandra, she could provide 180 kWh herself, leaving only 105 kWh from the natural gas.   Thus saving 16 cubic metres of gas, or 31 Kg of CO2.

This takes Sandra's final carbon footprint down to 134 Kg of CO2

Even if Sandra decides to rot in the cemetery she'll release CO2, just more slowly. "Plants and animals also release CO2 to the atmosphere when they decompose or decay" (Global Climate Change)

If Sandra decomposes in the grave together with her casket, she may still add CO2 to the atmosphere.   The only extra CO2 from cremation rather than burial will come from the gas burnt to produce 285 kWh of energy to incinerate Sandra.   But as we have seen, 180 kWh of this energy is provided by Sandra and her casket.   The remaining 105 kWh comes from 9.5 cubic metres of gas, which will produce 18 Kg (40 lbs) of CO2.

That's the amount of CO2 produced by driving 100 Km (60 miles).

Picture: Looks like the neighbours turned out for Sandra's funeral.

Cremation is so final.   Sandra will be reduced to about 1.6 Kg (3 and a half pounds) of ashes.   She won't have a nice grave where people can come and say hello, instead her ashes will scattered in section 3P with lots of others.   In total Golders Green has produced 900 tons of human ash over its history, much of which has been scattered in the crematorium grounds. (Assuming Kenneth Iserson's figure of an average of 3 Kg of ashes per cremation).

By reducing 300,000 people to ashes Golders Green has conserved land for purposes other than interring the dead.

Exactly how much land has been saved?

• A grave plot is 1.2 metres (4 feet) by 2.4 metres (8 feet). [from Kenneth Iserson Death to Dust].
• 300,000 people would require 1.2 x 2.4 x 300,000 = 864,000 square metres (86.4 hectares or 213 acres).
• 10 houses can be build in one acre. (Society Guardian).
• That's 2130 houses in the land saved by incinerating Londoners at Golders Green Crematorium.

The average household size in England and Wales is 2.36 (UK National Census).   So 5000 people can have houses or flats thanks to Golders Green Crematorium burning up the dead.   Sandra should be happy that her reduction to ashes will save land for the living.

Should Sandra slide out of the crematorium chapel to her incineration?   Well it all depends on how you look at it:

• Producing in 75 minutes the same amount of carbon dioxide as is produced by heating a house for 14 days makes cremation appear a threat to the environment.
• Producing in 75 minutes the same amount of carbon dioxide as is produced by driving for a whole day also makes cremation look environmentally unsound.
• But producing in 75 minutes the same amount of carbon dioxide as is produced per passenger in a 2 hour flight, still makes cremation look environmentally bad, but no worse than some other activities.

Yet in the long run is the amount of carbon dioxide produced by cremation that high?   Sandra won't need to heat her house once she is dead, so if she is cremated 14 days after dying, she will already have "paid" for the CO2 from her cremation by not using her central heating.

Perhaps I cannot do better than quote this comment on cremation and the environment from a Canadian writer: "Cremation involves large quantities of natural gas, but for a very short time.   Staff at the Vancouver Crematorium had no idea how much gas is used per firing.   It would seem, again, that the amount of gas is relatively small compared to home heating uses for living individuals.   Burial requires labour for digging of the grave, and also the permanent dedication of a plot of land for the interment of the dead.   While this consumes space in areas with well developed infrastructure, it also provides valuable green space in those areas, and can also provide an urban forest if so managed.   While cremation of humans adds greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, again, the amount of carbon in a human is not much more than that oxidized in gasoline and other fossil fuels, so population decrease quickly offsets the increase in Carbon Dioxide through cremation." (A Human's Final Footprint)

Looks like Sandra has found this page.   She always knew I wanted to see her going up the chimney.   Wearing those sinful stockings under trousers deserves a firey Divine judgment in the crematorium.

Well if Sandra, or anyone else wants to give me feedback click here for an anonymous form, leave a message, or mail me

For a woman of your acquaintance

1. Calculate the amount of Carbon Dioxide that she will produce when cremated.
2. Calculate the amount of Carbon Dioxide she produces every year.
3. Hence show how you can enjoy her incineration, knowing that it will benefit the Earth.

Of course this is an academic exercise, you don't really want to see her arse ignite and the fat burn off before her gluteous muscles go, do you?