Matters of life and death

Warning: extra-long read containing gruesomeness

Depopulation has been touted by some individuals with rather extreme views as the only chance the planet Earth has to survive. Some of you have even talked about a depopulation agenda and indeed, there seem to be concerted efforts from various groups to discourage people from procreating.

Let me start with my personal story. For the first 31 years of my life I didn’t want to have children. I was never under parental pressure to procreate although I do have a friend who espoused the many joys of becoming a mother to the point when I considered physical violence. Then I got pregnant and suddenly I wanted to have a child. It’s one choice I have never regretted. Of many, I might add smugly.

Having said that, I firmly believe everyone is free to make their own choices in that, as all other departments. Having children shouldn’t be an obligation although it does seem to feel this way to many women in some parts of the world. But there are also many ready to go through hell to conceive because they want to have children. Or do they? Biological imperatives are powerful stuff, as so many of us know from first-hand experience. Apparently, they are a bit too powerful for some people’s tastes, so they are now seeking to undermine these imperatives.

It’s not just the reports claiming kids have a huge carbon footprint. It’s not just the mental cases so scared by the climate apocalypse propaganda they dare not have kids. We have a whole organisation dedicated to discouraging people from procreating. I give you the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

Per their really low-budget website, the VHEMT, which its creators claim is pronounced vehement, has as its mission the following: “Phasing out the human species by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.” The pun at the end of this statement is wonderful.

Most of the website comprises frequently asked questions and the organisation’s answers, such as “Why don’t you just kill yourself?” and the respective answer, which, among other things, features this beautiful statement: “It’s hard enough just to get people to consider not breeding.” It is apparently because of this noble cause that VHEMT activists are not “bailing out”. It would just be too hard to convince others to follow. Another biological imperative at play, tragically.

What troubled me about this organisation — which I’m sure is not the only one with such a mission — was the fact that a lot of their writings do make sense — as long as you tend to believe that humans, on balance, have been bad rather than good for the planet. And this is something that we are constantly being told by media and other climate catastrophists, so there are a lot of people likely to share that perception, especially among younger generations.

Indeed, the catastrophism drip has been doing its job so well there are radical organisations advocating for wars, mutual killings and, yes, suicide, to save the planet. VHEMT is not part of that crowd but I only learned about said crowd from their website. And so could have many others.

So, the vehement anti-procreationists are not radical, they do no advocate for premature deaths and they don’t believe deliberate pandemics are a solution — because none of these horrors would make much difference to global population numbers. And I thought (wrongly) I was cold and detached when discussing matters of emotional sensitivity. That’s some high-grade cynicism right there.

The voluntary extinctionists are totally in favour of contraception, of course, including voluntary sterilisation, and of abortion, also of course. They even offer badges of honour, titled Gold Snip and Silver Snip for people who go the extra cut for the good of the planet.

Ultimately, however, they carry the message that if we have an ounce of sense we would simply stop wanting to have children because wanting to have kids is only a result of societal pressure and religious beliefs anyway.

Biological imperative, you say? VHEMT would disagree. “Our biological urge is to have sex, not to make babies,” they’ll have us know and I’m sure that would be news to many biologists but maybe I’m wrong and biologists have changed their theory on instincts over the past 20 years.

Lay little me thought that if the biological urge was to have sex for pleasure all sex-having species would be at it for pleasure rather than a set number of times during the year with the purpose of procreation but, honestly, what do I know. I also assumed imperatives are about survival and pleasure is not really a survival tactic but you have got to admire the effort being put into subverting the very meaning of concepts such as biological imperative.

The anti-procreationists also have some really sound-sounding (I have no regrets for this turn of phrase) arguments such as this one: “Choosing to refrain from producing another person demonstrates a profound love for all life,” because, they argue, the fewer children are being born, the better care they would get. The argument is obviously flawed outside a very narrow context of families with limited income and time, but flaws in arguments have never stopped people with a mission from making them.

What troubled me about the vehement movement for human extinction is that literally everything is now being presented through the climate change lens. That lens has become a tool for dismantling concepts and ideas, on which our modern reality is built. Those foundations are sturdy. Yet they appear to be inconvenient for a small minority of people, so off they go, dismantling and calling it care.

Go vegan to stop climate change and forget meat was instrumental for human evolution. Don’t have pets to stop climate change and never mind the beneficial mental and physical effects of sharing your life with creatures capable of unconditional love unlike so many people.

Don’t have kids to stop climate change and to hell with the survival instinct and the simple desire to bring a new life into the world although these days I can kind of understand the people who don’t want to do that. The world’s crazy, as I was recently reminded by the new life I brought into this world, when she lamented the fact she wasn’t born 20 or more years ago. Guilt trips: one of the many joys of parenthood. Not everyone’s up for those.

So, after going vegan, petless, and childless, our ultra-concerned fellow humans have one final idea for saving the planet: die and have yourself dissolved in chlorine to stop climate change.

They call it water cremation. The scientific term is alkaline hydrolysis and it really sounds very scientific. Yet for those who have watched Breaking Bad, it would inevitably bring up the image of that notoriously disgusting scene that I will delicately call “The Bathtub Scene”. For those with weak stomachs, it’s a scene depicting the dissolution of a human body in hydrofluoric acid and why you shouldn’t use a ceramic tub to do it.

Anyway, alkaline hydrolysis does not use hydrofluoric acid. It uses sodium hydroxide. Both act in a similar way, however. They dissolve the body until the only remains are bone fragments and what is delicately called “effluent” because post-mortem disposal is a delicate topic. The dissolution process is equally delicately described as a sort of accelerated decomposition. I guess that’s one way of putting it since dissolution sounds kind of distasteful.

Here’s an overview of the process from the Cremation Association of North America, which tells us that after the process is completed, “This [sterile] effluent”, which contains “salts, sugars, amino acids and peptides”, but no DNA whatsoever, so that’s a relief, “is discharged with all other wastewater, and is a welcome addition to the water systems.” I mean, every drop counts, right?

Water cremation, which is a ridiculous name given the etymology of the word, is still a relatively rare practice but it may yet gain popularity among the sustainably-minded among us. There is even a Reuters fact-check article on it, following some video claiming alkaline hydrolysis is basically a recreation of Soylent Green in real life.

It’s not. The process — also called aquamation, which is really smart and ingenious — is an alternative to traditional cremation and after it, the reports explain, the ashes are given to the relatives of the effluent source, just like with traditional cremation.

Indeed, the only difference with traditional cremation, those reports say, is that alkaline hydrolysis has no emissions from combustion, which obviously makes it extremely sustainable and green. And, I suspect, rather expensive. Indeed, it’s up to twice as expensive as normal cremation (but much cheaper than a traditional burial). And, I suspect, if it becomes the standard, it would have to compete with data centres (and normal crematoria) for electricity.

Imagine the horror of having the most sustainable way of decomposing actually contributing to climate change instead of stopping it because it needs electricity and it may have to come from a gas or, Climate Change forbid, a coal plant? This sounds oddly familiar for some mysterious reason.

Anyway, the promotion of aquamation, which in fairness was invented decades ago, demonstrates that, like the beginning of life, the end of it is also being presented to us through the sustainability lens. If you want to be green, and you should want to be green because we have a planet to save, opt for a water cremation instead of going into the ground and taking ages to break down.

Here’s how one big player on this market puts it on its homepage: “Aquamation is a gentle process that uses water instead of fire to return a body back to Mother Nature.” Yes, pure water, which totally does not conjure up unpalatable images of drowned, decomposing corpses but it may be just me and my sick imagination. I guess this is still better than the suggestion that tissue dissolution is actually taking place during that “gentle process”. You’ve got to sell aquamation somehow. Generously using the words Nature and natural seems to be essential.

After introducing the process with a straight-faced lie, the company then goes on to tell us that this process is 90% more energy efficient than cremation, it does not use fossil fuels, it does not emit emissiony emissions, and, the cherry on top, “20% more ash remains returned to the family.” Because it’s the amount of ashes that matters (and the fact they’re pure white instead of the boring gray of ashy ashes). Speaking from experience, this is not the case.

Still, if you want to be green and you should want to be green, instead of going up in flames and emitting all that carbon dioxide, you should go down the drain as sterile effluent. If you want to be green, you should also make sure there’s no one to receive the resulting “bone fragments”, because non-procreation is the righteous way to live your life before you become effluent.

I guess those fragments can then be used in fertilisers or perhaps animal feed because once we’re all green, there will be a lot of those. Bone fragments, that is. Not so sure about the animals. Fertiliser it is, then, for crop fields. And that is how we achieve a circular economy and stop climate change. If you think about it, Soylent Green’s economy was as circular as they get. Yet another fantastical cautionary tale that has an actual chance of becoming a reality, albeit in a less gruesome than the original form.

Finally, I have much respect for all burial traditions although I do have certain misgivings about some of them, but I have already made my disposal choice. I am totally going up in flames, smoke, and lots of CO2 when the time comes. I now have one more reason to do it, besides not wanting to take up space and time to break down, and quite liking fire. It would be my final gesture of bird-flipping to the green crowd. Provided cremation is not outlawed by then, of course.