Column: Water cremation: a kinder, gentler way to exit the planet

All eyes are on Glasgow as world leaders gather to discuss ways to be kinder to our planet, the only home we all share. From Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, to Varshini Prakash, executive director and co-founder of the youth-led Sunrise movement, there is agreement that we need to do much more to prevent the catastrophes we see unfolding all across the globe and even more dire events that scientists tell us are sure to come.

To date, we have not responded with urgency to the climate crisis caused by our addiction to fossil fuels. It’s time for each of us to join Guterres in saying: “Enough. Enough brutalizing biodiversity. Enough killing ourselves with carbon. Enough treating nature like a toilet. Enough burning and drilling our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”

We literally do not have to dig our own graves. We can change our behavior. How we handle death can make a difference to whether generations to come have a livable planet.

At this time, against a landscape of too many loved ones lost to COVID-19, it is time to look at ways we can make our exit from life kinder to the aina. It’s time to rethink burial and cremation practices. It’s time to understand and embrace water cremation — an eco-friendly, far gentler alternative to conventional cremation.

Did you know that in 2018, we had more than 8,500 flame cremations in Hawaii? In total, that meant a release of 4.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It does not have to be this way. This is avoidable.

Water cremation, which uses a base solution of 5% potassium hydroxide and 95% water to accelerate decomposition, consumes one-eighth the energy of a flame crematory and results in 75% lower carbon emissions. It destroys pathogens, protects the operator, and returns a safe by-product to the family. No DNA is left in the water or cremated remains. No mercury amalgam is emitted into the atmosphere. There is no groundwater contamination from cemeteries and no need to extract pacemakers and implants prior to cremation. Additionally, if desired, many of the implants can be recycled.

In short, this is a more respectful way to treat the remains of our loved ones. Respectful both to them and to our hurting planet.

This may sound new-fangled and strange — as change often does. But it is already being used by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and by the UCLA School of Medicine. We have their experience and their experts to draw on.

For too long, customary Hawaiian burial rites, while protected by law, did not have the benefit of access to the alkaline hydrolysis technology to make those rites possible in ways that are consistent with current health and environmental standards and expectations. Today we have both the technology and the expertise.

Once lawmakers pass legislation to make water cremation available in Hawaii, the people of Hawaii, whatever their culture, will be able to choose a kinder, gentler way to return to the earth from which we came. It’s a choice we can all make that will allow us to join with others on the front lines of saying “enough” to practices that hurt the air we breathe and the land and water that support our life.