New York has become the sixth state to legalize human composting, behind Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and California. The process involves placing straw and wood chips into a container with the body and allowing it to decompose over time. Touted as a ‘green’ form of dealing with death, one in which carbon emissions can be reduced from processes such as cremation - which involves an estimated 540 pounds of carbon dioxide - or typical burial practices using embalming fluid, concrete, wood, etc., can be replaced, human composting has opposition. The idea here is that not only is the human dirty, sickly and polluting while alive, but even after death we still continue to destroy the planet - hence why carbon dioxide is the focus rather than the simpler notion that we could just be reabsorbed into the earth in an ‘green burial’. 540 pounds so that family can have an urn with ashes is nothing compared to a one hour flight in a private jet which emits over 2200 pounds of the same stuff. There is no doubt that modern funerary practices use toxic chemicals and other resources, but this is not about anything ‘green’; it’s about ideology. It’s a distortion of life, a degrading of the human in the spiritual hierarchy, and a demeaning practice meant to offset C02 for the wealthy who can afford to pay for credits. Whether Christian, Muslim, or Jew, all agree that the body is sacred, as is the blood, and therefore it should be preserved as such after death. From cleanliness and exercise while alive, to preservation after death, the body is considered sacred in virtually every spiritual practice. But with modern scientific materialism, animation of the corporeal is reduced to spiritual fiction.