When I die, I would like for my body to be laid out to be eaten by animals. Having your body laid out to be eaten by animals is not for everyone.
当我死去时, 我希望我的尸体能在荒野中 被动物果腹。 不过我知道这不是人人皆能承受的。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Maybe you have already had the end-of-life talk with your family and decided on, I don't know, cremation. And in the interest of full disclosure, what I am proposing for my dead body is not strictly legal at the moment, but it's not without precedent.
也许你已经与你的家人 交代过后事 并选择了,我不知道,火葬。 说实在话, 我准备处理尸体的方案 暂时还不算完全合法 不过这种方法并不算原创。
We've been laying out our dead for all of human history; it's call exposure burial. In fact, it's likely happening right now as we speak. In the mountainous regions of Tibet, they practice "sky burial," a ritual where the body is left to be consumed by vultures. In Mumbai, in India, those who follow the Parsi religion put their dead in structures called "Towers of Silence." These are interesting cultural tidbits, but they just haven't really been that popular in the Western world -- they're not what you'd expect.
我们在整个人类历史中 一直都是如此处理我们的尸体的 学名天葬。 事实上,天葬正在此时此刻发生着 在西藏的高原, 人们举行天葬, 一种把尸体供给秃鹰吞食的葬礼。 在印度孟买, 拜火教徒将他们的尸体存入 “寂静之塔” 这些都是有意思的文化趣闻, 可它们在西方世界 却并不怎么受欢迎 -- 它们并不在大众的预期内。
In America, our death traditions have come to be chemical embalming, followed by burial at your local cemetery, or, more recently, cremation. I myself, am a recent vegetarian, which means I spent the first 30 years or so of my life frantically inhaling animals -- as many as I could get my hands on. Why, when I die, should they not have their turn with me?
在美国,我们的死亡传统 已成为了化学防腐, 接着在地方墓园下葬, 或是最近流行的火葬。 我自己,最近开始成为了素食主义者, 换句话说我花了 接近30年的人生 疯狂地食用动物- 不放过任何我能获取到的。 我死后为何不能轮到它们来吃我呢?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Am I not an animal? Biologically speaking, are we not all, in this room, animals? Accepting the fact that we are animals has some potentially terrifying consequences. It means accepting that we are doomed to decay and die, just like any other creature on earth.
我不是动物么? 从生物角度来讲, 在座的每一位不应该都是动物么? 接受我们是动物的事实 可能会造成可怕的后果。 它意味着接受我们无法逃避生老病死, 如世上其他所有生物一般。
For the last nine years, I've worked in the funeral industry, first as a crematory operator, then as a mortician and most recently, as the owner of my own funeral home. And I have some good news: if you're looking to avoid the whole "doomed to decay and die" thing: you will have all the help in the world in that avoidance from the funeral industry.
在过去的九年时间里, 我一直在从事殡葬行业, 从火葬场营运员 到丧事承办人 再到最近拥有我自己的殡仪馆。 我有一些好消息: 如果你想逃避“死亡并腐烂”这种结局 殡葬产业能为你的逃避 提供一切帮助。
It's a multi-billion-dollar industry, and its economic model is based on the principle of protection, sanitation and beautification of the corpse. Whether they mean to or not, the funeral industry promotes this idea of human exceptionalism. It doesn't matter what it takes, how much it costs, how bad it is for the environment, we're going to do it because humans are worth it! It ignores the fact that death can be an emotionally messy and complex affair, and that there is beauty in decay -- beauty in the natural return to the earth from whence we came. Now, I don't want you to get me wrong -- I absolutely understand the importance of ritual, especially when it comes to the people that we love. But we have to be able to create and practice this ritual without harming the environment, which is why we need new options.
这是一个几十亿的产业, 它的经济模式是建立在 对尸体的保护,整洁与美化的准则之上。 不管这是不是故意为之的, 殡葬业将人类例外主义发扬光大。 不管付出任何代价, 付出多少金钱, 承受多少环境的破坏, 我们都将要这样做,因为我们是人类 这是应得的待遇。 此类想法忽略了 死亡是一件让人情绪混乱的复杂事物 这一基本事实 忽略了腐朽之美 -- 生灵自然回归大地之美 回到我们来的地方。 别误会我 -- 我完全理解仪式的重要性, 特别是为了我们所爱之人。 可我们应当在不对环境造成 伤害的基础上 创造并延续这类仪式。 这便是为何我们需要新的选择。
So let's return to the idea of protection, sanitation and beautification. We'll start with a dead body. The funeral industry will protect your dead body by offering to sell your family a casket made of hardwood or metal with a rubber sealant. At the cemetery, on the day of burial, that casket will be lowered into a large concrete or metal vault. We're wasting all of these resources -- concretes, metal, hardwoods -- hiding them in vast underground fortresses. When you choose burial at the cemetery, your dead body is not coming anywhere near the dirt that surrounds it. Food for worms you are not.
让我们回到保护,整洁与 美化的概念。 我们从尸体开始。 殡葬业通过 向你的家人兜售一个 带有密封橡胶的硬木 或者金属棺材来保护你的尸体。 下葬那天那个棺材将会被放置到 一个巨大的混凝土或是金属的墓室里。 我们浪费了所有这些资源: 混凝土,金属,硬木, 把它们藏到一个宽阔的地下墓穴里。 当你选择在墓地土葬的时候, 你的尸体不会接近 它周围的任何脏的东西 虫子的食物? 你不是。
Next, the industry will sanitize your body through embalming: the chemical preservation of the dead. This procedure drains your blood and replaces it with a toxic, cancer-causing formaldehyde. They say they do this for the public health because the dead body can be dangerous, but the doctors in this room will tell you that that claim would only apply if the person had died of some wildly infectious disease, like Ebola. Even human decomposition, which, let's be honest, is a little stinky and unpleasant, is perfectly safe. The bacteria that causes disease is not the same bacteria that causes decomposition.
接下来,这个产业将会 对你的尸体进行防腐处理 化学保存尸体。 这个过程会排干你的血液 并且用有毒的, 致癌的甲醛来替代它。 他们说他们做这所有的一切 是为了公众的健康 因为死尸很危险。 但是这个屋子里的医生会告诉你 那个说法只适用于 人死于一些传染性的疾病, 例如埃博拉病毒。 甚至腐烂的尸体,让我们诚实地说 会有一点发臭和不美妙, 但是是绝对安全的。 那些致病的细菌并非这些 腐败细菌。
Finally, the industry will beautify the corpse. They'll tell you that the natural dead body of your mother or father is not good enough as it is. They'll put it in makeup. They'll put it in a suit. They'll inject dyes so the person looks a little more alive -- just resting. Embalming is a cheat code, providing the illusion that death and then decay are not the natural end for all organic life on this planet.
最后,这个产业将会对尸体进行美化。 他们会告诉你你母亲 或者父亲尸体的自然状态 是不足够好的。 他们会对尸体进行化妆。 他们会给尸体穿上套装。 他们会注射染料 好让尸体看起来有一点生气-- 好像只是在休息一样。 防腐是一个带有欺骗性的名词, 提供了一种对死亡的错觉 就好像对这个星球上所有 原生的生命来说 腐败并不是自然的结局一样。
Now, if this system of beautification, sanitation, protection doesn't appeal to you, you are not alone. There is a whole wave of people -- funeral directors, designers, environmentalists -- trying to come up with a more eco-friendly way of death. For these people, death is not necessarily a pristine, makeup, powder-blue tuxedo kind of affair. There's no question that our current methods of death are not particularly sustainable, what with the waste of resources and our reliance on chemicals. Even cremation, which is usually considered the environmentally friendly option, uses, per cremation, the natural gas equivalent of a 500-mile car trip.
现在,如果这套美化,规划和保护 没有打动你, 你不是唯一一个。 有一大波人, 葬礼的指导和设计者,环保主义者 试着找出对一个对生态环境 更加友好的处理尸体的方式。 对这些人来说,死亡并不需要 传统的化妆,浅灰蓝色燕无尾 等等这些琐事来装点。 毫无疑问 我们当前处理死亡的方式 是无法长久持续的 尤其是在对资源的浪费 和对于化学品的依赖方面 甚至火葬, 通常被认为是一种环保的选择, 每一次火葬都会消耗掉 可以驾车旅行500英里的 等量天然气。
So where do we go from here? Last summer, I was in the mountains of North Carolina, hauling buckets of wood chips in the summer sun. I was at Western Carolina University at their "Body Farm," more accurately called a "human decomposition facility." Bodies donated to science are brought here, and their decay is studied to benefit the future of forensics. On this particular day, there were 12 bodies laid out in various stages of decomposition. Some were skeletonized, one was wearing purple pajamas, one still had blonde facial hair visible. The forensic aspect is really fascinating, but not actually why I was there. I was there because a colleague of mine named Katrina Spade is attempting to create a system, not of cremating the dead, but composting the dead.
未来我们将何去何从呢? 去年夏天,我在北卡罗莱纳州的 一座山上 在烈日下搬运成桶的碎木。 我在西卡罗莱纳州大学的 “尸体农场”, 更准确的叫法是“人体腐败设施”上。 把捐献给科学的尸体被运到这里, 对他们尸体的腐烂研究 会助益未来的法医学 在这个特殊的日子里, 有12个腐烂程度不同的尸体陈列在一起 有一些瘦骨嶙峋, 有一个穿着紫色的睡衣, 有一个还保留着金色的胡子, 法医科学的研究很吸引人 但这其实并不是我在那里的理由。 我之所以在那里是因为 我的一个叫Katrina Spade的同事 正在尝试创建一个系统, 不去火葬这些尸体, 而是让他们自然分解成土壤。
She calls the system "Recomposition," and we've been doing it with cattle and other livestock for years. She imagines a facility where the family could come and lay their dead loved one in a nutrient-rich mixture that would, in four-to-six weeks, reduce the body -- bones and all -- to soil. In those four-to-six weeks, your molecules become other molecules; you literally transform.
她命名这个系统为“重构”, 我们已经在牛和其他 家畜身上试验了几年了 她假想了一个系统, 家人可以把他们死去的亲人 放置在一个富营养混合物里, 4到6周后 尸体,骨头和所有的一切 就会被分解成土壤 在这4到6周的时间里, 你的分子变成了其他的分子, 你从某种意义上说转化了。
How would this fit in with the very recent desire a lot of people seem to have to be buried under a tree, or to become a tree when they die? In a traditional cremation, the ashes that are left over -- inorganic bone fragments -- form a thick, chalky layer that, unless distributed in the soil just right, can actually hurt or kill the tree. But if you're recomposed, if you actually become the soil, you can nourish the tree, and become the post-mortem contributor you've always wanted to be -- that you deserve to be.
这多么符合最近很多人 希望被埋在树下的要求 或者当他们死后变成一个棵树? 在传统的火葬中, 那些被留下的灰烬—— 无机的骨灰—— 形成一个厚厚的白垩层, 如果没有被合理的处理 而是直接植入土壤里 其实会伤害或者杀死树木。 但是如果你被重构, 如果你真正的变成土壤, 你就可以滋养这棵树, 变成你一直想变成的死后贡献者—— 你值得成为这样的人。
So that's one option for the future of cremation. But what about the future of cemeteries? There are a lot of people who think we shouldn't even have cemeteries anymore because we're running out of land. But what if we reframed it, and the corpse wasn't the land's enemy, but its potential savior? I'm talking about conservation burial, where large swaths of land are purchased by a land trust. The beauty of this is that once you plant a few dead bodies in that land, it can't be touched, it can't be developed on -- hence the term, "conservation burial." It's the equivalent of chaining yourself to a tree post-mortem -- "Hell no, I won't go! No, really -- I can't. I'm decomposing under here."
这对火葬的未来是一个机会。 但是土葬的未来会怎样呢? 有很多人认为我们不应该再 执行土葬了, 因为我们的土地已经快耗尽了。 但是如果我们可以重新改造它呢, 尸体并不是土地的敌人, 而是它的潜在拯救者。 我在讨论保护性埋葬, 一大块细长的 通过土地信托购买的土地 美妙的地方在于一旦你种了 一些死尸在那块地里 它不会被触碰,也不会被开发, 因此叫做:“保护性埋葬”。 它跟死后把你和一棵树 联系到一起是一样的 “不,我不会去”。 “是的,我不能。 我正在这下面分解。“
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Any money that the family gives to the cemetery would go back into protecting and managing the land. There are no headstones and no graves in the typical sense. The graves are scattered about the property under elegant mounds, marked only by a rock or a small metal disk, or sometimes only locatable by GPS. There's no embalming, no heavy, metal caskets. My funeral home sells a few caskets made out of things like woven willow and bamboo, but honestly, most of our families just choose a simple shroud. There are none of the big vaults that most cemeteries require just because it makes it easier for them to landscape. Families can come here; they can luxuriate in nature; they can even plant a tree or a shrub, though only native plants to the area are allowed. The dead then blend seamlessly in with the landscape.
家属给这个墓地的所有钱 将会被回馈到 保护和管理这块土地上。 这里不会有传统墓地里 会有的墓碑和坟墓 在这优雅的土丘下 墓地的所有权是散乱的, 只用一块石头或者小金属牌标记, 或者有时候仅仅是gps定位。 这里将不会有防腐, 没有沉重的金属棺材。 我的殡仪馆会贩卖很多 柳木编织的和竹子制成的棺材, 但是诚实地说,我们大多数的家庭 只会选择简单的覆盖物。 这里不存在大多数土葬要求的 大型墓室 因为要让这个地方更易变得像一个风景区。 家人会来这里,他们沉浸在大自然里; 他们甚至可以种一棵树 或者一株灌木, 不过只有当地的植物 才会被允许种植。 这些死者就这样 完全融入到了这片风景中
There's hope in conservation cemeteries. They offer dedicated green space in both urban and rural areas. They offer a chance to reintroduce native plants and animals to a region. They offer public trails, places for spiritual practice, places for classes and events -- places where nature and mourning meet. Most importantly, they offer us, once again, a chance to just decompose in a hole in the ground. The soil, let me tell you, has missed us.
这是保护性墓地的希望。 他们提供专门的城市和农村的绿地。 他们提供了一个机会为这些地区 再次引入当地的动植物。 他们提供了公共途径, 提供了可以进行精神升华的地方, 提供了可以进行课程和活动的地方, 提供了可以让大自然 和寄托哀思相结合的地方. 更重要的是, 他们再一次提供给我们, 一个去在地上的洞里腐烂的机会。 土壤, 让我告诉你们, 已经开始思念我们了。
I think for a lot of people, they're starting to get the sense that our current funeral industry isn't really working for them. For many of us, being sanitized and beautified just doesn't reflect us. It doesn't reflect what we stood for during our lives. Will changing the way we bury our dead solve climate change? No. But it will make bold moves in how we see ourselves as citizens of this planet. If we can die in a way that is more humble and self-aware, I believe that we stand a chance.
我想对大多数人来说, 他们已经产生了一种, 当前的殡葬产业 并不是真正的为他们服务的意识。 对我们许多人来说, 被消毒和美化并不能反映我们自己。 它并不能反映我们完整的一生。 改变我们尸体的下葬方式 会解决气候变化吗? 不。 但是它会引发关于我们 作为这个行球上的公民 应该怎样看待我们自己的 大胆讨论。 如果我们能以一种更简约 和自己想要的方法死去 我相信我们拥有机会。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)