“To improve air quality in the Indian capital, a federal environmental court wants officials to reduce the carbon footprint of the dead. Judges from the National Green Tribunal have asked authorities to reduce the number of traditional cremations that use wood to burn bodies. India’s Environment Ministry, the government in Delhi and local authorities should initiate programs “for providing alternative modes of cremation,” the court said last week.
“The idea is to mitigate the environmental damage caused by Hindu funeral rites that typically include open-air cremation using wood. Alternatives, the court said, include electric crematoriums and furnaces that use natural gas. The court was responding to a petition by D.M. Bhalla, a Delhi-based lawyer, who argued that the the number of trees felled to obtain wood for funeral pyres and the carbon-dioxide emissions produced by cremations was “alarming.” The Wall Street Journal (India). Read it on delhiair.org.
Indian Court: Find Alternatives to Wood-Fired Cremations
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