Dying To PolluteBy Tim MatsonWinter in Vermont -- pouring rain, flood watches, pollution alerts, melting snowmen. Anybody want a ski resort cheap? And how about those underground burial vaults? Used to be you couldn't dig a grave in the frozen Vermont soil, so people who died in winter were stashed away in manmade caverns, where they kept naturally until the spring thaw, when a grave could be dug. But these days, how long will a body keep in a lukewarm vault? Global warming visits the graveyard.Time to consider cremation. Cremation is a growing (and glowing) trend across the country, with an average 30 percent of the population choosing to go up in smoke, and no body storage problems. In Vermont, the rate is dramatically higher, roughly 50 to 60 percent. Cremation adds not a bit to real estate demands in a crowded world, and it saves money. While a traditional burial plot, coffin, and gravestone could set your widow back as much as a new Lexus, a no frills cremation averages about $2000.However, there is a dark side. According to the Center for Disease Control about 7000 people die in the US every day. If 30 percent of those folks are choosing cremation, that's 2100 bodies incinerated daily. That’s a lot of smoke.Consider the fuel required. It takes about 25 gallons of LP to cremate one body, or the but equivalent when oil or natural gas is used. That's enough fuel to produce 336 tons of carbon dioxide every day. Or about the same amount of CO2 as 20,500 average American cars (and hearses) emit in a day. In other words, on top of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere when we're alive (cars, planes, utility plants, etc.), we also exit the planet in a puff of toxic fumes!What to do? Don't die! Ok, that probably won't work.So why not ask funeral directors to include "green tags" with each cremation?Green tags are investments in carbon free energy production, like windmills, solar panels, and hydro power. For example, some people calculate their annual auto mileage, and buy an equivalent amount of green tags, also known as carbon offsets. That way their automobile emissions are balanced by financing an equivalent amount of new CO2-free energy. While it doesn't eliminate your auto pollution, it does help move the green energy movement forward.What would offsetting cremation emissions cost? I called the folks at Native Energy, a carbon mitigating organization based in Charlotte, Vermont. Marketing Specialist Thomas Hand calculated that to offset one cremation would cost only about two bucks."At the individual level it's not that significant," he admitted, "but collectively it's quite a lot of emissions. I'd say that the funeral home or crematorium could probably just cover the expense or add it to their price."Vermont undertakers could offer carbon offsets with each cremation package (body pickup, cremation, your choice of urn, and a bright green Eco-Cadaver toe tag suitable for framing or hanging on the Christmas tree). Good for the environment, good for a business that's always looking for an image lift. Who knows, one of these days we might even see a snowman again.Strafford resident Tim Matson designs earth ponds and is the author of "A Round Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground (Chelsea Green).