Newspaper Clippings: Running out of room for the dead?

In London, England people are now being faced with a problem most North Americans will never have to consider: The city of eight million is running out of places to bury their dead. (Full story here)

Londoners are having to develop a new mindset about certain matters as the city’s largest cemetery tries to persuade them to share a grave with a stranger.

As I read the story and people’s comments I saw similarities between London’s dilemma and Ontario’s rising debt load (written about here recently and definitely here again).

For example:

A London receptionist said, ”I don't even want to think about it. It's not showing respect. It doesn't matter whether or not the person has been buried for 25 years or 100 years, that is their space and you should give them respect."

And that apparently is “an attitude that frustrates advocates of grave reuse. Julie Rugg of the Cemetery Research Group at the University of York in northern England jokes that Britain's problem is that "we weren't invaded by Napoleon." Countries that adopted the Napoleonic Code have been reusing graves for almost 200 years.”


But a change in attitude in London will happen eventually (grave sharing will occur in one region, then another, then another, until it is relatively commonplace), as will a change in attitude in Canada concerning our debt and our personal responsibility toward it.

Just as Londoners will learn they are running out of room for the dead and need to share limited space, we’ll learn our excessive lifestyles need to be trimmed as limits are discovered concerning our unsustainable economy.

.