In 1932, British author Aldous Huxley wrote a chilling novel about a "utopian" society in which human existence is ruled by technology, efficiency, and most of all utility. The novel was Brave New World, and we quote a passage here from the beginning of Chapter 5:

...Slough Crematorium. For the safety of night-flying planes, its four tall chimneys were flood-lighted and tipped with crimson danger signals. It was a landmark.
"Why do the smoke-stacks have those things like balconies around them?" enquired Lenina.
"Phosphorous recovery," explained Henry telegraphically. "On their way up the chimney the gases go through four separate treatments. P₂O₅ used to go right out of circulation every time they cremated someone. Now they recover over ninety-eight percent of it. More than a kilo and a half per adult corpse. Which makes the best part of four hundred tons of phosphorous every year from England alone." Henry spoke with happy pride, rejoicing wholeheartedly in the achievement, as though it had been his own. "Fine to think we can go on being socially useful even after we're dead."

For the past several years, energy experts who consider the global warming scare rather dubious, and the Global Climate Treaty even more so, have been surprised and puzzled by the various policy proposals of the Swedish government. Not only have Swedish bureaucrats supported drastic measures to limit fossil fuel burning, but--being true-blue environmentalists--they are now moving ahead with plans to dismantle their nuclear power plants as well, beginning this year with the Barseback Power Station.

What was Sweden--a country with long, cold, dark winters--going to use as a substitute energy source? We found out last September when U.S. News & World Report revealed that Swedish officials had secretly come up with an alternative guaranteed to warm the hearts of environmental activists everywhere. As reporter Jay Maeder put it, "dead people are now heating thousands of homes in Sweden, their posthumous candlepower piped to local energy companies from the ovens of two high-tech crematoriums."

Swedish officials, who kept this energy experiment under wraps for six months, were unmoved by the uproar that resulted when word finally leaked out. "It's only sensible!" argued Helsingborg crematory official Borje Stolt. "It's environmentally friendly! And relatives can console themselves that the death of a loved one benefits the whole community!"

Some clergy were not so sure. "No one wants Aunt Astrid heating up the living room!" fumed Baptist minister Lennart Nilsson. Another churchman said the issue was "a little sensitive," but conceded that at least families still got the ashes. True, but we wondered when we read this if the ashes weren't somewhat intermingled. After all, how much electricity can they generate burning bodies one at a time?

Despite the public outcry, the practical Swedish government has no immediate plans to discontinue the project. According to the press officer at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C., the two state-run crematoriums are still cranking out kilowatts. Officials even considered a marketing/public relations campaign, calling it "Human Warmth."

The Swedish alternative, of course, raises all kinds of startling questions. Do the Swedes plan to import "fuel" in order to implement this power-generating program on a large scale? What if families choose to withhold the "fuel" and bury it? Will Swedish legislators pass a law demanding that the "fuel" be turned over to the government, rather than waste all that candlepower and allow it to slowly emit methane, carbon dioxide, and possibly other greenhouse gases?

"We just can't afford to be sentimental about this," said Borje Stolt. No, certainly not. But given the disdain many environmentalists have for human beings, we just hope for the Swedes' sake that the Greens in their government continue to wait until they're dead before loading up the furnaces.

(For reporters wanting to follow-up, the Swedish Embassy press office in Washington, D.C., has telephone numbers for Swedish officials in charge of this program.)