As a victim of divorce, I don't have to be told it's bad for everyone involved. But the Sunday Times (UK) reported today that divorce is also hurting the planet.
UNHAPPY couples used to stick together for the sake of the kids. Now they can make the best of a bad marriage in the name of being environmentally friendly.
Scientists have quantified for the first time the extent to which divorce damages the environment. The researchers found that the combined use of electricity across the two new households created rose 53% while water use was up by 42%.
Across America – one of 12 countries studied – divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2005 that could have been saved if the families had not split up. That is equivalent to about a fifth of Britain’s consumption.
Broken couples also increase demand for housebuilding and infrastructure such as new roads. “The global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, has taken up more space and has gobbled up more energy and water,” said Jianguo Liu of Michigan University, who carried out the latest research.
Divorce is horrible. God hates it, and so do I. But until now, people who lean left haven't hated it. Feminists especially saw it as a way for women to escape the shackles that chained them to the oppression of men.
I'm not foolish enough, though, to believe this study will change the minds of environmentalists in favor of the institution of marriage. No, I expect to start hearing calls for new regulations. They'll want to force people to into house-sharing--or else have them pay a hefty environmental-damage tax for individual residences. Let's just hope the planet can survive the global warming activists' divorce from reality.
3 comments:
I don't believe "in the name of saving the planet" could have prevented my divorce.
Janice,
Same here. The only people it would work on are the ones who are getting their tubes tied in the name of saving the planet. For the rest of us, they'll try using force to get us to increase the number of people per dwelling.
Ma cherie,
People who lean left may not "hate" divorce, but the liberal-leaning parts of the country have divorce rates less than half that of the solidly conservative parts of the country. Massachusetts, gay-marriage friendly Massachusetts, consistently has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Go figure, huh?
Just thinking out loud, maybe the "easy divorce culture" of the conservative areas of the country accounts in some part for their self-reported level of happiness that you posted about earlier?
paw (never married)
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