Stop That Divorce and Save the Planet?

Really interesting! Divorce leads to increased consumption of energy and natural resources, and to a greater impact on the environment...Check out the original article that Harry Fuller's comment below is based on: "The Environmental Impact of Divorce" by Eunice Yu and Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences... http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/51/20629 (Sorry, Harry, the authors, Eunice and Jianguo are from Michigan State and not Stanford - Paul Ehrlich of Stanford edited the article but did not write it).

Gurinder Shahi

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February 22nd, 2008
Stop that divorce and save the planetPosted by Harry Fuller @ 3:35 pm

Am I parroting the Pope, quoting a Mormon church decree? No, it turns out some Stanford scientists are telling us divorce is bad for the planet. Not a matter of faith at all they say, but science and numbers.

Their findings: divorce leads to more households per capita and each household is a waste of resources. Two can live more greenly than 1 + 1. Three can live more efficiently than 2 + 1. And so forth. In many nations divorce means more TV sets, more vacuum cleaners, more refrigerators, more floor psace per capita, etc. etc.

Here’s a summary of some of their findings: “U.S. households that experienced divorce used 42–61% more resources per person than before their dissolution. Remarriage of divorced household heads increased household size and reduced resource use to levels similar to those of married households. The results suggest that mitigating the impacts of resource-inefficient lifestyles such as divorce helps to achieve global environmental sustainability and saves money for households.”
So for the sake of the planet, if you gotta shed the spouse, at least get remarried, okay?