Divorce isn't good for the environment, according to an article in the Seattle Times (excerpted below.)Divorce can be bad for the environment. Each time a family dissolves, the result is two new households.
"A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Jianguo Liu, a sustainability expert with Michigan State University.
He and fellow researcher Eunice Yu concluded that in 2005, in the United States alone, divorced households could have saved 38 million rooms, 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water if their "resource-use efficiency" had been comparable to that of married households.
Liu's analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Besides the United States, Liu looked at 11 other countries, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002.
In the 11, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water in these countries.
"A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Jianguo Liu, a sustainability expert with Michigan State University.
He and fellow researcher Eunice Yu concluded that in 2005, in the United States alone, divorced households could have saved 38 million rooms, 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water if their "resource-use efficiency" had been comparable to that of married households.
Liu's analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Besides the United States, Liu looked at 11 other countries, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002.
In the 11, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water in these countries.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/
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