Whether you're leaving him/her for "greener pastures" or "irreconcilable differences", divorce is just not the Green thing to do!
Not so green pastures
By Diana Boidyo
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| “SAVE WATER, SHOWER TOGETHER,” is a popular Cause on Facebook… with 3,735 people young people proclaimed themselves fans. Turns out they are right. ‘Marriage and Divorce’, these two words have completely lost meaning in our easy-going the 21st century. Where marriage is as casual as going out for a cup of coffee, divorce is just like a button that one can always press to walk out of holy matrimony. So why is their an article on divorce on EarthSmiles.net ? Little do people realise the consequences of their actions in things like marriage and divorce. Earlier we told you about how to make your wedding green – but we can’t say the same about divorce. So what is the environmental impact of saying “I don’t”? Not only are divorcing couples affecting themselves and the people around them – children, well-wishers, etc - but they are also adversely affecting, you guessed it, the environment. The data below reflects how divorce is directly related to energy waste. Though these are United States statistics, it could be the same anywhere - the study shows that when two people get divorced, the rate of energy consumption goes up to considerable levels.  © 2010 EarthSmiles.net . All rights reserved. Made from 100% recycled pixels. • In the United States alone in 2005, divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water that could have been saved had household size remained the same as that of married households. Thirty-eight million extra rooms were needed with associated costs for heating and lighting. • In the United States and 11 other countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been 7.4 million fewer households in these countries. • The numbers of divorced households in these countries ranged from 40,000 in Costa Rica to almost 16 million in the United States around 2000. You calculate the environmental cost. • The number of rooms per person in divorced households was 33 percent to 95 percent greater than in married households. Tiger Woods’ estranged wife Elin Nordegren is reportedly set to pocket 750 million dollars in a divorce settlement. However, Nordegren must not reveal anything about her relationship with the golfer to get the cash. (No book deals or giving interviews about the breakdown of their five-year marriage). $ 750m can buy a lot of duplication... starting with a big house! According to Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University, “Americans spend an extra 3.6 billion annually on water as a result of the extra households created when people divorce. Worldwide, divorce rates have been increasing, and each time a family dissolves, the result usually is two households. “A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorce household”. Households with a fewer people are not as efficient as those with more people-sharing. With this increase in the number of households, there are fewer people per household and a situation similar to that of increase in population is replicated.” Liu continues, “Our challenges were to connect the dots and quantify their relationships. People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered. "Solutions are beyond a single idea. Consider the production of biofuel. Biofuel is made from plants, which also require water and space. We're showing divorce has significant competition for that water and space. On the other hand, more divorce demands more energy. This creates a challenging dilemma and requires more creative solutions." Some extra energy or water use may not sound like a big deal, but it adds up. With the divorce rates going up more electricity per person per month is consumed as compared to the normal households. One way to be more environmentally friendly is to live with other people – either as couples or families - and that will reduce the impact. So want to be Planet-friendly? Just be friendly… and stay friendly! |
