Divorce and the Environment?

Who would have thought that divorce could turn out to be detrimental to the environment? We know that the our environment is not at its best state anymore despite more constant efforts now, compared to before, of alleviating the damage of air, noise and water pollution. I try my best to be an advocate of eco-friendliness and I have just found the right article to add another reason as to why I choose to contradict the divorce bill. Published on 2007, I chanced upon the article “Divorce turns out to be costly for the environment” and here is what it has to say.

Yet another function of modern life has been determined to be dangerous to the environment: divorce. Increasing rates of divorce have become rampant in many countries around the world, and each time a family dissolves, the result is two new households. An ecologist from Michigan State University in America named Jianguo Liu who analyzed the environmental impact of divorce said, “a married household actually uses resources efficiently than a divorced household.” Why and how so? It is because more households mean more use of land, water and energy—which are the three most critical resources in our planet today. The numbers of these resources are rapidly trickling down because of over-consumption from an over-populated world.

Liu, who researches the relationship of ecology with social sciences said people were initially surprised with his findings and then thought it was actually something very simple. “Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing.” In the United States for instance, Liu cited, it had 16.5 million households headed by a divorced person in 2005 and just over 60 million households headed by a married person. Per person, divorce households spent more per month for electricity compared to a married household as multiple can do household activities at the same time. According to Liu’s calculations, that meant about $6.9 billion in extra utility per year, $3.6 billion for water and cost for land.

However, Liu stressed that he is not condemning divorce. Indeed the findings show some contradiction in a way that people have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor, which is rarely considered. He knows some couples really need to get divorced but Liu said, “one way to be more environmentally friendly is to live with other people and that will reduce the impact..”

So are you ready to get divorced from your spouse but still live with them to become more eco-friendly? That most certainly is an absurd situation but then again, more than physical, financial and emotional damage, this article gives a fresh new insight on also considering the environmental factors of divorce.

Source: http://mb.com.ph/node/52624