If you want to be “Green” Stay married

Another study finds that if you want to be green you should stay married, divorce results in two households and a less efficent use of resources.

Households in which a divorce occurs have a greater negative impact on the environment in terms of efficient use of resources than the households of married couples, according to research that will be published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The reason is simple – it’s all about efficiency, says Jianguo Liu, lead author of the study who has the Rachel Carson chair in ecological sustainability at the university’s department of fisheries and wildlife.

In the United States, they found that divorced households spent 46 percent more per capita on electricity and 56 percent more on water than married households did.

If your at the stage where divorce is under consideration, I don’t think the increase in your carbon footprint is the first thing that comes to mind, or enough of a reason to stay together but:

“[Couples] don’t know the impact on environment from divorce. … After the research is done, it’s really simple. Before our research, nobody knew about the impact,” he said. “My hope is that they will think about the decision. Also, they can inform other people about the environmental impact of divorce.”

Hopefully this is not an example of our tax dollars at work, you do not need a study to determine that two households have a greater enviormental impact than one.

I know, lets let the UN and the government tell us what we can do:

Is it enough to have halved family meat consumption, have foregone flights for several sun-starved years and arranged a life in which habits of cycling to work and walking to school are routine? No, it’s just scratching at the surface. If the developed world is to implement the 80% cuts in carbon emissions the UN demands as part of the talks beginning in Bali today, the lives of our children will have to be dramatically different from everything we are currently bringing them up to expect.

In 2006, each person in the UK produced 9.6 tonnes of C02, and that needs to come down to less than three tonnes by 2050. That is the non-negotiable on which there is widespread consensus among environmental scientists and economists.

Hearteningly, we know it can be done – our parents and grandparents managed it in the second world war. This useful analogy, explored by Andrew Simms in his book Ecological Debt, demonstrates the critical role of government. In the early 1940s, a dramatic drop in household consumption was achieved – not by relying on the good intentions of individuals (and their ability to act on that coffee-stained pamphlet), but by the government orchestrating a massive propaganda exercise combined with a rationing system and a luxury tax. This will be the stuff of 21st-century politics – something that, right now, all the main political parties are much too scared to admit.

And finally, the irony of it all

More than 10,000 jet into Bali for global warming conference
U.N. official rejects notion attendees adding to problem

BALI, Indonesia — Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.

But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.

….

The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali, mostly from plane flights but also from waste and electricity used by hotel air conditioners.

If correct, Goodall said, that is equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million people, such as Marseilles, France, would emit in a day.

But he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what the African country of Chad churns out in a year.

Maybe someone should explain the concept of videoconferencing to them, so they could stay home and reduce the carbon emissions from all of the chartered and private jets flights.