INCREASING incidences of divorce around the world have a negative impact on the environment, leading to a less efficient use of energy and resources and bigger expenditures on utilities, a new study says.Don't these researchers have something more useful to study?
"Divorce usually causes a former spouse to move out and form a new household, thus increasing the size of materials and land for housing,'' said the study by researchers at Michigan State University.
Higher divorce rates "have led to an increasing number of households and ... the average household size and efficiency of resource use per person are lower than in divorced households than in married households".
In the United States, the proportion of divorced households jumped from 5 per cent in 1970 to 15 per cent in 2000, and numbers have surged even in China where divorce has not been traditionally as common, the study said.
In 2005, US divorced households spent as much as 56 per cent more on electricity and water per person than married households, and used up to 61 per cent more resources per person than they did before the separation took place.
If divorced households operated with an efficiency similar to married households, "more than 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water could have been saved in the US,'' it said.
UPDATE: As if this isn't stupid enough, LGFer Killian Bundy passed along this gem.
THEY were once outlawed for being used as seditious weapons of war. Now, bagpipes have been blasted as an environmental menace.
Over-intensive logging means that the African wood used to make Scotland's national instrument faces being wiped out.
Conservation groups are letting out skirls of protest, urging musicians and instrument manufacturers to make sure their pipes come from eco-friendly sources.
As part of the campaign, Scots are being asked to fund the planting of "bagpipe trees" in a bid to atone for the environmental damage.
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