Mother Nature Feels the Pains of Divorce
by Trey Granger
Published on December 4th, 2007
1 Comment
Yahoo! News features a story on the unmentioned victim of a divorced couple: the environment.
This is according to research by an ecologist at Michigan State University, who will be presenting his analysis in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The basic premise is that more households means more resources used, including energy, land and water. The consumption of these resources is not altered significantly by adding or subtracting residents, whereas a second home will essentially double the use of these resources.
One suggestion for those seeking an eco-friendly divorce is for whoever moves out to move in with other people, thereby not increasing the number of households. Funders of the research include the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Agricultural Experiment Station.
bod1969
posted on December 8th, 2007 at 3:03 am
If this is true, then surely the effect of having say, four children quadruples the effect on the environment?