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December 4, 2007

Divorce and global warming

AT symposium
Christopher Alleva writes:

Last week we learned that global warming causes everything.

Today the drive by media is serving up more idle drivel with this whopper:

"divorce is harmful to the environment and causes global warming." This is  a perfect story for the "the chattering bloody classes" from the Washington Post and the New York Times that make their living foisting this nonsense on the public.

The source for this baloney is a study sponsored by the National Science Foundation- your tax dollars at work.

I wonder if the media would be so agog if they published a study that shows  gay marriage harms the environment?

The media brahmans really ran with this one. It was published on every  continent except Antarctica.

The Houston Chronicle
 
The Toronto Globe and Mail

The L.A. Times

USA Today

The Washington Post

Associated Press 

Reuters

ABC News

Herald Sun (Australia)

The Age (Australia)

The Times (UK)

The Detroit News

Rosslyn Smith writes:

Finally a story on the environment I can wholeheartedly agree with!

In a study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jianguo Liu, lead author and holder of the Rachel Carson chair in ecological sustainability at Michgan State University's department of fisheries and wildlife concludes that divorce hurts the environment. This is simply a function of efficient use of resources.  As Liu notes
"Whether you have four or two people, you still use the same amount of heat, and whether you have two people or 10 people, the light is on...."
Data for 12 nations was included in the study,  including the United States, Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya, Mexico and Spain.
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
The study was inspired by a global population phenomenon  
"The number of people in the households is getting smaller," he said. "One of the main reasons for the smaller households is divorce."

This maxim applied even in countries where divorce was not traditionally accepted, which surprised Liu.
Liu hopes that his study will cause people contemplating divorce to rethink the decision because of the effects on the environment. Raoul Felder, a prominent New York divorce attorney, remains skeptical.
"If they're not thinking about the effect of divorce on children, they're not going to be thinking what their environmental footprint is going to be or how many kilowatts they're using."


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