The correlation between carbon emissions and divorce

at The Times (via Don Surber):

Scientists have quantified for the first time the extent to which divorce damages the environment. The researchers found that the combined use of electricity across the two new households created rose 53% while water use was up by 42%.

Across America – one of 12 countries studied – divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2005 that could have been saved if the families had not split up. That is equivalent to about a fifth of Britain’s consumption.

Broken couples also increase demand for housebuilding and infrastructure such as new roads. “The global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, has taken up more space and has gobbled up more energy and water,” said Jianguo Liu of Michigan University, who carried out the latest research.

The growth of single-person households is also damaging the environment. Research published in the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability found that:

- One-person households are the biggest consumers of energy, land and household goods, such as washing machines, refrigerators, TVs and stereos, per capita

- They consume 38% more products, 42% more packaging, 55% more electricity and 61% more gas per capita than four-person households

- People living alone create 1½ tons of waste annually compared with a ton by those in households of four or more

UPDATE: The Watermelons* are crying:

Average annual deaths from weather-related events in the period 1990-2006 – considered by scientists to be when global warming has been most intense – were down by 87% on the 1900-89 average. The mortality rate from catastrophes, measured in deaths per million people, dropped by 93%.

Compared with the peak rate of deaths from weather-related events in the 1920s of nearly 500,000 a year, the death toll during the period 2000-06 averaged 19,900. “The United Nations has got the issues and their relative importance backward,” Goklany said.

*Watermelons are green on the outside, and red on the inside. Many are seedy.

Go trade at Inkling's Global Warming Exchange.