As the news surfaced of the Al and Tipper Gore divorce, a few impish researchers remembered this New Scientist article from December 2007, an article which explained how divorce does huge environmental damage.And no, I'm not kidding. In fact, it's common sense.
As Andy Coghlan says in the article, "The environmental cost of a marriage splitting occurs because couples and their families move into separate properties after divorce - meaning they collectively occupy more space, burn more energy, and consume more water than they did as a family unit."
Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University chimes in, "Divorced households are smaller than married households, but consume more land, water, and energy per person than married households."
In the U.S alone, that breaks down to something like 627 billion gallons of water, 38 million extra rooms, and 734 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity -- all because of divorce!
Why didn't Al tell us about this? And how can Al dare to adulterate the planet so badly, so unnecessarily by getting rid of Tipper? How will he justify this to the Nobel Committee?
In the same year that Liu studied (2005), divorced households in the U.S. consumed up to 61% more planetary resources per person than when that couple was married! And given the luxurious lifestyles of the Gores, that's gonna' be some increase! Let's hope all our light bulbs don't start dimming.
The authors of the study draw the logical conclusion, "Divorce escalates consumption of increasingly limited resources." Indeed, they go so far as urging governments "to publicise the hitherto unanticipated environmental costs of divorce."
But the good news is that the study showed resource consumption shrank to what it had been originally if divorced couples remarry.
So please, Al and Tipper -- for the sake of the children, for the sake of your own souls and consciences, and for the sake of the whole doggone planet -- quit your petty squabbles and move back in together! Now!
