On the Environmental Virtues of Cohabitation
When science seems to take a stand on our romantic decision-making, people tend to get excited. So it's no surprise that Google News turned up more than 400 articles about new research suggesting that divorce is harmful to the environment. The gist of the study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that the average divorcée uses more resources—specifically electricity, water, and residential space—than does the typical person in a couple or a family.
But the study tells only half a story. By focusing on people's decisions to stay married or get divorced, it comes to an incomplete conclusion. The real issue is whether we live alone or live with others. Marital status is immaterial.
Living alone requires greater use of resources. Each home or apartment needs to be built from raw materials, for one thing, and each household in the developed world tends to be furnished with its own energy-guzzling collection of lights, appliances, and consumer electronics. Adding a person to an existing household, or combining two households into one, creates efficiencies that can't be matched when people live by themselves. The new study, to its authors' credit, mentions that "declines in multigenerational households, delays in first marriages, increases in empty nesters, and increases in separated couples" can also increase resource use. (It covers that aspect of the subject in three sentences, however, and some news reports on the study overlooked it entirely.)
It follows that for singles, moving in with someone—anyone—is a green thing to do. Getting married? Great. Cohabiting? That's great, too, from an environmental standpoint. Shacking up with a roommate or two? Nature thanks you.
Marriages may in fact be bad for Mother Earth for a reason that the new study didn't consider. First comes love, as the nursery rhyme goes, and later comes a baby carriage. Each additional member of the species adds to the human race's demand for resources. No wonder Slate calls babies "the new SUVs."
Tags: environment | marriage | energy | divorce
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Reader Comments
overpopulation
As I remember, back in the late 40's or early 50's, some people were expressing concern about overpopulation. This concern was pretty well discounted. For instance, my Mother said God would take care of the problem. Yes, he will. However, I don't think in ways to our liking.
This renewed concern may be simply throwing water on the already chard remains.
Cohabiting is not so great "from an environmental standpoint." Those who cohabitate prior to marriage have a greater chance to divorce than those who don't cohabitate. Unless one makes a non-stop career out of cohabitation, then it's more likely than not that one will be alone living eventually as a divorcee, creating further environmental drain.
It is also easy to blame babies as "the new SUVs." In reality, it is not the individual person per se that is to blame but rather the materialistic and consumeristic American lifestyle that is at fault. Do we really need 5 televisions, 2 cars, 4 cell phones, and 3 computers in an average household? The real "green" challenge is for Madision Avenue and Hollywood to instill a sense of consumeristic balance via their advertisements and movies. Yes, sometimes "less" is "more."
Marital status is relevant because there is a huge gap between households where children are raised by 2 married parents compared with unmarried single parents. Children not raised by 2 married parents are at higher risk for drug addiction, alcohol abuse, gang involvement, out of wedlock births, abortions, school drop-out, criminal activities, etc. All such undesirable societal consequences create additional environmental drain via greater governmental program costs, use of police resources, greater energy/oil/gasoline usage, health care costs, higher risk of AIDS, etc.
How can one even begin to tabulate the numerious societal and environmental costs resulting from all types of deviant behaviors of children and adults who grew up in broken, dysfunctional families?
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