A new study has found that divorce is harmful to the environment, since separate households use more resources and are less efficient than one (the study finding evidence for the perfectly obvious). But maybe these findings will do some good, at least with those with a postmodern sense of morality. Those with troubled marriages often no longer are persuaded that they should stay together for the sake of children. Maybe they will stay together for the sake of the environment.
Divorce Harms the Environment
Previous: Morality Helping Science
{ 1 trackback }
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Its hard for me to believe that anyone going through a divorce and the emotional pain that it entails, would be able to weigh the effects of their divorce on the environment. In reading this article, my wonderment was whether or not Congress might be clever enough to consider offering “tax credits” as incentive for couples to continue living together under the same roof for the sake of the environment? I wonder if the end would justify the means or would this further confuse the essence of marriage. ie. couples living together for the sake of the environment as opposed to for the sake of the children. Which is a long way from marriage for the sake of mutual love and commitment and the procreation of children. Marriage for the sake of the environment. Now there’s an inconvenient truth.
I think that is the pipe of all pipe dreams. The selfishness that drives most divorces from one or both sides will not consider the enviroment as reason to stay together. When you can’t look past you own self to see what you are doing to your own flesh and blood, well the environment is going to be the least of your concerns. Economics may be a factor, but it ceases to be when your in court.
The last thing on my mind as I drive from Salt Lake to Hunington Beach to pick up my son, is the thought that I might be adding somehow to a global warming they are not even sure is happening. That is of course unless I am in one of those rare places on the drive where you can pick up a radio station, and I happen to be listening to talk Radio.
Stories like this keep the satire industry flourishing. It also reaffirms my suspicion that for many people environmentalism is an ethical system unto itself. It even has its own apocalypse (global warming).
The imperative for Christians is to have compassion on enviro-fundamentalists, because their religion is all law and no grace.
From the article: “The best advice to those who are miserable together is not, however, to avoid divorce for the sake of the environment, but to find someone else as quickly as possible.”
At least environmentalism has given us a renewable source of pickup lines. To paraphrase Andrew Marvell: I can hear global warming’s watery chariot at my back; how about it, baby?
Of course, using the same logic (sarcastically) presented here, we would also encourage amarital cohabitation as a boon to the environment, so perhaps it’s best to leave the whole silly thing alone, hm?
Bror, don’t you see that I am being sarcastic in hailing this “discovery”? Don’t make me use emoticons!
Veith,
Yes I saw you were being sarcastic. And you were not the object of my scorn, but the people who made you to be sarcastic on this issue. Please don’t use emoticons.
Sorry, I could probably be clearer in those things.
What a great argument for hippie group homes, or those nutcases in the oak trees near Berkeley’s stadium…my alma mater is not exactly doing itself proud here, I’m afraid. The spoofs just write themselves.