Get Married, Stay Married, Save the Planet

My blog last week was about how my second fridge for beer was contibuting to global warming. I really don’t want to get wrapped up in the farcical premise that man is causing global warming, but this week there was another article that was just too rich to let go by.

We all know that divorce damages families. I’ve watched many friends deal with divorce and hope I never have to deal with it. It's an ugly situation, to say the least.

Though I am not being green because I have a second fridge, I just found out that I am offsetting that environmental sin by the fact that I have been married to the same woman now for 22 years in a row (and I give her the credit). And I should also be well ahead in my 'marriage offsets' since I’ve only had the second fridge less than a year and I have been married for over 22 years.

There are a lot of benefits to being and staying married. Among the things being married should be able to do for my family is to provide a loving, stable home, and I hope to set an example for my kids to follow when they decide to choose a spouse that commitment and hard work can have rewards.

What I wasn’t aware of was that I was saving the environment by all of that commitment and hard work. Out of the UK, in the Times Online, comes an article that describes what divorce is doing to our environment (oh yeah, single people are guilty too)…scientists have finally quantified the effect of divorce on the planet. YGBSM!!!

You mean to tell me that with all of the things that scientists could be researching, some of them sat around and actually thought that this was a useful study? And, even more amazing, someone funded this crap!!

But they did and here’s an excerpt of the article…

“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.”

Where do they find the statistics? Do they do a cross-check of divorce court records and then hack into the power company’s database to examine utility bills? And, what percentage is that of the total consumption of electricity in America?

But, it doesn’t stop there….

“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.”

Perhaps we should create communes for divorced people. This will allow them to still be contributing to the reduction of global warming vice making it worse by being single and living …. alone!

Really, though, I think I’m in the wrong business. With a divorce rate of about 50% in this country I should be a building contractor. These soaring divorce rates are causing a soaring demand for housing. I could just go find the market segment that has the highest divorce rate (that would be Nevada for the latest stats I could find…and I used to live there), build some housing and wait for the profits. Since the average duration of first marriages is less than 8 years I won’t have to wait that long for customers. Evil capitalism at its best!!

I could check the papers for wedding announcements and then show up at the wedding and give them a gift card worth some amount of discount on their housing requirements when they come to see me after the divorce. Hey, with those odds I’ll probably see half of them! And for some reason, they’ll need more rooms.

“The study… found that the average number of rooms per household was between 33% and 95% higher for divorced couples than for married ones.”

I’m sure I’m misinterpreting this but are they really saying that if I get divorced I will move from a 5 bedroom home to a 7 to 9 bedroom home? Am I going to win the lottery? I’ll need to because I’ll be lucky to find a 7’x9’ room that I could afford if I divorce.

So aside from the social and economic impacts, it appears that this divorce stuff also contributes to global warming. I’ve seen things get heated for people during a divorce…but enough to warm the planet??

“Liu also calculated that America now has an extra 38.5[million] rooms in houses and apartments built to meet the demand for more accommodation generated by divorce over the past three decades.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for divorce but….SO WHAT? Are the rooms being rented or owned? Does that not mean the laws of supply and demand are working? Isn’t that what a free economy runs on … supply and demand?

Does any economic or technological growth NOT cause global warming? Why is man so evil?

These people are wackos. There have to be better things to research that will have a more meaningful impact on society than the affect of divorce on global warming. But as I said, as far as marriage goes, I’m GREEN!

Sadly (for purposes of this discussion that is), though, I was not always married. At one time in my past I was single. Like other singles out there, divorced or never married, I was not aware that I was making our planet warmer. I am reformed now. I am married. I am GREEN. HEAR ME ROAR!!

When I got engaged I was in the Navy. I was in Attack Squadron 95 - the Green Lizards. One day our Command Master Chief (these guys were the salty, old sages of the command) came into my office and said, “Lieutenant, I understand you’re getting married.” I replied, “Yes, I am, Master Chief.” He looked at me very gleefully and said, “Well, good. There’s no reason for you to be happy.”

I have used that line many times on people when I hear they are engaged but now I am going to change it for my nieces, nephews, friends and other single people I know. Now I am going to tell them that they are causing global warming and that marriage is their obligation so that they can help cool the planet (it cools off a lot of other things too…but that’s a different blog). And to help them understand that they must take this seriously and strive to stay married, I will hit them with facts according to the study:

“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.”

All of that seems like ‘fuzzy math’ to me. But if the math is right, then marriage makes us more efficient in all aspects of our lives than if we were single.

And all of that efficiency has given me more time to go to my second fridge to get some olives and brine to enjoy a Dirty Martini and a good cigar.

A-6Dude

And here’s a martini recipe to help us stay green:

Kyoto Martini
6 parts Gin or Vodka
2 parts Melon liqueur
1 part Dry Vermouth
¼ part lemon juice
Mix all ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake till too cold to hold the shaker and pour into a cold martini glass. Garnish with a melon ball (green, of course).

Beer Drinking is Destroying the Planet?

I was finally ahead of the curve. As you can tell from the title of my blog, martinis are my drink of choice (and scotch, too). And we here at Dirty Martini ARE green (okay, so it’s just me and green is the color of a lot of my titles and banners).

Based on the article I read today, I am relieved to know that since I quit drinking beer as my predominant adult beverage of choice, I have reduced my contribution to global warming.

And, I am a firm believer in climate change. I see the weather change on a daily basis. I also know from my own research that the earth warms and cools about every 1500 years.

When I saw the headline I thought that the beer story was going to be about the end by-product of carbohydrate fermentation in our intestines (methane). We all have heard how cows and other ruminants are destroying our planet by farting. And when we drink beer – most of us fart too.

But this Canadian government sponsored study didn’t find that it was the consumption and expulsion of the beer that we evil humans do to make our planet warmer. It was worse than that. It appears that some of us actually like to keep our beer cold. Yes, some of us actually have ….. a beer fridge. Not just the one in our kitchens, but some people have a second refrigerator to store beer.

They actually paid someone to survey refrigerator usage!!

But wait! You gotta hear this…. "People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles," British environmental consultant Joanna Yarrow tells New Scientist magazine. "Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people — let's hope it has an effect."

Of course, even if beer was my beverage of choice, I would have to fight for space in my “second” reefer with all of the juice boxes that I store for my kids and the neighborhood kids to consume. I can now tell them that they are causing global warming by wanting cold juice boxes in the summer.

Is having a second frig a “frivolous luxury”? I might concede that it is a luxury…but it’s not frivolous. I work hard and if I have some extra money after my bills are paid then who’s to say what is frivolous or not. It's my money!!!

"Sorry kids, there’ll be no more juice boxes. And there’ll be no more fun till morale improves, either."

Of course, I think all of this is garbage. But it would take way too many blog postings to address the farce that I think the man-made global warming issue is.

To hear these people, it seems that the world would be better off without mankind. We are the nature’s biggest enemy. But the last time I looked, we WERE part of nature. But when you hear the wacko environmentalists talk it’s like we are some alien life form that is not of this world and our sole mission to destroy it. Hell, aren't we destroying the planet by exhaling? Isn't that CO2? Aren't we a carbon-based life form?

I definitely am for taking care of our planet. Having been around the world, literally, I can tell you that this is a beautiful place. And there are a lot of sensible things we humans can do. Being good stewards of our planet is the right thing to do. And, as our technolology advances it will allow us to do things more efficiently. But it seems these wackos want to take us back to the days before electricity. Our technological advances are ruining everything. But heck, we could become hunter-gatherers again and we could eat the moose that are dumping 2,100 kilos of CO2 into the environment each year.

But the folks that did the study had a different answer….

“University of Alberta researcher Denise Young, who led the study, suggests that provincial authorities hold beer-fridge buy-backs or round-ups to eliminate the threat — methods that Americans use to get guns off the streets.”

I can see it happening now….government officials storming people’s garages and seizing those ‘frivolous’, beer-can chilling refrigerators. Those old fridges will be chained and carted off to some undisclosed location to go through re-education training and, if they rehabilitate successfully, they may find their way back into society in a ‘one refrigerator’ home...the way their God intended.

And this is what they want for their Religion of Environmentalism….more governmental control of our lives. That way they can get rid of evil capitalism and everything evil that it spawns.

So I’m not likely to get rid of my ‘frivolous luxury’ anytime soon. Nor am I inclined to tell my kids that beer is the only beverage allowed in my ‘frivolous luxury’. As I said, beer isn’t my number one drink of choice. But....

Perhaps I will buy more olives for my dirty martinis and keep them out there.


A-6Dude


Here is another good martini recipe for the Christmas season:

Frostini: this is like drinking dessert!
-equal parts vanilla vodka / Godiva Dark Chocolate liqueur / Bailey's
-splash of cream
-shake ingredients over ice
-pour into a COLD martini glass
-garnish with a Hershey's kiss or rim the glass with chocolate