Saving the environment may not be a good enough reason to stay in a marriage, but there is no doubt that co-habitation certainly has it's green points. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that divorced individuals use 46 per cent more electricity and 56 per cent more water than is used in married households. It makes sense: once a couple divorces, their one household is divdied into two separate ones, thereby making two of everything that require energy (washing machines, dishwashers, televisions, do I really need to go on?).

The excerpt below, taken from an opinion column on the subject, offers insight into why more Americans than ever live alone despite the ongoing campaign to go green that it seems everyone is taking into consideration these days.

With the exception of those who live in exorbitantly expensive cities like New York -- where having a roommate well into middle age does not signify being a loser as much as being unwilling to spend 80 percent of one's income on housing -- living alone is synonymous with being a grown-up. It's viewed as a crucial stop on life's journey, an essential precursor to marriage or domestic partnership or, in the absence of those institutions, as a far better option than living indefinitely with your buddies.

Having your own place accrues status points, too, especially if your place is so large and well-appointed it could just as easily house a family of five. In the same way that sport-utility vehicles convey assertiveness and a rugged, off-road lifestyle (not to be confused with actual ruggedness or off-road driving that really takes place off road), residing in a space that's larger than you need has become a hallmark of personal success and liberation. And although SUV drivers are losing their rough-hewn brio, the person who has three bathtubs but only one body to bathe is still considered godlike -- and not just because he's clean. Even with a plummeting real estate market making possession of all that space a little less enviable, a lot of us still think life is not sustainable without a walk-in closet the size of Gambia. So it's hard to imagine we'll be willing to get roommates, move back into our childhood homes or stay in bad marriages as a way of staving off global warming. Like the question of whether to have children (remaining childless is one of the best conservation methods around), for most of us, the question of whom we live with is too personal to view in terms of carbon footprints.

» Chicago Tribune