Blame the (Canadian) Beer Fridge

According to a recent scientific study the use of a "beer fridge" has a direct link to a lack of energy savings. The study, entitled: "Who Pays for the 'Beer' Fridge?: Evidence from Canada"" explores the energy waste generated by households that when purchasing a new refrigerator, turn their older "vintage" one into a "beer fridge."

"Beer fridge" would be terminology employed by University of Alberta economist Denise Young. I didn't make it up.

"Older vintage ‘beer fridges’ are costly for households to run and impose costs on the environment," writes Young in her study published in the journal Energy Policy.

Also in breaking eco-news is the study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that says divorce is bad for the environment. The increasing numbers of divorces world wide has led to more houses with fewer people in them.

The researchers found that divorce causes an increase in the number of houses constructed, which takes up energy and space. The new homes also use energy in heating and cooling.

The researchers' 2005 data showed that divorced households used an extra 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water when compared to married households.

All of this energy consumption leads, as everyone seems to agree these days, to greenhouse gases and global warming.

Now, if you just add "beer fridges" into the equation -- and I'm assuming here that a certain percentage of newly single divorced guys may want to indulge in the "beer fridge" practice -- then you're talking about a lot of polar bears sliding into the sea off of the melting polar ice.

I'm just not sure what the logical conclusions of these studies are: Save the earth by staying together and drinking warm beer?