Swedish Bachelors 20 Percent Higher Energy Users Compared To Bachelorettes
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 08. 7.08
This news item caught my eye as a recent post regarding efforts to green up my household brought some muses from one commenter opining that women must have a much bigger carbon footprint than men. My reply was that in a very general way, while women may like to buy more stuff, men like to drive, and drive fast.
Men use 20 percent more energy than women
Now research from the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) confirms that Swedish single men (with no children) consume about 20 percent more overall energy than Swedish single women, mostly because of their vehicle driving habits. For men surveyed in the study, 40 percent of their overall energy use was for transport, while for women the figure was about 25 percent. Women on the other hand, tended to be involved in more "energy intensive" activities while at home (read: washing more dishes, washing more clothes, and washing themselves more and longer!).
Women buy more stuff, men more energy-intensive stuff
The survey found that women really do consume more -more clothes, more pharmaceuticals, more health care, more beauty supplies and services - but the stuff men spent their money on - more eating and drinking out, more tobacco, more transport - were more energy intensive. Of course, some of those cars and meals are probably benefitting some of those single women.
Men less likely to give up the car use
A different survey in Sweden from 2007 found Swedish men less aware of global warming, as well as less worried about it than women, and more willing to accept the risks a changing climate might entail. Men are thus (and thus far) less receptive to efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by reducing their driving. The Research Defense Ministry suggests labeling goods and services with their climate effects will help women reduce their footprint, while men need some new kind of effective incentive to want to drive less ($9 gas doesn't seem to do it.) Via ::Camino Magasin (Swedish) and Ministry of Defense
Read also about men versus women:
Are Women Greener Than Men?
Women Managers Make Greener Business Decisions
Swedish Guys Getting Greener
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Wow, I didn't know they let Manson outta jail...
Looks like Frank Lupidus (the helicopter pilot) from LOST.
Of course Men use 20% more energy than women, they probably always have.
Men on average require 20-25% more calories per day than women, men are also on average up to 20% larger than women, the extra pressure this puts on agricultural systems, fuel, etc, would unsurprisingly be a relatively similar figure.
The fact that this is based on Swedish people, means that the people in question probably use over 20% less than their equivalents in Australia, America, Britain etc as they care more for the environment and have decent environmental policies.
This story should be titled "How You Can Tell the 'Green' Movement Has 'Jumped The Shark'".
I wonder if there was a comprehensive lifecycle analysis of men vs women. This would give a truer estimation of gender sustainability. I'm sure mens' heavy-footed driving consumes less energy than the growing of cotton for womens' mountains of clothes and tampons, oil for their shampoos and cosmetics and water bottles and crystal-dome salad packaging, wood processing for their miles of toiletpaper, and water processing for a dozen toilet flushes per day.
Don't be silly. It is not the difference in weight. Men drive much more than women. Women take transit and walk far more than men do. Men cycle a bit more than women except in places like Copenhagen where about 55% of cyclists are women.
This probably explains that the discussion in these forums that seem to attract more men than women, seems to focus more on desperately trying to "fix" the automobile with technological band aids rather than focusing on real solutions like public transit.
Dan Brown, your mention of "gender sustainability" and list of "fountains" (nice one!) of female-produced garbage makes me wonder how your all man society would handle the egg problem. Oh, and from your standpoint, you must wonder who's going to clean up after all the men. Quite a pickle...
Salsa, I didn't mention gender sustainability or fountains of female produced garbage. That was the post by brennan. If you read the posts no-one mentions eggs, or an 'all man' society either....quite a pickle indeed....