A global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, that, in turn, take up more space and gobble up more energy and water.
-- National Science Foundation.
Mitt Romney lost his 2008 Presidential bid. He tried again in 2016 and fared a bit better, especially after his speech in which he proudly heralded the ways in which his religious beliefs differed from other people's. "Some are intent on establishing households comprised of just one man and one woman," he lectured. "They are wrong."
"I am a Mormon and Mormons have a long, rich history of living with many people under the same roof. We marry again and again and again," he said, "and we stay married each time."
Harvard is now a commuter college. The Class of 2008 refused to leave campus, lest they sully the earth with homes of their own. Instead, they sauntered into Dunster House and Wigglesworth and Weld, sleeping as many to a room as public ordinances would allow. The Class of 2009 was inspired and followed suit, as did the Class of 2010. Eventually, the only new students who could be admitted were those who already lived close enough to the Yard to bicycle to classes.
Adults who came of age in the second decade of the 21st century nursed a grudge that was unique to their generation. As children, they really did believe that their parents had stayed together, through all those years of sniping and backstabbing, for their sake. Now they know the painful truth. Mom and dad were not protecting them; they were saving the planet.
The Roses are now at peace. No, they are not dead - that was just the sensationalist Hollywood ending. It turns out that the marriage evangelists of the George W. Bush era were right - sometimes you really can just work things out. It has been decades since Oliver flattened Barbara's beloved Kitty-Kitty under the wheels of his Morgan Roadster, and she, in turn, chopped, pureed, and seasoned his dog Bennie into a tasty pate.
Truth be told, Oliver does not have the energy to wage war any more. His second bout of chest pains was no false alarm. He could have salvaged a reasonably healthy heart if only he had allowed the attendant to whisk him at once into the waiting ambulance. But precious time was lost as he pleaded for reassurance, between desperate gasps for breath, that the trip to the hospital would not increase his carbon footprint.
At Southfork, the stately Dallas ranch, "Who shot Bobby" wasn't the real mystery after all. No one had ever thought to wonder about all those Ewing children who stayed at the homestead, even as they grew up and married and remarried. That just seemed like tradition. It took the groundbreaking work of a cultural studies professor at Southern Methodist University to uncover the shocking truth: J. R. was just pretending to be a big, preening oil man. In fact, the Ewings were early environmentalists.
Back in the real world, the generations of couples who declined to divorce have shuttered one business after another. Few had realized that it wasn't interest rate cuts, but second and third and fourth marriages that had kept the economy humming. Oh sure, there are still caterers and wedding planners and florists, but the movers and shakers have headed to the real growth industries, such as the design of toilets that keep on flushing even after the fourteenth and fifteenth household members have taken their turns.
The housing market has skidded to a standstill. Row upon row of sprawling homes have been left vacant, as their occupants scurry to find rooms to share in solar-paneled abodes.
In Vegas, the Elvis wedding chapel has been converted to a commune.
Homelessness has doubled every couple of years, but it is no longer a problem. People who sleep under the stars are the new environmental heroes.
One more divisive issue has also been put to rest. No one spars about immigration any more. Mexicans continued to cross the border for a while, but upon seeing so much squalor, most of them turned around and went back.