This post originally appeared on Green, a New York Times blog
about energy and the environment. Which has the lower carbon
footprint — our life in the New Jersey suburbs or our life in a
cabin in the woods of Maine? We recently hit the halfway mark
for our year in the woods, so I now have enough data to answer
the question. As a social scientist at the Nature Conservancy, I
collect data compulsively. It’s not my only compulsion, but it’s
on par with drinking fine beers. (Sadly, the two do not mix well
— unless I’m counting beers.) Since we moved from Australia to
New Jersey nearly six years ago, I’ve carefully collected data
on how many miles we drive each year, how much household
electricity and natural gas we use each month and how far we
travel by air. In Maine, I collect data on miles driven,
firewood consumption, diesel fuel used for our backup generator,
propane for the stove, water heater and back-up heaters, and the
air miles flown when one of us travels for work or pleasure. To
convert the data to ca