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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Lifestyle
Tik Root

Emission impossible: the maddening, nightmare quest to decarbonize my home

cartoon showing couple and a baby outside a house filled with various appliances, with solar panels on top and trees outside, and dollar bills raining down
We were confident decarbonization was possible – but were we willing to bear the cost? Illustration: Cristina Spanò

My wife and I live in a green, two-story colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac in Burlington, Vermont. Each spring, the front of our home is lined with lilacs, crocuses, and peonies. The backyard is thick with towering black locust trees. We occasionally spot a fox from our office windows, or toddlers from the neighborhood daycare trundling through the woods.

It’s an alarmingly idyllic home, with one exception: it runs on natural gas. The boiler, which heats our house and our water, burns it. So do the stove and the dryer and even the fireplace in the living room.

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