We don't have to get divorced but we are all going to die - and both conditions unfortunately lead to considerable carbon production though it will be the last thing on our mind at the time.

Divorced couples often set up separate homes with a resulting increase in the energy use. Apparently, one fifth of US households are headed by a divorced person and this means extra televisions, more refrigerators, cookers, dishwashers, lights and so on.

Water and fuel use in particular increases with the additional number of houses and cars and it all adds up to unnecessary carbon dioxide.

Single households, or smaller ones, are also the result of young people delaying marriage and older people living longer and staying in their own homes and such social and medical changes are a significant factor in the need for new house-building in the UK. These trends come at a considerable carbon cost.

Eventually, however, there is the matter of our disposal. Three quarters of the UK's annual 600,000 funerals are by cremation and these produce over 20,000 tonnes of CO2, as well as 15 per cent of the mercury released into the atmosphere and a recognisable amount of dioxins.

The conventional burial preparation will be a coffin constructed from wood, or MDF made from sawdust and resin, with plastic handles and a synthetic cloth lining containing a body that has been embalmed.

The problems continue as the furnace is pre-heated to 850 degrees Celsius, mainly using gas, and then to 1,100 degrees for up to two hours when the coffin is consumed. It may not be the best use of limited and increasingly expensive gas supplies, though it does solve the problem of space in the overcrowded urban cemeteries with traditional burial plots.

However, there is a growing alternative that reduces the carbon footprint, gets rid of the problems caused by cremation, and allows natural burial - in woodland sites. In the last 15 years the number of such sites has increased from just one to over 250 and there is a four acre one adjacent to the Thornton Cemetery in Bradford. Nationally there will be over 20,000 such burials by 2010.

Only bio-degradable coffins or shrouds are used in these sites and recycled paper, cardboard, and willow and bamboo are common materials, often coming in a flat pack and cheaper than the traditional coffin. After the grave has been filled in it is usually marked with a tree of choice, rather than a granite headstone that has probably come all the way from China, and in time the site becomes a mature woodland.