You love the environment, but you adore decked halls and Christmas trees. Sadly, no Christmas tree is carbon neutral. But merrymakers can choose a lesser evil by cutting down a fresh tree every year, or so says Clint Springer, Ph.D., and assistant professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

“A study as recent as 2009 (Ellipsos) concluded that a 7-foot cut tree’s impact on climate is 60 percent less than a 7-foot artificial tree used for six years. So while cut trees are not carbon-neutral, in terms of carbon-use, they are better than artificial trees,” he tells ScienceDaily.com.

Read the whole article here, then fetch your bowsaw and head to the tree farm; preferably a local one.