What's greener? Using low energy products or no products at all.

The New York Times had a piece in it's Sunday paper about building green.
It talked about how more people are interested in that route, but also how it's more expensive, more time consuming and more likely to result in mistakes.

What caught my attention was the family profiled for the story. They said it was important for them to be "conscious of the impact we have on the environment" while adding 1,000 square feet to their house. That's more square footage than our entire first home and more than half of what we currently have.

Now, I'm not an environmental scientist, or any kind of scientist, or really very good with numbers, but I do know that it would have been more environmentally sound to not build a room the size of a house. The idea of buying a more environmentally friendly world is kind of funny, if you think about it.
Maybe poor people should start holding seminars on how being within arm's reach of another person won't kill you. Maybe.