28 May 2009 The First CO 2-Neutral Hotel Chain

Hey ClimateThe average weather over a particular region of the Earth. Climate originates in recurring weather phenomenon that result from specific types of atmospheric circulation. Pathfinders, my hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark is doing many things to help the environment! All 4 of their hotels are carbon neutral. Do you know what that means? It means that they have added up the energy their hotels use to find out the amount of CO2 their hotels produce. They buy CO2 shares on the stock market that invest money in green energy. Can you think of what kind of energy is considered "green" or environmentally friendly? Wind mills and wind farms make energy we can use without using fossil fuels like coal or gasoline, so they would not harm the environment. I saw some windmills far off in the distance here. Maybe this hotel chain's stocks bought some of the windmills I see. See if you can find them in this picture I took of the Copenhagen skyline.

I knew that they were trying to conserve energy in this hotel when I could not find out how to turn on the lights in my room! First I turned on the light switch on the light, but it didn't turn on. So I went to the light switch on the wall and turned that on. Still no lights! Finally I checked to see if they were plugged in. The lights were all plugged in, but I had to push a switch on the outlet near the floor of each plug to get the lights to come on. It was getting dark so I'm glad I figured that out! Can you remember that we called this "vampire" electricity? That is when an appliance plug is getting electricity when it isn't even on (like our phone chargers are hot when they are plugged in, but we aren't using them).It sucks the electricity when we don't even know it, just like a vampire.Another way they are saving on energy use is they don't change my sheets unless I ask them to. I don't get clean towels unless I throw mine on the floor to let them know I want new ones. There are no paper cups or ice machines. The hotel also rents this very small car to guests. This is what the advertisement says about it: "You can park it for free in all public parking places; it is easy to operate; it can be squeezed in most places and it is climate friendly. It can go as far as 60 km (60 divided by 1.6=how many miles) on one charge!" What kind of car is it?

Copenhagen has many other ways to save fossil fuel use on transportation. The city has fast trains that take thousands of people to work and home. I visited schools that were far away and rode on these.

 There were lots of cars here, but also many bikes! More than 30% of their population uses their bikes to get to work. I rode a bike, too.

Tomorrow I am off to Greenland! Instead of seeing an 800 year old city, I will be seeing lots of ice!