Copenhagen will become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. That means that Copenhagen will offset any greenhouse gas emissions through measures such as tree plantings and renewable energy production.
According to Newsweek,
Though considerably less charming than it was in its medieval incarnation, the humble windmill is enjoying a 21st-century renaissance. Last year, wind power capacity increased on every continent, according to industry association Global Wind Energy Council. In 2011 Port Rock, Missouri, with a population of 1,300 people, became the first American town to be powered by urban wind turbines, and other smaller urban installations have followed. Now, developers and home owners from Hamburg to New York have started adding rooftop wind turbines.
There was a slogan back in the Sixties: “The Whole World is Watching.” It meant something quite different back then, but today it seems an appropriate slogan for the changes being made by cities like Copenhagen as they embrace, rather than resist, the inevitable.
Copenhagen’s Mayor is proud of his city’s move into the 21st Century, and he is equally proud of the budgetary savings that accompany that move. Doing right by the environment, it turns out, also saves money. (Here in Indianapolis, IPL has belatedly recognized that connection and decided to stop using coal to power its Harding Street plant.)
As long as we’re recycling, let’s revisit (and revise the meaning of) not just “the whole world is watching” but also “blowin’ in the wind.”
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