MY LAST DAY ON SAMSØ, I ride my bike around the island. With its waving grasses and gentle surf, I can see why Valdemar the Victorious gave the place to his new queen as a post-nup gift in 1214. Today, goats are grazing contentedly under the photovoltaic array at a solar heating plant. I walk through some sunflowers to visit farmers who raise organic pigs and perfect cherry tomatoes. Leaving for the mainland, the ferry passes a chain of windmills, their graceful arms performing an unsynchronized water ballet.

All too soon, I'm back in carbon-positive Copenhagen. My own CO2 balance sheet is, regrettably, back in play. I'm going to be more than two carbon tons in the red, according to eco-entrepreneur Shea Gunther, cofounder of Renewable Choice Energy, a Boulder, Colorado–based firm that, for about $65, will buy U.S. wind power to offset my trip for me. (The final tally: My 10,740-mile round-trip flight from Seattle to Copenhagen, plus airport commutes, created 4,315 pounds of CO2; my train trips made 50 pounds; and my laptop and cell phone set me back nine. And that's not even including the mojito.) So for my last night in Denmark, I really should return to the infernally correct Don't-Even-Think-About-Catching-Sleep-in Green.

But I just can't bring myself to face 66 other eyeballs in my room. My days in Samsø were too full of guilt-free delights and what the Danish call hygge, or coziness. I get to the city after dark. It's late and I'm hungry. I start bicycling toward the hostel but pass a charmingly weird lodge called the Hotel Kong Arthur. Its flagrantly inefficient incandescent lightbulbs emit a friendly, warm glow. There's a suit of armor by the entrance and soft upholstery decorated with fleurs-de-lis. How can I resist? I can't. It includes a free breakfast! And a private bathroom!

I rant to myself that this is exactly why governments should step in and support responsible energy development: so that wayward, flawed sybarites such as myself don't have to make endless, irksome daily decisions when all we really want is a warm bed and a bowl of muesli. With a side of bacon. And a mug of hot imported coffee. Ja.