Today’s big topic: Laws are being rushed through despite promises to the contrary
It was written into the SVM government’s platform, when it was unveiled at Christiansborg, that consultation deadlines should as a main rule be at least 28 days.
What’s happening?
When the SVM government, in its infancy, moved to push through one of its most unpopular decisions, it was in such a hurry that it set an ultra-short consultation deadline. With the abolition of Great Prayer Day, a public holiday, organizations, institutions and individuals were given just seven days to submit consultation responses.
Among all the critics who spoke out at the time were those who pointed not only to the decision itself but to the way it was carried out. The ultra-short deadline ran counter to what the SVM government had set down in its governing platform less than a month earlier:
That this government would »emphasize the public’s opportunity to submit consultation responses«.
And, as the governing platform went on to say:
»The government will therefore focus on ensuring that the indicative consultation period of four weeks, as a clear main rule, is observed«.
A tally by the private think tank Institute for Regulatory Studies (IRES) shows that one in three of all bills and executive orders presented under the SVM government have had a consultation deadline shorter than four weeks.
Why it matters!
At the top of the list of ministries that have generally set shorter consultation deadlines than the SVM government’s four-week ambition »as a clear main rule« is the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries.
»Not only does it put pressure on a democratic organization like ours. But in general it’s a democratic problem«, says Anna Bak Jäpelt, an agricultural policy adviser at the Danish Society for Nature Conservation.
The Danish Society for Nature Conservation is a major contributor of consultation responses when bills from Christiansborg are circulated to lists of organizations and stakeholders that can be expected to have comments and input that lawmakers should consider before they vote in the Damish Folketing.
»Sometimes there can be good reasons to have short consultation deadlines, but often it’s something that has been in the works for a long time in the ministries. And often it’s very heavy, lengthy documents that have to be read in detail if you’re going to give a truly substantive, well-qualified response – you simply can’t do that with so many short deadlines. The consequence can be that an organization like ours can’t manage to deliver a qualified response and can’t manage to really dig into the material«, says Anna Bak Jäpelt.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– New survey on support for wind turbines and solar panels surprises
The Danes have debated solar panels and onshore wind turbines to such an extent that the Danish Language Council last year named ’iron fields’ its word of the year. Even so, solar panels and wind turbines are by far the area of climate policy where Danes most underestimate how much support there actually is. According to a new report from the The Danish Council on Climate Change, Danes believe only a third of their local community backs onshore wind turbines and solar panels. In reality, twice as many – two-thirds – support putting up more renewable energy in their area.
– In the end, the ministry reacted when he said he was about to go on TV again to talk about Danes’ low life expectancy
In the late 1980s, it came as a paralyzing shock to doctors, Danes and politicians at Christiansborg that we were no longer among those living the longest and best lives in the world. Over a couple of decades, our health and hospital system had fallen so far behind that no Western Europeans were living as short lives as we were in Denmark. In fact, there is no Nordic country where more people develop and die of cancer than in Denmark. According to an EU report, we have the highest cancer incidence among all 27 EU countries. Among Western European nations, only the Netherlands, Greece and Germany now have shorter life expectancy than we do, according to 2024 figures from Eurostat.
– Danish vaccine researcher from a U.S. prison: »There is constant stress and noise everywhere«
Doctor and vaccine researcher Poul Bak Thorsen, who about a year ago ran a well-regarded gynecology clinic in Middelfart, Denmark, is calling from the Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility outside Atlanta, from the cell he shares with a 57-year-old Chinese inmate. On Thursday, May 7, Poul Bak Thorsen was deported to Atlanta, Georgia, escorted by two U.S. Air Marshals after 11 months in pretrial detention at Stadelheim Prison in Munich, Germany. Thorsen was arrested by German police in June of last year while traveling home from a vacation in Austria with his wife. The arrest was based on an international warrant issued by U.S. prosecutors in Atlanta back in 2011, when the vaccine researcher was charged with pocketing more than $1 million out of a total research grant of as much as $15 million from the U.S. public health agency, the CDC. The alleged fraud is said to have occurred while Poul Bak Thorsen, beginning in 2000, was head of a major – and internationally acclaimed – research project at Aarhus University, financed with CDC funds. The project documented that there is no link between vaccines and the risk of developing autism in young children. The vaccine researcher has consistently pleaded not guilty, but after his arrest in Germany, German courts ruled that the Dane could be extradited to the United States.
Talk of town: Danish researchers’ new theory for why coral reefs are in a fight for survival is being called »brilliant«
Assistant professor Cesar Pacherres (front) and Professor Michael Kühl look into the large aquarium at the Marine Biology Section in Helsingør, where they grow the tropical corals they study.
When we humans dive underwater, we use either a snorkel or oxygen tanks to breathe. The world’s corals are not afforded that luxury.
In daylight hours, they depend on the oxygen produced by the microscopic algae that grow on corals as part of photosynthesis. At night, they have to make do with the oxygen dissolved in seawater in order to breathe.
For that purpose, corals are equipped with thousands of microscopic hairs in the form of cilia that are about 500 times thinner than a human hair. The cilia beat in unison to circulate oxygen-rich seawater across their surface, where the oxygen is absorbed. Put simply, it is the coral’s version of lungs.
Now a striking new study by an international research team led by Danish scientists shows that the growing heat waves in tropical oceans, driven by human-caused climate change, can have a tragic effect on corals’ respiratory system.
»It’s an entirely new mechanism, and we are the first to describe it. It’s an additional explanation for why corals are stressed by higher ocean temperatures and face a greater risk of dying as global warming advances«, says Cesar Pacherres, assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen.
The world’s coral reefs, which harbor about 25 percent of the species found in the ocean, are under pressure. Scientists estimate that our blue planet has lost about half its coral reefs since the 1950s. The main reason is that warmer seawater linked to climate change has led to global mass bleaching.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.