Today’s big topic: New calculations show climate change will bring marine heat waves to Danish waters every other day
What’s happening?
Denmark will need to cut nitrogen emissions, chiefly from agriculture, far more than envisioned in the fertilization law that, despite major protests, was passed by a broad majority in Parliament last week. Temperatures in Danish seas will keep rising, new calculations from the Danish Meteorological Institute, DMI, show. That makes the waters far more sensitive to excess fertilizer running off fields.
Mark Payne, the scientific lead for DMI’s The Danish Klimaatlas, was, of course, well aware that sea temperatures will continue to climb as our greenhouse-gas emissions warm the air. When he sat down with the calculations behind a new update, he was surprised.
»I’m used to seeing projections of marine heat waves and expected an increase. But it’s still a bit shocking when you run the calculations yourself. What we consider extreme today becomes completely normal in the future«, he says.
Why it matters!
Rising sea temperatures make Danish waters much more vulnerable to nutrient pollution. As the water warms, algae grow faster, oxygen is depleted more quickly, and the risk of recurring dead zones increases. Researchers warn that it doesn’t take much of a temperature increase before it has a dramatic effect, and that what was once considered extreme is becoming the new normal. In practice, this means efforts to improve water quality will have to go further than previously assumed, and Denmark will need to cut nitrogen emissions, chiefly from agriculture, far more than envisioned in the fertilization law.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– Many Danish elite athletes have higher expenses than income and risk leaving their sport early
A new survey from the Danish Athletes’ Committee shows that many Danish elite athletes are struggling financially. Most respondents earn no more than 5,000 DKK a month from their sport, even as they face significant costs for equipment, training camps, and travel. As a result, many athletes rely on family support, savings, or extra work to keep competing. The committee warns that financial pressure is becoming a major barrier and could push talented athletes out of elite sport too early.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
– Anthropic on getting new medicines off the ground faster
Pharmaceutical giant Novo is entering into a partnership with the American technology company Anthropic and its artificial intelligence models. The artificial intelligence will help Novo discover and develop new medicines faster, and Novo will make particular use of Anthropic’s ai language model Claude Science. Together, the two companies will explore ’key challenges’ in pharmaceutical research. According to Mike Doustdar, Novo’s chief executive, the agreement is evidence of Novo’s ambition to become the world’s most ai-driven health care company, the news agency Ritzau reports.
– There are more cars, but they pollute less
More privately owned cars have taken to the roads over the past ten years, but the expanding car fleet pollutes far less than it did a decade ago. In December 2018, the number of electric cars had just reached 10,000, and the number of plug-in cars was a little over 5,000, according to figures from Statistics Denmark. By contrast, there were nearly 1.8 million gasoline cars and more than 800,000 diesel cars on the roads.
Now there are just over 1.6 million gasoline cars and 541,000 diesel cars, while the number of electric cars has climbed to 695,000. The recent surge in gasoline and diesel prices is making the switch to an electric car even more attractive.
Talk of town: The government wants to stop illegal home rentals: Here’s how it will change the rules
A key lockbox in an entryway is often a sign that a home is being rented out to tourists or others who don’t normally live there.
It should be over with renting out your private home for more than the permitted number of days or running so-called ’shadow hotels’.
On Wednesday, the government sent out for consultation a proposal to amend the law on renting real property for holiday and leisure purposes. The proposal says that listing services such as Airbnb, as well as owners and users of real property, will be required to disclose how many days a home is rented out. Today, the authorities cannot demand information from any of them, which makes oversight very difficult.
In addition, authorities should be able to require listing services to remove ads and block further bookings that do not comply with the rules. And the fine should be raised to 100,000 Danish kroner per illegally rented apartment.
In the City of Copenhagen, officials have long wanted tighter legislation to put an end to illegal rentals. That is why Lord Mayor Sisse Marie Welling (Green Left) welcomes the bill’s disclosure requirement and the fact that municipalities would gain access to the information, giving them »a better opportunity to check that the apartments are actually being used by Copenhageners and not only tourists«.
Recently, nearly all parties at Copenhagen City Hall agreed to set aside millions for a housing patrol to go after Airbnb fraudsters.
»Illegal rentals help push ordinary people out of Copenhagen. That’s why I’m really looking forward to this legislation. We’ve been sounding the alarm for a long time, and we’re fully prepared to go after those who break the rules once the law is in place. Because we need to get back the homes that, in principle, have been taken from Copenhageners«, Sisse Marie Welling says.
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.