The latest polls show the political spectrum has regained its previous balance between left and right, with the gains made during the Mo'toons crisis now a thing of the past. The nationalist Dansk Folkeparti have dropped from a high point of 15% to 12.6% (at the last election they gathered 13.2% of the vote) and the left of centre Radikal Venstre have also dropped 2% to 9.3% ( at the last election RV had 9.2% of the vote). The reasons for this are not clear, but are described in the domestic media as being due to the recent welfare reforms. The social democrats have all but regained their former popularity.
Captain Annemette Hommel is a Danish army officer who was charged with having mistreated Iraqi prisoners in Iraq some two years ago. Along with four other Military Police Officers, Hommel was found guilty of violating the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of civilians in January, for having mistreated Iraqi prisoners by refusing them access to a toilet or fresh water during interogations. Hommel and her men appealled the verdict and her re-trial is currently underway in Østre Landsret (Eastern National court). The prosecution has today demanded four months in prison for Hommel, and lesser jail terms for the four MP's.
moif: As far as I am aware, if Hommels appeal is not overturned, she would become Denmark's first official 'war criminal'.
During the night, environmentalists from Greenpeace dumped 35 tons of coal in front of the Folketing (Danish parliment) building, in the shape of a giant Dannebrog (Denmarks flag). Their point was to emphasis the amount of coal Danes use. According to the activists, the average Dane uses 75% more coal than the average Chinese.
"Denmark needs an energy policy that gets us out of the coal age and reduces our dependency on oil. Therefore, Greenpeace has tried to open the politicians eyes today and confront them with the filthy and scandalous over use of coal" said energy and climate co-worker Tarjei Haaland on behalf of Greenpeace.
"Half of all Denmarks electricity is produced by means of burning coal. Denmark uses almost 7 million tons of coal, per year, which corresponds to 1.3 tons per Dane making Denmark's coal consumption amongst the highest in the world.
One third of Denmark's CO2 emissions are the result of burning coal. Coal is that fuel source which releases the most CO2 and Denmark's use of coal makes it difficult for the country to meet its Kyoto obligations. Instead of dealing with the domestic production of CO2, the government has relied on buying quota's and investing in foreign projects.
Apart from the difficulties coal burning imposes when trying to deal with climate problems, coal burning also releases other dangerous elements into the atmosphere, such as SO2, NOx and heavy metals. If the additional costs these emission were added to society's bill, then the sum total would render coal burning far more expensive than the costs of building more wind farms".
moif: Good. Lets build more wind farms!
2 comments:
ahh yes but the problem with statistics is that they can be turned to mean whatever you want. True Denmark has a higher average per capita use of coal than China BUT China has the world's highest per capita use of Nuclear power. In fact only China has accelerated it's nuclear power programme (bringing 6 stations on line inthe last three years).
Wind farms might be the answer (although if you livein Noraway and are watching the declining population of Sea Eagles as they are killed in the blades of the turbines you probably have a different view) in sufficient numbers.
Denmark leads the world in windmill design and construction though so I guess its gonna be tough for the birds!
Personally I am all in favour of wind power and I'd simply make sure the windmills were not placed in every location where they might endanger the eagles. Either that orbreed more eagles I guess...
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