Life in Denmark

danish-village
An impossibly quaint (where are the gnomes?) thatched roof village at the northern end of the island of Samso. It's a major tourist trap, even for Danes, in summer.

The world descended on Copenhagen these past two weeks—and ordinary Danes don’t like it. Beyond the snarled traffic and foreigners gazing mutely into their palms to try to figure out what coins are worth, there’s all the protesters disrupting orderly Danish Christmas lunches.

Yes, these are traditional opportunities for Danes to get drunk in the early afternoon. But there is a silver lining, according to my sources, since all the police in Denmark are in Copenhagen you can be pretty secure driving drunk in the rest of the country.

I suppose that’s a consolation for all the other inconveniences.

Did I mention drunk Danes stole my Earth Journalism Award?

Published by

David Biello

is an award-winning journalist writing most often about the environment and energy. His book "The Unnatural World" publishes November 2016. It's about whether the planet has entered a new geologic age as a result of people's impacts and, if so, what we should do about this Anthropocene. He also hosts documentaries, such as "Beyond the Light Switch" and the forthcoming "The Ethanol Effect" for PBS. He is the science curator for TED.