A new U.N. deal to step up the fight against climate change is to be agreed this December in the Danish capital ‘Copenhagen’, or should that be ‘København’?
British and American English speakers often differ about whether to pronounce it “Copen’hay’gen” or “Copen’haa’gen”. And interviews for the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy summit this week are bringing varieties in between.
But what do Danes reckon? I called up an expert:
“We’d normally say “Copen’hay’gen in English,” said Ida Ebbensgaard,” spokeswoman for Danish Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard who will host the Dec. 7-18 meeting.
Or maybe delegates from the 190 nations can try saying the word in Danish — “København” (…pronounced something like “Sjobenhaavn”).
(Photo: Denmark’s Little Mermaid statue)
3 comments so far
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- Posted by USACEWhy do you continue to refer to the term “Global Warming” when the NASA and several CREDIBLE scientists have proven the earth has cooled each of at least the last nine years? This is irresponsible journalism at best and outright bias in reporting at worst. Mother Earth worshipers have changed the term to “Climate Change” because they can no longer call it “Global Warming”. But isn’t that just another word for “weather”? Oh, how the politically correct have taken over.
- Posted by JohnHi John, you’re right that temperatures this century have not matched 1998, the warmest year since reliable records began in the mid-19th century, according to the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
But temperatures that year were pushed up by an exceptionally strong El Nino event in the Pacific, which tends to heat the globe. The years after the 1998 spike have been less warm — but no trend of cooling year by year — and most are among the warmest 10 on record.
As I understand it from talking to scientists, the underlying problem in fingering global warming is that natural variations in the climate are far, far bigger than the warming effect of extra greenhouse gases. Average temperatures rose about 0.7 Celsius in the 20th century, or an almost unnoticeable average of 0.07 Celsius a decade — everyone knows that normal swings in the weather bring far bigger variations.
So don’t pop the champagne to celebrate the demise of global warming — the WMO says the underlying trend is still up. Or try this NASA article about “The ups and downs of Global Warming” (…yes, they’re still calling it that)
- Posted by Alister DoyleTry this link –
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/feature s/upsDownsGlobalWarming.html