Mother Nature

I love nature. Most, if not all of my sojourns around the world have included some element of nature (hiking, volcanoes, hot springs, glaciers, deserts, waterfalls, etc.*).
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So it's been especially nice to have Mother Nature tap me on the shoulder recently and remind me that she is here in Japan in all her splendor. After I first moved here, she welcomed me with several small earthquakes and a typhoon which canceled school for two days, but she's been largely absent since then; until recently. In the past two weeks, we had an amazing lightning storm, three more small to moderate earthquakes, and the blooming of the Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) in all their glory.
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The Sakura are a national spectacle welcomed by blooming forecasts on the news, parties (hanami), and travel all over the country. I thought it was a bit much, but now I have to say that the trees are absolutely beautiful, probably even worthy of all the hype. Last weekend, Yumi and I got out of the apartment for a bit and were able to see some Sakura and some hanami going on and I continue to enjoy them for the remaining days of their 2-week bloom on my way to and from work.
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*Hiking: Muir Woods (California), Monteverde rainforest (Costa Rica), Inca Trail (Peru), El Yunque rainforest (Puerto Rico), Mt. Cook (New Zealand), Routeburn Track (New Zealand), Golan Heights (Israel), Mournes (Northern Ireland), Khao Yai (Thailand), Khao Phanom Bencha National Park (Thailand), Black Cat Track (Papua New Guinea), Delphi (Greece)
Volcanoes: Arenal (Costa Rica), Poas (Costa Rica), Rabaul (Papua New Guinea), Vesuvius (Italy)
Glaciers: Fox (New Zealand), Franz Josef (New Zealand)
Deserts: Joshua Tree (California), Masada/Dead Sea (Israel), Sahara (Morocco)
Waterfalls: Niagara Falls (New York/Ontario), Multanomah Falls (Oregon), Ouzoud (Morocco), Khao Yai (Thailand), Ein Gedi (Israel), Milford Sound (New Zealand)
Plus: countless beaches, caves, hot springs, mountains, gardens, forests, sunsets, wildlife, vistas, etc.

More on Green Japan

Three more pieces of evidence that Japan is much more environmentally conscience than the U.S.:
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1. There is a very cool, new, innovative electricity generator already in use at a train station here which produces energy from people walking across a plate as they enter the station! It's absolutely ingenious. I wish I had thought of it. Maybe if the U.S. government (i.e. Bush) would stop denying global warming and dragging his feet on solutions, U.S. companies would be doing the innovation.

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2. Many Japanese stores charge ¥5 (about 5¢) per plastic bag you get which encourages people to use reusable, canvas bags and the like. This was recently implemented in Ireland and has been a smashing success.

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3. Most Japanese apartments have only a washing machine and not a dryer. I'm not quite sure why this is. This was also true in Belfast and Papua New Guinea. I must admit, I like using a dryer -- not only it is a pain to hang laundry and take it down, but I like how the dryer makes the clothes softer and gets out more of the lint out. Nevertheless, dryers consume a lot of energy. Some people don't like seeing other people's laundry hanging out, but I don't mind -- it reminds me of how energy-conscience the country is. The picture below is taken from our new apartment -- you can see all of the laundry out. Our apartment looks just like the ones in the picture.

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Japan vs. the U.S.

I've cared about the state of the environment since I was in high school and every trip I've taken from the flora of Costa Rica to the Sequoia of California to the rain forests of Puerto Rico to the lushness of Papua New Guinea has only deepened that passion.

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Living abroad often affords reflection on one's own country and comparisons with the current residence. I recently got to comparing them in the arena of the environment. While Japan is overwhelmingly more green, there are a few areas where the U.S. does win out. On to the tale of the tape:

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The greatest crisis facing the planet is global warming brought on by out of control carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Perhaps it is not surprising that the home of the Kyoto protocol (signed by every major developed country in the world *except* the United States) kicks the U.S.'s behind when it comes to mitigating global warming. The U.S. produces about *twice* as much CO2 as Japan per person. Twice. 100% more. There are a variety of factors that contribute to that including much more efficient cars, heating and cooling only parts of homes, extensive use of public transportation, and simply a smaller country which requires less transportation of goods and people.

What is even more astounding, however, is that the average Japanese car gets 45 miles per gallon (!) compared with less than 25 in the U.S. How pathetic is it that even China has more efficient cars than the U.S.? Many on the right claim a false dichotomy between the environment or the economy. The Japanese have shown that it can be both. Unfortunately for the U.S., as the entire world starts to change technologies to stave off the oncomming crisis, we will be importing all of the new technologies instead of producing them domestically and thus reaping the economic rewards of jobs and profits.

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Japan is also fervent about recycling. It is often difficult to find a garbage can but recycling containers abound. Even at McDonald's, customers separate their waste into combustibles and non-combustibles at the very least. Often they get sorted into glass, plastic, paper, etc. It can be quite intricate.

While the majority of environmental areas, Japan kicks butt, there are some areas for improvement I have found. First, insulation is lacking. Better insulation and windows would save a lot in terms of energy needed for heating and cooling. Second, unnecessary lighting. Neon signs are everywhere and also compact fluorescent bulbs are not very common. In a similar vain, all of those vending machines certainly eat up a lot of unnecessary energy (and contribute the proportional amount of CO2). Lastly, packaging is out of control here. Often things are individually wrapped and then put into one or more other packages. For example, I have a bag of small chocolate chip cookies -- all individually wrapped. Another time we bought two small puddings at a store. They were in glass containers and wrapped in plastic. Those were then put in a box with tissue paper and the box was wrapped and then put into a plastic bag! Excess packaging is certainly a waste of resources. Nevertheless, the U.S. and the rest of the world could stand to learn a thing or two about caring for the Earth from the Japanese .

Technology

I've often said that if you are not completely astounded at current technology, you're not thinking about it. Cell phones, MP3 players, laptop computers, DVRs, PDAs, GPS and the list goes on and on. Back when I was a kid, we didn't have cable TV, music technology was the cassette (even LPs and 8-tracks), computer memory was measured by the kilobyte not gigabyte, and cell phones were the stuff of science fiction.

The biggest change is arguably the internet. I'm sitting here in Japan with a computer on my lap which can be held in one hand that is thousands of times more powerful than those of my youth and can do amazing things. I'm listening to NPR radio broadcast thousands of miles away, ordering books and gifts, making hotel reservations in Thailand, catching up with headlines from the NY Times, Washington Post, and ESPN, sending email, and making phone calls! All with a 5 or so pound piece of plastic and silicon. Simply amazing.

There is a downside, however. Aside from hours which can be wasted surfing the web or playing sudoku online, websites can be infuriating, especially when trying to order things to be shipped overseas. While I zipped through dozens of transactions for gifts and hotels, I was stymied by one book order. For 3 weeks, I've tried to order the most recent edition of a book by my PhD examiner, Christian Reichardt and have it shipped to Japan. Several websites weren't happy with an order to be shipped to one country but paid for with a credit card in another. OK. So then I tried using Yumi's credit card but other problems ensued. After three weeks, three different websites, and literally a dozen hours trying to sort it out, I gave up and bought it with my US credit card and had it shipped to my sister who will have to ship it to me here.

It reminds me of a good book I read a couple of years ago: Better Off by Eric Brende. He and his wife lived with the Amish for a year and a half and the lesson they came away with is that when in doubt, less technology is better than more. They do dishes and laundry by hand, bike most places, have no TV, etc. I'm not sure if I completely agree with the degree to which they eschew technology (I have no desire to wash my clothes by hand for instance) but I do agree that we should explicitly choose our technologies and other material goods and be conscience of material and energy consumption, knowing the tradeoffs; the costs as well as the benefits. It's easy to get carried away in our modern lives and forget that we have choices about how we live; how we spend our time, what things we buy, and what impact we have on the Earth.