It hardly seems right to review Japan. Japan has been the moral leader of Earth's tropospheric protection for some time now. They developed "Kyoto Protocol" and gave the Climate Crisis a definition. The global community should be grateful for Japan and their marvellous scientists.
Japan is a leader in other areas, too. They love computers and technology and are some of the earliest achievements with the application of Artificial Intelligence. There is a high demand for electricity with that technology so Japan's scientists need to consider the electricity load to their developed technologies and do more with less.
I love Japan. It is an incredible country. It should develop it's own culture and abandon the prestige of whaling. Earth needs her whales more than the Japanese dinner table does. It really surprises me that the Japanese culture with all it's improvements in diet and health still carries out whaling. The carcinogens in whale meat of any kind is dense. The whales swim through some of the most polluted waters in the world and their meat is not safe for consumption, yet Japan still insists on whaling. It is counter-culture and it's history is mired in the recommendations for economic recovery after WWII.
The Japanese culture developed by mimicking the USA's economy, but, no one really spears whales anymore. Japan is walking in a shadow of vigilance after the bombs were dropped. The country needs to consider in shedding the delicacies of marine mammals. By all rights, those that test for endangered species in markets around the world could site Japan when the Minke whales they claim is for scientific purposes show up on the food menus of the Japanese.
Japan is a great country with great values, what went wrong with whaling?
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Japan has some time to respond to it's shrinking population.
By Dan Kopf
Japan is shrinking. Fast. (click here)
The health ministry recently announced that only 946,060 babies were born in Japan in 2017, the fewest births since official statistics began in 1899. At the same time, 1,340,433 Japanese people died last year. This means that the non-immigrant population declined by nearly 400,000 people.
It’s an astonishing shift. The Japanese population grew steadily throughout the 20th century, from around 44 million in 1900 to 128 million in 2000. The gains were primarily due to increased life expectancy, but also buoyed by families that typically had at least two children. But beginning in the late 1970s, birth rates crashed. While the average Japanese woman had 2.1 kids in the 1970s, today, they only have about 1.4—far lower than in comparably wealthy countries like the US and Sweden.
Today, Japan is a land of aging baby boomers and young adults who don’t want to have kids. By median age, Japan is the oldest large country in the world. More than half of its population is over the age of 46. By comparison, in Nigeria, just over a tenth of the population is over that age....
Fight the "cuteness" craze!
Otters are not happy in cages!
By Akemi Kanda
A boom in demand (click here) for otters as pets, inspired by their recent higher profile on TV and in novelty cafes, apparently led to a surge in attempted smuggling of the mammals to Japan last year.
According to Traffic, a nongovernmental organization that monitors illicit trade in wild animals, at least 45 otters intended for smuggling were confiscated in Southeast Asia in 2017, and a majority--32--were headed for Japan.
None of the total of 14 otters confiscated in Southeast Asian countries in 2015 and 2016 were planned to be sold in Japan. But evidence of a black market for the animals in Japan existed in 2016, when seven oriental small-clawed otters smuggled from Thailand were confiscated at Narita Airport.
Tomomi Kitade, director of Traffic Japan, said, “It is possible that Japan’s boom of having otters as pets has led to an illegal trade.”
Four kinds of otters are found in Southeast Asia, three of which, including the oriental small-clawed otter, are designated as endangered species in the “red list” of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources....
A different kind of Amazon. The reverse curve of carbon sinks increases the carbon load of Earth.
June 21, 2018 Paris - Earth’s intact forests shrank (click here) by an area larger than Austria every year from 2014 to 2016 and at a 20 percent faster rate than during the previous decade, scientists said Wednesday as the U.N. unveiled an initiative to harness the “untapped potential” of the land sector to fight climate change.
Despite a decades-long effort to halt deforestation, nearly 10 percent of undisturbed forests have been fragmented, degraded or simply chopped down since 2000, according to the analysis of satellite imagery.
Average daily loss over the first 17 years of this century was more than 200 square kilometers (75 square miles).
“Degradation of intact forest represents a global tragedy, as we are systematically destroying a crucial foundation of climate stability,” said Frances Seymour, a senior distinguished fellow at the World Resources Institute (WRI), and a contributor to the research, presented this week at a conference in Oxford.
“Forests are the only safe, natural, proven and affordable infrastructure we have for capturing and storing carbon.”
The findings come as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and five major conservation organizations launched a five-year plan, Nature4Climate, to better leverage land use in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming....
The USA introduced the whale culture into Japan after WWII. It is time Japan end it as an invasive culture.
Baleen whales are vitally important to ending the carbon pollution problem. They eat algae and plankton that remain in their bellies, muscle, blubber and babies forever. When a baleen whale dies naturally, they fall to the bottom of the ocean and the carbon dioxide they ate in their lifetimes remain sequestered in the depths of the oceans forever.
We lost the corals, we need to expand the populations of baleen whales in the oceans.
30 May 2018
By Jacinta Bowler
Every Christmas, (click here) sailors from Japan go out into the Southern Ocean, taking "biological sampling" that aims to investigate "the structure and dynamics of the Antarctic marine ecosystem".
We lost the corals, we need to expand the populations of baleen whales in the oceans.
30 May 2018
By Jacinta Bowler
Every Christmas, (click here) sailors from Japan go out into the Southern Ocean, taking "biological sampling" that aims to investigate "the structure and dynamics of the Antarctic marine ecosystem".
But no, they aren't trying to understand more about climate change, or investigating the mating songs of the ocean. They're out killing hundreds of Antarctic minke whales, and then letting the flesh be sold in markets and restaurants.
The latest figures have been released from meeting papers by the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee earlier this month.
According to those figures, 333 minke whales were killed in the 2017/2018 summer season in Australia. Of those, 122 were pregnant, and 114 were immature, meaning they were not yet able to breed.
The researchers wrote that killing the whales is necessary, as "age information can be obtained only from internal earplugs and therefore only through lethal sampling methods."
However, most researchers do not agree witBut no, they aren't trying to understand more about climate change, or investigating the mating songs of the ocean. They're out killing hundreds of Antarctic minke whales, and then letting the flesh be sold in markets and restaurants.
The latest figures have been released from meeting papers by the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee earlier this month.
According to those figures, 333 minke whales were killed in the 2017/2018 summer season in Australia. Of those, 122 were pregnant, and 114 were immature, meaning they were not yet able to breed.
The researchers wrote that killing the whales is necessary, as "age information can be obtained only from internal earplugs and therefore only through lethal sampling methods."
However, most researchers do not agree with this, as you can estimate the age of a whale by comparing its size to other whales that you know the age of.
The claims that whales need to be killed 'for science' have been debunked many times.h this, as you can estimate the age of a whale by comparing its size to other whales that you know the age of.
The claims that whales need to be killed 'for science' have been debunked many times....
The Trump Secretary afraid of his own shadow is over reaching his authority.
If Perry can't do his job he needs to leave.
By Sam Mintz
EPA sent some surprising advice to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (click here) this week about tools the independent regulator could use to consider greenhouse gas emissions as part of pipeline reviews.
FERC launched a notice of inquiry about its natural gas pipeline certificate policy in April and is taking comments from members of the public on a series of questions about factors it considers when reviewing pipeline applications.
One of those categories is the evaluation of environmental impacts of proposed pipeline projects, which has been a controversial issue at FERC in recent months and divided its commissioners.
The most notable feature of the comments from EPA, which were filed by the director of the Office of Federal Activities, Robert Tomiak, yesterday, is the suggestion of several tools FERC could use in evaluating upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions from new pipelines.
"In situations where FERC decides to conduct analysis of [greenhouse gas] emissions of proposed projects, EPA recommends a number of available tools that can be used," the letter says....
Clean energy is growing quickly. But time is running out to rein in carbon emissions.
25 April 2018
By Jeff Tollefson
...So it was in 2017, (click here) when, after staying relatively flat from 2014 to 2016, carbon emissions grew by about 1.5% (see ‘A brief lull’). All it took to create that spike was a small rise in economic growth across the developing world, according to a final estimate released in March by the Global Carbon Project, an international research consortium that monitors carbon emissions and climate trends....
...That small blip in China’s coal emissions might have been a major contributor to the spike, but developments in other countries also played a part (see ‘The big contributors’). India’s emissions rose faster than expected, owing to stronger economic growth. Thanks to changes in fossil-fuel consumption, emissions in the United States and European Union dropped more slowly in 2017 than in years past. Then there is the rest of the world, whose emissions rose by 2% in 2017, according to the Global Carbon Project’s analysis. That includes developing countries, where tapping fossil fuels remains a relatively cheap and easy way of making economic progress....
...Kejun’s calculations suggest that, driven both by policy and economics, China’s carbon emissions are still on track to peak as early as 2020, and its coal consumption could drop by as much as 40–50% by 2030. “The transition has already started,” says Kejun....
...Today, the solar-power industry is booming in India, thanks to government incentives and falling prices, and the Indian government aims to install 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 — nearly double the current solar-generation capacity in the United States. Meeting that goal could be challenging, because solar power will increasingly need to compete with existing coal-fired power plants for limited space on the electricity grid, says Rahul Tongia, an energy researcher at the non-profit public-policy organization the Brookings Institution in New Delhi. Still, he says, the trends are impressive. “Maybe it takes a bit longer to hit the targets. Who cares?” Tongia says. “The progress is still remarkable, measurable, dramatic and meaningful.”...
The Japanese economy has always been vibrant and the Japanese people have an exceptionally good quality of life.
USA GDP per capita 2008: $49,364..6
Japan GDP per capita 2009: $42,724.5
USA GDP per capita 2009: $47,575.6
Japan GDP per capita 2016: $47607.7
USA GDP per capita 2016: $52,194.9
Regardless, of the difference in GDP, Japan never abandoned it's morals and national conscience.
July 26, 2016By Benjamen DoVale
There is little correlation between “working hard” (click here) (usually measured as hours worked per week) and GDP per capita levels. If this were the case, the Germans would rank lowest on productivity scales and Japanese/Koreans/Mexicans at the top....
...In terms of differing levels of productivity on a sectoral basis, the Japanese economy is infamous for its “two Japans” phenomenon where export-oriented industries such as autos and electronics are highly efficient while other “protected industries,” e.g. retail, agriculture, are comically inefficient (Google the “Large Scale Retail Store Law” and the quasi-NRA “Japan Agriculture” political pressure group).
The United States, while seeing inequality yawn ever wider, has maintained robust economic growth with the rise of the Silicon Valley and financial sectors....
Japan is the fifth most polluting country in the world. BUT, the national conscience developed Kyoto Protocol.
December 11, 2017
Tokyo - Japan’s greenhouse gas (click here) emissions fell 0.2 percent to a six-year low in the financial year that ended last March, government figures showed on Tuesday, amid growing use of renewable energy and the gradual return of nuclear power.
Emissions in the 2016 financial year fell for a third straight year to 1.322 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent from 1.325 billion tonnes the year before, hitting their lowest since fiscal 2010, according to preliminary data from the environment ministry.
The world’s fifth-biggest carbon emitter, Japan has set a goal to cut its emissions by 26 percent from 2013 levels to 1.042 billion tonnes by 2030....
The US is the biggest carbon polluter in history.
by Justin Gillis and Nadja Popovich
“In cumulative terms, (click here) we certainly own this problem more than anybody else does,” said David G. Victor, a longtime scholar of climate politics at the University of California, San Diego. Many argue that this obligates the United States to take ambitious action to slow global warming.
But on Thursday, President Trump announced the United States would withdraw from a 195-nation agreement on climate change reached in Paris in 2015.
The decision to walk away from the accord is a momentous setback, in practical and political terms, for the effort to address climate change.
An American exit could prompt other countries to withdraw from the pact or rethink their emissions pledges, making it much harder to achieve the agreement’s already difficult goal of limiting global warming to a manageable level....
The history (click here) of fossil-fuel CO2 emissions from Japan is remarkable for the abrupt change that occurred in 1973. With postwar growth at 9.8% per year from 1950 to 1973, total emissions were virtually constant from 1974-1987. From 1987-96, emissions grew 25.3% reaching 329 million metric tons of carbon. Growth during this period was characterized by a return to mid-1970s consumption levels for liquid petroleum products and increased contributions from coal and natural gas use. Since 1996, Japan's fossil-fuel CO2emissions have vacilated and now total 329 million metric tons of carbon in 2008. Based on United Nations energy trade data for 2008, Japan is the world's largest importer of coal (184 million metric tons) and liquified petroleum gas (13.2 million metric tons) and the second largest importer of crude oil (191 million metric tons) and natural gas (3.72 billion terajoules). Japan's per capita fossil-fuel CO2 emission rate for 2008 stands at 2.59 metric tons of carbon.
CITE AS: Boden, T.A., G. Marland, and R.J. Andres. 2011. Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2011
Yuri Fuikawa is not aspiring to be a porn star, she figures if a woman "Has the name, she may as well have the fame."
It's Sunday Night
Yuri Fijikawa is a woman politician that needs to stay in politics. It seems women in Japan are still going through many issues Americans have conquered. At least we think we did. There is the Family and Medical Leave Act that allows Mom and Dad time at home after the birth of a child. But, in Japan there is some doubt about society's openness to working mothers and their aspiration to having more than one child and sometimes in their 30s.
Ms. Fijikawa is always in the center of some kind of sex scandal, but, is mostly the sex scandal that wasn't. She gets attention, still today even though allegations of a sex scandal was years ago and it appears she is now engaged. She has once been voted the most beautiful woman politician in the world in a Spanish magazine.
I wish women around the world were taken seriously without being the most sexiest in the world. A title does a lot to get the attention of the media and the electorate. The film of "soft porn" is nto soft porn. Maybe in Japan it is, but, not normally. The most exotic the DVD gets is in this picture where her panties are showing. Taht is PG13 in the US movie rating system.
July 31, 2009
Aomori - Hachinohe City councilwoman Yuri Fujikawa, 29, (click here) who has been referred to by bloggers as being "too beautiful to be a politician" and who was voted “World’s Most Beautiful Politician” in an online survey held by Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos earlier this year, was caught on camera Thursday walking out of a business hotel in the morning with a 38-year-old Democratic party politician from Iwata, who was likely headed home to his wife and children.
The weekly magazines once before caught Fujikawa hopping into her ex-boyfriend's BMW straight after work, and the politician was quoted in Sankei Sports as saying "He's still a good friend, even now."
When Fujikawa appeared at a movie screening in Hachinohe at the end of May this year, she was sporting a big sparkly ring on her left ring finger. On her blog, she posted, "There are rumors of some hot romance and an engagement..." but she denied her romantic involvement with anyone....
June 3, 2018
Yuri Fijikawa is a woman politician that needs to stay in politics. It seems women in Japan are still going through many issues Americans have conquered. At least we think we did. There is the Family and Medical Leave Act that allows Mom and Dad time at home after the birth of a child. But, in Japan there is some doubt about society's openness to working mothers and their aspiration to having more than one child and sometimes in their 30s.
Ms. Fijikawa is always in the center of some kind of sex scandal, but, is mostly the sex scandal that wasn't. She gets attention, still today even though allegations of a sex scandal was years ago and it appears she is now engaged. She has once been voted the most beautiful woman politician in the world in a Spanish magazine.
I wish women around the world were taken seriously without being the most sexiest in the world. A title does a lot to get the attention of the media and the electorate. The film of "soft porn" is nto soft porn. Maybe in Japan it is, but, not normally. The most exotic the DVD gets is in this picture where her panties are showing. Taht is PG13 in the US movie rating system.
July 31, 2009Aomori - Hachinohe City councilwoman Yuri Fujikawa, 29, (click here) who has been referred to by bloggers as being "too beautiful to be a politician" and who was voted “World’s Most Beautiful Politician” in an online survey held by Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos earlier this year, was caught on camera Thursday walking out of a business hotel in the morning with a 38-year-old Democratic party politician from Iwata, who was likely headed home to his wife and children.
The weekly magazines once before caught Fujikawa hopping into her ex-boyfriend's BMW straight after work, and the politician was quoted in Sankei Sports as saying "He's still a good friend, even now."
When Fujikawa appeared at a movie screening in Hachinohe at the end of May this year, she was sporting a big sparkly ring on her left ring finger. On her blog, she posted, "There are rumors of some hot romance and an engagement..." but she denied her romantic involvement with anyone....
June 3, 2018
Sayako, who spoke to AFP using a pseudonym, learned her boss had an unwritten policy that experts say is not uncommon in Japan: an informal “pregnancy rota” for employees.
“Why don’t you take a break, you already have one,” her boss said, despite knowing Sayako was so keen to get pregnant that she was seeing a fertility specialist.
“I was so shocked and stunned that I couldn’t answer,” the 35-year-old told AFP.
Sayako’s boss told her that an older newly-wed at her workplace now had priority when it came to having children.
She quit the job and moved to another daycare centre, recently giving birth to her second child.
If she had stayed, “I think I’d have said ‘I’m sorry'” instead of celebrating the birth of the baby.
The issue of “pregnancy rotas” hit the headlines earlier this year when a man wrote about his wife’s experience getting pregnant “out of turn”....
This is a latin transliteration of the Japanese language.
Kimigayo
His Majesty's Reign
Kimigayo wa
May your reign
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni
Continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations
Sazare ishi no
Until the pebbles
Iwao to narite
Grow into boulders
Koke no musu made
Lush with moss
君が代は
千代に八千代に
さざれ（細）石の
いわお（巌）となりて
こけ（苔）の生すまで（迄
Poetic English translation
Thousands of years of happy reign be thine;
Rule on, my lord (Akihito), until what are pebbles now
By ages united to mighty rocks shall grow
Whose venerable sides the moss doth line.
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