 |
 |
Eco-logical II: Re-thinking
“You reap what you saw”
Lately headlines about earth’s status quo are getting increasingly gloomy, and research shows that the 5% cut of carbon dioxide emission put down in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, actually has been followed by a 6,4% increase. There have been several climate summits over the last 2 decades, and still we are battling with this problem more than ever. It is clear that we are doing something wrong or just not doing enough. The eco-campaign in Japan has been intensified as it was decided that this year’s G-8 summit would be held there. Tokyo, Japan’s capital, which is aiming at getting the Olympics in 2016, is using this to also counteract ecological problems. A campaign to improve its greenery was started in 2006, which aims for instance at increasing roadside trees from 486.000 to 1 million in 10 years. A related campaign is “my street-tree”, through which citizens can get their name on a roadside tree, an appeal to the community to be more eco-conscious.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
Eco-logical I: Re-cycling
“What goes around comes around”The word ECO is everywhere you look these days, from eco-food to eco-clothes, and eco-housing, and it’s really about time. The earth is heading for a disaster with no return if something drastically isn’t done pretty soon. This green asterisk oasis in our solar system may eventually have to change its trademark from green, fresh, and living, to brown, dry and suffocating. The new path is mainly a result of human exploitation and mismanagement of natural resources over only the last couple of hundred years, a drop of time in the sea of earth’s existence. Earth’s destiny is now in our hands, and it’s up to us to heal the wounds and make up for what we’ve already let go to waste. To turn things around something concrete has to be done, on macro level as well as in people’s everyday life. People may say that they cannot achieve any change alone. Well, the thing is that your life doesn’t only concern yourself. You are a part of a much bigger flow, a global responsibility for this planet we call our home, and are thus not in on it alone. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
Tea, a transcending living cultureFriday April 19th, a few days before the beginning of the harvesting season of the new tealeaves, I find myself in Makinohara in Shizuoka prefecture in the meeting with Mr. Kiyoyuki Oguri, the president of the Oguri Noen. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
Toilet, “culture in a nutshell”When I came to Japan for the first time 10 years ago, I couldn’t speak or read Japanese. Japan, which is located almost 10.000 km from my home country, was an exotic and completely unknown country. I was an ignorant tourist who didn’t know what was installed for me. Looking around, smell, sounds, light, and people, everything was different. Though knowing it was far away, as one of the biggest metropolises in the world, I didn’t think that at least Tokyo would be all that different or difficult to get around. My laidback and “happy go lucky” attitude caused me some surprise though, when I realized that not too many people spoke English, and that most signs were written with Chinese characters that were incomprehensible to me at that time. This “lost in translation” situation brought me a lot of unforgettable experiences that were really interesting, and mostly harmless and just hilarious. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
The survival of the most convenientThe Japanese have done it again, they are really amazing. It’s so thin how can it work, was my first thought. I'm looking at a TV in a show window at an electrical goods shop, and it’s incomprehensible that the TV which is only 3 millimeters thick, can have such clear pictures or even function at all. In Japan every thing seems to be smaller, thinner, and lighter than anywhere ells, how do they do it? |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 2 of 2 |
Life in Japan
