A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

July 18th 2012

Japan Has Reached Tether’s End, But Can It Afford To Fall Apart Now?

Japan has always been a nation that many others look up to in their strives towards achieving a society that is happy and content with its position in things, which can stand up to most problems and smash right through them without a second thought. As a country, the Japanese are renowned for their extreme politeness, obedience and determination in doing what is expected for their proud country, a trait some see as borderline subservience, and others as the key to a successful government and industrial powerhouse.

However, it’s easy for us to forget the Japan has been through some tragically harsh times in its history, especially in recent times. I feel it a shame that, in many cases, we ignore these facts because of the developed status that Japan holds, sitting high as one of the most technically and economically advanced countries in the world, which can cloud reality. Japan has experienced horrible conflicts, extreme natural disasters and serious economic downturn, the last of which many of us had the pleasure of partaking in too, and now more than ever is this the case. Even so, despite their hardships, the Japanese people sure now how to rise from the ashes, more powerful than before and with an even stronger resolve to live on; it’s something of a personality that the entire world recognises. This however, seems to be changing.

The past two years have been undoubtedly hard for the humble nation. Recovering from poor economic climates, Japan was hit by one of the biggest ever recorded earthquakes, only to be followed up with an equally record-breaking and devastating tsunami. As the Fukushima-Daiichi plant blossomed radiation, thousands were relocated in an instant from the huge quarantine area imposed by the government, and even now many are not allowed back to their homes and see no hope of that changing anytime soon. Whilst this happened, horrendously high numbers of people were killed by the quake and tsunami, a combination of nature frightening in its ability to trash whole towns and render the landscape unrecognisable.

Despite this, the Japanese, although wounded, did what they do, and began to rise from the rubble, the composed and determined people we are used to seeing. We applauded them for their courage, and vilified their government. Now more than ever, the effects of this are being rapidly unwound. With all nuclear reactors shutdown in Fukushima’s wake, a shortfall of 30% in the nation’s electricity generation capacity was instantly apparent, and fears of blackouts nationwide set in.

Posted at 9:59am and tagged with: Japan, Fukushima, Energy, Nuclear, Polite, Global, Economy, Earthquake, Tsunami, Protest, Government, Politics, Flooding, Weather, Determination, Japanese, Society, People, Tokyo, Rich, Mistake, Daiichi, fossil fuel, Oil, Coal,.

June 27th 2012

With Rio+20, We’ve Finally Realised That Global Conventions Just Don’t Work

Well there it is, Rio+20, done and dusted; three days of intense talks and intricate decision-making, being carried out by the most important people on the entire planet, with the rest of the entire planet at their heels desperate for a concrete, smart response on how to change the way we ravage our blue marble. Some story eh? A tale almost too lofty to consider, and yet we went and did it anyway.

Many of us hailed the latest UN +whatever talks as the moment the globe had been waiting on for over 20 years - our leaders would finally, once and for all, stand as one and vote to save this fledgling home we have, the only thing we lowly humans can trust in the darkness of space in which it floats. After the poorly constructed and ultimately pointless convention of 1992, it seemed like Brazil might actually be able to bring forth a new era of sustainability and usher in the ‘Future We Want’. This 20 year anniversary would be the winning moment, a historical event.

Well, after all the hype, hope and hysterics, what do we have? It’s fair to say, absolutely squat. In fact, I tell a lie; we have some things, things which amount to grains of sand in the grand scheme, which I shall come to a little later, but it’s safe to assume from this point onwards, that Rio+20 stunningly failed to prove anything, or provide even the slightest of substantial changes on the global agenda that is our collective future.

As I wrote in my previous post, when you put so many powerful, influential people into one single room, hold up a draft text detailing multiple deadly serious issues and their consequences on our entire society and expect that text to be signed by each and every one of them, it requires more than a stretch of reality to believe it will succeed. Our leaders are simply too individual in their decision-making, too tied to their own domestic motives, and in most cases, not the proper voice of their people.

So when you have Rio+20 going in with the expectations of a world on its shoulders and literally the most pressing matters of perhaps our entire history to address, we must have been mad to think that anything inspiring would come of it; it’s just too big a deal for something so short-lived and small-minded to conquer. With this in mind, I actually retract some of my prior negativity towards the likely outcomes of this process in my earlier post, as in fact, I was unfair in shooting it down so readily. No single stage should be burdened with such a monumental bodge job to fix, however many ‘leaders’ turn up.

But enough of that for the moment, time to list what Rio+20 actually managed to achieve amongst all the bickering and political jousting, even if it did take plenty of waiting and digging to find articles detailing such things. Over $500bn was pledged to to several issues, such as energy, food and water and ocean management, but no specifics were mentioned, whilst a seemingly arbitrary number of 800,000 tons of PVC was agreed to be recycled, whatever recycled truly meant.

Alongside this, the planting of over 100 million trees around the world was decided upon, though how this compares to the current deforestation rate which I have yet to see addressed in the talks is unknown, and gender equality a key basis for many development strategies. Apologies for seeming so cynical and judging for the sake of it, but these are simply the first thoughts running through my mind when I read these apparent successes initially, and believe that to get excited over such things is premature and nothing but setting yourself up for a fall.

Posted at 10:26am and tagged with: rio+20, rio+social, globe, leaders, world, talks, future we want, sustainability, climate, energy, future, poverty, failure, brazil, UN, earth, planet, science, politics, rich, hype, collapse, blog,.