あなたはエコですか。(Are you green?)
National Geographic has released its “Greendex” for 2009 and Japan ranks third from the bottom but (suprisingly-for me) above Canada and (completely unsuprisingly) America; who finished dead last.
One thousand people in each of seventeen countries were polled in categories such as housing, transportation, food, and goods. While the Japanese did respectable in transportation (due to high commuter train use) and goods (due to the lack of owning multiple big-ticket items and lawn equipment-who the hell has space for a lawn here? or time to cut it?), their dismal scores in housing and food kept them huddling in the eco-basement along with the usual twinkie-loving suspects.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these categories, as they pertain to Japan and Japanese consumers:
1) Housing-Japanese posted a gain in this category this year due to keeping their thermostats, or more appropriately-their space heaters, set lower and using cold water to wash their clothes. What sinks them is that they have the highest percentage of homes having air conditioning (89%; something we don’t need in EH) and using oil for heating (52%), are the least likely to have made or plan to make energy-efficient improvements to their homes, and also use the lowest amount (a paltry 2%) of “green” energy.
I don’t find it suprising that Japanese haven’t made, nor plan to make, any improvements to their homes. First of all, many people still live in company or town housing (like myself and many people I know) and are not at liberty, nor have any incentive, to increase their energy efficiency. I have mentioned numerous times to my supervisor that the curtains move in my house when the wind blows but nothing has ever been done. I would imagine that the situation is similar for other people but, since they are Japanese, they probably do not raise this issue with anyone as they want to maintain 和 (wa-the Japanese concept of social harmony).
Secondly, houses here are not built to last. In Japan, it is the piece of land that the house is built on that is valuable, not the house itself. If you also factor in the cultural superstitions the Japanese have about living in a previously owned houses, then you’ve got the perfect recipe for consumable housing…I’ve seen plenty of houses and buildings go up around here and they use virtually no insulation whatsoever. They frame them the same but in the space where you would see that fluffy, pink stuff there is only a small sheet of “insulation” to keep out the cold. Simply put, there is no incentive to use all that insulation if the place will be torn down in a couple decades.
2) Transportation- If I may paraphrase Ralph Wiggum, “Transportation-that’s where I’m a Viking”. The Japanese ranked a very respectable sixth place (although I honestly thought they would have been a lot higher) behind, of all people, the Hungarians (who knew?). Much of this high score can be attested to by their high levels of walking, riding bikes and taking public transportation. And while that is less of an option out here in EH, I have seen its use become much more prevalent once you reach somewhere that actually has people. Also, helpful to their score is the use of very compact cars and their lower rates of annual mileage.
Something that did bring down their score was that they ranked lowest on saying they chose to live close to their regular destinations in order to reduce the environmental impact. I don’t really find this suprising at all…Part of that reason is because people’s work locations, and their lives really, are still controlled by the company or school board that they work for. They have very little say in where they will be placed once they join up. Families are routinely split up, with the father working in a different city or even prefecture (and they wonder why no one wants to have kids in this country anymore…), and I know many teachers who drive at least an hour to get to school.
The reason they have to do this is that the local board of education moves teachers every several years to whatever school they deem necessary of their talents. So, often, a teacher has bought a house in one town but they are moved to a school in another town. As I mentioned before, people don’t buy and sell houses here like they do in other parts of the world, which makes it very difficult for a person to sell and move on. Not to mention that they have a family and don’t want to have to move everyone every 4 or 5 years; sometimes more or less than that. So what happens is that the family stays in the house while the husband, sometimes the wife, moves to the other town and lives in some usually old, concrete school apartment and sees them on the weekends (maybe-teachers work on the weekends too). Naturally, that’s not always an option for people who want to be with their family, so they drive the long distance instead.
There’s also the really annoying habit of endlessly idling their cars but I think I’ll save that for a different post.
3) Food-Japan did not score well in this category. About the only thing that was seen as a positive this year was their decrease in bottled water consumption. However, if you’ve ever been here and seen the ungodly amount of vending machines (all full of plastic bottles and averaging about 1 for every 23 people) you’ll probably be able to guess that this is really much ado about nothing. I think that if National Geographic were to expand the definition of this “bottled” question, you would see Japan’s rating hovering in the sub-sub-basement. At least they are religious about recycling the bottles and tops, each seperately.
Not directly addressed in the survey but something that I’ve been wanting to mention for some time is Japan’s low food self-sufficiency rate which, last I read, was hovering around 40%. The only thing that Japan is sufficient in is rice but almost everything else has to be imported at some percentage or another. While this is fine if you are a rich country and can pay whatever price is necessary to make sure your citizens have fresh bananas, it’s not a strategy that you would want to rely on in this post-globalization environment. It’s a government priority to raise the self-sufficiency rate but asking bureaucrats here to do anything but line their pockets is like asking Michael Jackson to act normal (have you seen any pictures from his truncated auction?).
While I do my best to eat stuff grown in EH (very rare, except for tofu) or Hokkaido it appears that my fellow townies might not do the same. Japan also has the highest percentage of people (63%) who say they eat fish/seafood at least several times a week (no wonder the blue-fin tuna stocks are collapsing). Most disturbingly, they are the least likely to say that they avoid buying endangered fish or seafood. This infuriating disconnect between action and responsibility is something that crops up almost every day with the Japanese in various forms but it especially bugs the shit out of me when it comes to their almost complete ignorance in regards to the environment and how their consumerism (as well as everyone elses) effects it. Thinking that their money will allow them to continue to consume the creatures of the ocean until they are all gone will leave them with nothing but sand in their mouths and a “how did this happen” look on their faces.
4) Goods-The Japanese rank fifth in this category but I feel like this is a misnomer. My personal opinion is that they should probably rank lower; based on what I see on an everyday basis…There are several questions on the survey that relate to a preference for used items rather than new, to repair rather than buy a replacement, for reusable goods over disposable products, and avoidance of excessive packaging. These are all categories that I have observed a real lack of interest in here in Japan.
There has been a campaign to increase awareness in regards to using your own bags (マイバッグ-my bag) when you go to the grocery store in the last year or so and that was picked up by the survey. Because Japanese homes are much, much smaller than their western counterparts and appliances are much, much more expensive, it would stand to reason that the Japanese have less of them and that works in their favor in the survey.
What doesn’t work for them is their stubborn refusal to see responsibility in their lifestyle choices. While the Japanese were less likely to say that they preferred disposable to reusable products (something that I truly find hard to believe) and that the cost of a “green” alternative product “was not worth it”, they also were the least likely to avoid environmentally-unfriendly products or to buy environmentally-friendly ones. Where’s the disconnect in the Japanese consumer’s mind? While reading through these results I sometimes got the sense that those interviewed were telling NG what they thought they should hear, rather than what the reality truly was.
The Japanese really still do live in a bubble but it’s not the economic one of the 70’s and 80’s. It’s a mental and cultural bubble that has been in place since Japan was closed to foreigners in 1639 by the Tokugawa shogunate (徳川幕府) for almost 250 years. It helps that Japan is an island nation (島国-shima guni), which makes it easier to keep new things out (like ways of thinking) and old things in (like the myth of “unique uniqueness”). This accounts for some of the conflicting sentiments often expressed by the Japanese in regards to the environment (and other subjects) and their lack of personal responsibility when it comes to their consumer choices. As an example of this, I’d like to let the last paragraph of the NG’s short report on Japan let the contradictions and lack of awareness speak for themselves:
“Consistent with the 2008 findings, Japanese consumers’ attitudes suggest they are among the least anxious about the environment. They are among the least likely to say they feel guilty about their personal impact, to say they are trying to reduce their negative impacts, or to agree that environmental problems are having a negative effect on their health. Agreement with this last statement declined somewhat this year. The Japanese are less likely than other to agree that an environmentally friendly lifestyle is good for one’s health or that society needs to consume less (EHWB note: you’re shitting me, right?). They are the least willing to pay more for energy-saving products. Japanese consumers indicate less-than-average faith in the ability of government or new technology to fix environmental problems, but they are more likely than others to think favorably of the environmental efforts of their country’s auto industry (EHWB note: !!!!!!). They also appear to feel more empowered than others-60 percent disagree that there is little an individual can do about the environment as compared with 39 percent on average.
My mind was just reeling when I read this…This post has been a long one but if anyone wants to have me dissect this last paragraph in another post I would be happy to.
