Post by matt on Sept 5, 2008 20:03:15 GMT 8
Today I found a book in my apartment, which I think was left by my predecessor. It is in both Japanese and English, and I think it's for Japanese people who are advanced in English learning more English. It's a book of newspaper articles from the Asahi Shimbun. I glanced through it and found an article which made my jaw hit the table. A friend told me about how in summer his school refuses to use the air conditioner, even when the temp is above 30. This article seems the 'polar' opposite of it (no pun intended, as you might see later).
I'll type it out here for you to read. It has been translated into English, and is a first-person perspective from the original author, who wrote in Japanese (just in case this isn't obvious...maybe I've been here too long).
Asahi Shimbun, March 5th, 2006
"In mid-February, the Washington Post ran a Page 1 feature story by its correspondent Anthony Faiola on the energy-saving efforts by the municipal government of Kamiita in Tokushima Prefecture.
The story tells that Kamiita officials turned off the heat in their offices this winter, except on exceptionally frigid days. "When the Japanese government issued a national battle cry against soaring global energy prices this winter, no one heeded the call to arms more than this farming town in the misty mountains of western Japan," Faiola began with admiration.
A photograph showed the town's civil servants wearing surgical masks and bundled up in overcoats at their desks. An administrative director was quoted as saying proudly, "Saving energy has been our national duty." Reading between the lines, however, I sensed that much as the writer was obviously impressed by all this, he also had some doubts about the necessity of going so far.
The U.S. government, after all, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change because of the protocol's objectives would "negatively impact the U.S. economy." For the average American reader, this story about Japanese civil servants soldiering on in frigid offices must have come across as rather bizarre. However, I believe it was not for nothing that the stoic attempts of a town government to go without heat during the winter were reported in the United States.
Following Kamiita's attempt, the Environment Ministry shut off its heating system late last month. Gone, too, is the hot water. The ministry claims the effort helped cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 6 tons in the first week alone. This news made me feel warmly toward the ministry's good example in fighting global warming.
But those feelings lasted only until my recent visit to the ministry. Bracing myself for chills and shivers, I found to my complete surprise that inside the offices, the temperature was most pleasantly toasty. The Environment Ministry occupies the top floors of a 26-story government building that overlooks Tokyo's central Hibiya Park. The floors immediately below are occupied by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which is still running its heating system in the morning and the evening. The Environment Ministry was getting plenty of warm air from the floors below.
According to the Environment Ministry, the average temperature in its offices was 23.7 degrees during the first week without heat. That was only slightly lower than when it had set its thermostat to 24.5 degrees. So it turns out in fact the Environment Ministry had been overheated before it shut off its heating system. It's probably a good thing this particular story didn't get picked up by a foreign correspondent."
This is exactly how this article reads, typed out word-for-word. (to answer your unspoken question: correct, I have no life).
Am I missing something? Is this really a cultural thing? Is it really about saving the environment, or about making a point? Isn't the purpose of having heating and cooling systems to use them? Wouldn't things be more efficient if a little money were spent on making windows and doors and such more insulated and efficient, and saving money that way, instead of simply not using them and putting employee health at risk? Think of worker productivity, and how much more productive workers could be if they worked in comfortable environments, and weren't sick all the time.
For Japanese readers to this site, if anyone could explain this kind of behavior to me I would really appreciate it- I'm getting a little tired of hot days sitting with my back to the sun in my own kyoumushitsu while the air conditioner sits off. Am I just pig-headed and arrogant, or is something really is strange about this?
I'll type it out here for you to read. It has been translated into English, and is a first-person perspective from the original author, who wrote in Japanese (just in case this isn't obvious...maybe I've been here too long).
Asahi Shimbun, March 5th, 2006
"In mid-February, the Washington Post ran a Page 1 feature story by its correspondent Anthony Faiola on the energy-saving efforts by the municipal government of Kamiita in Tokushima Prefecture.
The story tells that Kamiita officials turned off the heat in their offices this winter, except on exceptionally frigid days. "When the Japanese government issued a national battle cry against soaring global energy prices this winter, no one heeded the call to arms more than this farming town in the misty mountains of western Japan," Faiola began with admiration.
A photograph showed the town's civil servants wearing surgical masks and bundled up in overcoats at their desks. An administrative director was quoted as saying proudly, "Saving energy has been our national duty." Reading between the lines, however, I sensed that much as the writer was obviously impressed by all this, he also had some doubts about the necessity of going so far.
The U.S. government, after all, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change because of the protocol's objectives would "negatively impact the U.S. economy." For the average American reader, this story about Japanese civil servants soldiering on in frigid offices must have come across as rather bizarre. However, I believe it was not for nothing that the stoic attempts of a town government to go without heat during the winter were reported in the United States.
Following Kamiita's attempt, the Environment Ministry shut off its heating system late last month. Gone, too, is the hot water. The ministry claims the effort helped cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 6 tons in the first week alone. This news made me feel warmly toward the ministry's good example in fighting global warming.
But those feelings lasted only until my recent visit to the ministry. Bracing myself for chills and shivers, I found to my complete surprise that inside the offices, the temperature was most pleasantly toasty. The Environment Ministry occupies the top floors of a 26-story government building that overlooks Tokyo's central Hibiya Park. The floors immediately below are occupied by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which is still running its heating system in the morning and the evening. The Environment Ministry was getting plenty of warm air from the floors below.
According to the Environment Ministry, the average temperature in its offices was 23.7 degrees during the first week without heat. That was only slightly lower than when it had set its thermostat to 24.5 degrees. So it turns out in fact the Environment Ministry had been overheated before it shut off its heating system. It's probably a good thing this particular story didn't get picked up by a foreign correspondent."
This is exactly how this article reads, typed out word-for-word. (to answer your unspoken question: correct, I have no life).
Am I missing something? Is this really a cultural thing? Is it really about saving the environment, or about making a point? Isn't the purpose of having heating and cooling systems to use them? Wouldn't things be more efficient if a little money were spent on making windows and doors and such more insulated and efficient, and saving money that way, instead of simply not using them and putting employee health at risk? Think of worker productivity, and how much more productive workers could be if they worked in comfortable environments, and weren't sick all the time.
For Japanese readers to this site, if anyone could explain this kind of behavior to me I would really appreciate it- I'm getting a little tired of hot days sitting with my back to the sun in my own kyoumushitsu while the air conditioner sits off. Am I just pig-headed and arrogant, or is something really is strange about this?