6 posts tagged “global warming”

Mary’s Lamb and Global Warming

A few days ago, I joined a forum for Global Warming sponsored by British Council, the UK’s international organization.  Because of the subject of this forum, I dared not to use any public transport as they emit considerable amount of CO2, but instead I chose to go there with my bicycle “the Burman”, a British made by the way, and flew down the road with Mr. Burman for 15 minutes and finally got to the British Council.  I was all of a sweat!  In the lounge of the British Council, I saw about 20-30 environment –related professional but also business men in suits who are concerned about the global warming just like me.  As a main panelist we had Mr. Seita Emori, a risk manager at National Institute of Environmental Studies, who is very well known as a pioneer for developing Global warming simulation system.  So he is undoubtedly an expert and celebrity in the field of environmental industry but…look!!! Gosh, he is so good looking and looks like one of cute guys next door”!!! Yes, he is a true celebrity, he looks very much like the actor Koichi Sato wow! 
Well, his look is not what I am going to discuss here.  The main part of this column is what we have discussed in the forum.  About me, I was sitting on a comfortable sofa-like chair at the back of the lounge with my usual pair of Geta.  (Incidentally, Mr. Emori had gone to British Embassy by mistake and what I was impressed is that while a leader of G8 would have chosen to take a taxi he dared to run all the way down here.  A real celebrity isn’t he! )

A variety of heated debate was sparked between panelists and audience, and I was particularly intrigued by a comment that the amount of CO2 emission per year on this earth is estimated approximately 7.2billion ton, of which 2.2bil ton is consumed by Oceans and 1bil by continental bio-geocenosis.  That means 4bil ton of CO2 is directly connected to the Global Warming.  I was also surprised to know that it is our beautiful oceans which have been absorbing considerable volume of CO2 but the point made by Mr. Emori shocked me even more : he said “our Nature will be absorbing CO2 for us less and less in future”.  And he continued “that is why we MUST think of our world at 100 years or 200 years from now – we are in a way standing on a verge of revolution for all mankind!!!”

A Delicate Relationship between Lamb and Global Warming

During the discussion, I talked to a gentleman in 50s sitting next to me.  He said he works for an embassy of the Pacific Region and talks passionately about lamb.  So let’s call him ‘Uncle. Lamb” here.

-          “You know,” , Uncle Lamb started to tell a story…

-          “Yes, Uncle…” me intently listening to him,

-          “We have lots of lamb in our country.  As I am a researcher in Bio Technology, I have found very interesting data on Lamb!”

-          “oh, what kind of data is that?”, said I

-          “well, every time a lamb burps it ejects considerable amount of methane gas”

-          ”?”

-          “yes, lamb is actually a part of this Global Warming so we are in unity as a country now pushing to build a system or framework in order to minimize the impact from lamb’s burp”

Uncle Lamb looks really serious and tells me that the Japanese government may also take part in this project in future.  I never thought of lamb’s burp in connection with global warming but for the country where more lamb lives than human beings, lamb’s burp must be something to be reckoned with.

Still being in a kind of amazement, I said to him “ wow, it’s ah...a..a..serious problem…but I guess methane gas is ejected more from “gas” than from burp!?”

“well, actually no, because they don’t really gas but they make embarrassing numbers of burp “ said the Uncle Lamb.
“Then why don’t we collect the gas and try make omelet every morning in the farm?, I was about to make a serious proposal but then discussion was getting heated so I turned my eyes to the panelists. 

Speaking to a English Beauty

Just behind me, a party was now getting ready – there are lamb steaks and also some finger food with some bottles of red, rose and white wine on tables.  For a wine lover like me, it is difficult to resist my appetite for drinking and eating but strangely enough, lamb steak smelled like kind of “gas”…. 

During the discussion, beautiful Ms. Olive, a chief editor of the Climate change Section in the Nature emphasized many times that “G8 meeting was successful and very positive…”.  Well, in my opinion, her comments sounded too positive and kind of an expert’s excuses – the Summit couldn’t, as expected, give us a clear idea of what we are going to do and how we are going to work out but instead it only gave us just usual world leaders’ equivocal voices towards the Climate Change.  Then, the presenter who is a guest professor at Waseda University and makes cracking jokes was trying to close the discussion.  Feeling a little frustrated, I held up and hurriedly made two questions: 

 Q1: “As we are in British Council, I would like to ask Ms. Olive about Britain first because I assume you are familiar with the country.  When we think of Global Warming cutting the amount of energy consumption is essential, which means we should put more effort on recycling if it is effective.  Because in Japan we believe recycling is a way to reduce the amount of energy, we separate combustibles and non-combustibles, plastic bottles, tins and bins etc.  In contrast, all my friends who are living in the UK say “you know, people here do not care about recycling.  They put everything in one bag from rotten duck meat, bottles of cheap wine, croissant, plastic container, to tissue paper in one bag and throw into a big garbage box on every street corner.  I was amazed to find this Ms. Olive, is this what is going on in the UK, the top runner in environmental policies?  Is this really true that the British people do not care about recycling at all, I mean the level of their concern about global warming is close to zero? 

Q2: Secondly, I would like to ask a question to both you and Dr.Emori: as we are progressing so slowly, it seems impossible to reduce the amount of CO2 down to 6% from the 1990 level by the year 2012, I am talking about Japan’s situation but I suppose there are more countries around the world that may not be able to achieve their own goal.  What do you think about this situation? And if we can not achieve what we have once agreed, are we going to be punished like, like Harrison Ford in that Indiana Jones film?
　

Silence followed for about 2.2 seconds…

Then, breaking the silence as response to my first question, Ms. Olive agreed that the Japanese government has been doing far better than the British government in terms of recycling.  I felt that I was really flattered and her complimentary remark made me feel like a little “drunk” even before drinking red wine waiting behind me.  Well, she nicely denied over possibility of Indiana Johns whipping punishments though!

In response to her remark, Dr. Emori grabbed a microphone and suddenly talked to the audience “well, let me introduce this gentleman…ah--- he is Mr. Solarman” !

S..Solarman? “who the hell is this guy?” kind of strange look I recognized on everyone’s faces.  Worse is that even Dr. Emori couldn’t find the right explanation of this mystic Solarman.  And the silence came.  (By the way, I met him at an event this spring and since then I have been constantly sending e-mails and making a great effort to promote the Solarman) 

Back to the subject, Dr. Emori recognized the presumption that the lack of our effort to reduce the CO2 emission to an expected level by the year 2012 would urge us to buy more emission credits from other countries…urge us to spend a huge amount of money.  But look, don’t you think it is seriously bad if we only to achieve 6 % to reduce the CO2 amount while our goal is to cut down to 50% by 2050.”  His words are powerful enough to make me believe in him, well in the end of a day, I am a very simple person.  

-The End-

                                                                                                            Translated to English by

Utsooshey Sooger Nammey

(注：本文は、以前書いたコラムを英訳したものです）

三日前の金曜日、英国の公的な国際交流機関であるBritish Councilにて、地球温暖化に関するフォーラムに参加してきた。
テーマがテーマということもあり、いつも通り我が自転車のブルマン号をかっ飛ばすこと十五分。
汗だくながらも、CO2を大量に排出する機関に頼らず目的地に到着。偶然にも、ブ号は英国製である。

会場であるBritish Councilのラウンジには、二、三十人が陣取っている。英国のNature誌の読者など、環境問題に関心のある人が終結している感じだが、スーツ姿のサラリーマンも少なくない。
メインパネリストは、 国立環境研究所地球環境研究センター　温暖化リスク評価研究室長の江守正多氏。
地球温暖化シュミレーター　の開発者として有名な方だが、どうみてもジャニーズ系にしか見えないマスクとのギャップに苦しめられるのも事実である。

　いや、ジャニーズというよりも俳優の佐藤浩市のほうが近いか。
　まあ、そんなことはどうでもいい。肝心なのはディスカッションの内容だ。会場の一番後ろで偉そうにソファ風の気持ちいいシートに腰を降ろすぼくの足元は、やはり下駄である。（ちなみに江守氏は、会場を間違えて英国大使館に行ってしまい、そこから走ってきたそうだ。G8のリーダーだったら確実にタクシーを使うところを、そうしないあたりが流石である）

様々な激論がパネリストとビジターの間で交わされたが、　ぼくが興味を覚えたのは次のポイントである。
地球で排出される一年のCO2排出量は、約７２億トンとされているらしい。そのうち、なんと２２億トンは海が吸収してくれ、１０億トンは陸域生態系が吸収してくれる。つまり、４０億㌧は吸収されずに温暖化に直結するというわけだ。

　海がこんなにもCO2を吸収してくれることは、ぼくにとっては衝撃だっが、それにも増して驚いたことは、「自然が二酸化炭素を吸ってくれる量は、これからどんどん減っていきます」との氏の指摘であった。「よって我々は、百年後、いや、二百年後の世界を考えるべきなのです。みなさん、これはある意味、人類にとって革命なのです！」

　羊と温暖化の微妙な関係

　ディスカッションが行われている間、ぼくは隣にいた五十代風のおじさんと何度か言葉を交わした。
　この方は、環太平洋地域の大使館から来られており、羊についてえらく熱く語る。よってここでは、「羊おじさん」と呼ばせていただこう。
　「羊はですね....」
　とおじさん。
「え、ええ....」　唾を飲み込むボク。
「わが国には沢山いるんです。私はバイオテクノロジーの研究者でもありますが、最近、面白いデーターがでたんです」
「ほほお。。。といいますと？」
「ええ。羊がゲップするでしょう。するとメタンガスがそれはもう、いっぱいいっぱい出るんです」
「？」
「ええ。そしてそれは温暖化に直結します。よって、この悪影響を抑えるための枠組みといいますか、システムづくりを我が国政府一丸となって今、進めているところでしてね」
　羊おじさんは真顔そのものだ。このプロジェクトに日本政府も関与するかもしれない、とも言っている。
　ラムのゲップなんて、これまで想像だにしたことがなかったが、人間より羊が多いとされるこの国では温暖化ガス排出を抑えるために、決して無視できない課題と思われる。
　「そうですか.........それは深刻ですね...........ゲップよりオナラのほうがいっぱい出るのでは？」
　と曖昧模糊な質問をぶつけてみたが、
「いや、ちがうんです。オナラよりゲップの頻度が半端ないんです」と羊おじさん。
「じゃあ、そこから出るメタンガスを集めて毎朝、農場では目玉焼きを作ってみてはいかがでしょう？」と真剣に提案しようとした瞬間、ディスカッションが盛り上がってきたので視線を再びセンターステージに戻したぼくであった。

英国人美人編集者に猛アタック

最後尾にいるぼくの後ろには、早くもラム肉と思われるステーキや、クラッカーの香りがぷんぷんしてくる。スタンディング・パーティの準備が着々と進められ、ワインも赤、ロゼ、ホワイトと三種類。自称いける口のぼくとしては、生唾ものだが、ラム肉がオナラのようなフラグランスに感じられるのはなぜだろう。

ディスカッションでは、Nature誌の気候変動（Climate Change）セクションのチーフ・美人エディターのオリーヴ氏が、「G8は成功したといえます。前向きな会合でして.....」と極めて優等生気味のコメントを連射している。ぼく個人的には、玉虫色でおわったサミットは予想通りという感しかなく、彼女の意見と折り合わなかったのだが。

　ギャグを小バサミに入れる、早稲田大学客員教授で司会のおばさまが、「あとは江守先生たちにコメントを頂いてディナーパーティに。。。。」と締めに入ろうとしたので、ぼくは慌てて挙手をし、強引に二つ質問させてもらった。

　Q1: 「ここはBritish Councilですので、Britain に詳しいオリーヴさんにBritainに関する質問を、まずさせていただきます。地球温暖化を考える場合、エネルギー消費量を下げるべきなのはもちろんのこと。つまり効率がよければリサイクルすべきものはすべきだと思います。だからこそ、日本では可燃・不燃・ペットボトル・カン、ビン.......など分別します。ところが、英国に住んでいるぼくの友人らはみな口をそろえて『イギリスはなってない。誰もが腐ったアヒルの肉と安ワインのボトルとクロワッサンの食いかけとプラスチック容器とTissue paperをごちゃ混ぜ状態で一つの袋にいれてゴミ収集のおじさんに出してるんだぜ』、みたいなことを言っています。どうでしょうオリーヴさん、天下の大英帝国の人々が、まさかそこまで「リサイクルのメンタリティがゼロ」だというのはまさか本当なのでしょうか？」

 Q2: 「もう一つは江守正多先生にもお伺いします。このままでは2012年までにCO2排出削減６％（日本の場合。１９９０年度比）は不可能と思われます。いや、他の国でも削減目標を達成できない国もでてくるのではないでしょうか？　仮にできなかった場合、それらの国々はインディ・ジョーンズのムチでパンパン罰を受けねばならないのでしょうか？」

　会場内は2.2秒ほど、静まり返った。
　すると最初の質問に対し、オリーヴ氏は英国は日本に比べリサイクルへの意識が大幅に遅れていることを認め、逆に日本人を褒め称えたので、愛国者のぼくとしてはご機嫌の域に入ってしまった（真後ろのレッドを口にするまえに、彼女の言葉で酔ってしまった）。ただ、インディ・ジョーンズのWHIPで罰せられる可能性については、笑顔で否定したチャーミングなO氏であった。

　それに呼応するように、正多氏がマイクを握る。
「彼はですね、Solarmanといいまして....」と突然、白い歯をみせて会場に語りかけたのだ！
そ、そーらマン？　なんだそいつは？
　みたいな理解しがたい空気が一瞬、その場を流れ、しかも言いだしっぺの正多氏もその後の言葉に詰まっている。（どう説明していいのかわからないのだろう。余談だが、今年の春にあった某環境イヴェントでぼくはS氏をストーキングし、名刺をいただきメールを送りつけ、SolarmanのPRにつとめてきた、という流れがある）

　まあそれはともかく、正多氏も、「2012年のぎりぎりの段階で削減量が足りなければ、他国から排出権を買うことになるでしょう。莫大な金額になると思いますが.......でも、どうでしょう。2050年で50％削減するという目標を立てているなかで、わずか６％を削減できないようじゃかっこわるすぎますよね」と一喝。確かに、言われてみればそうなのかもしれない、と安易に頷いてしまうボク。

　結論：「他国から排出権を買うことになった場合、その『莫大な金』は我々国民の税金である」ことを忘れてはいけない。ただでさえ地方と国を合わせて千兆円の借金を抱えている日本に、それを出す余裕は現実的にないのだから。

　諸君も暑苦しい普段着を脱いで、まずは自分の肉体の温暖化からストップをかけよう。
　Hawkinsの分厚いブーツを脱いで、下駄を履こう。
　クーラーを止めて、風鈴を買おう。

Sustainable Development?

My gosh, it's snowing today in Tokyo.
I got up this morning, and found saw that the butterflys were comin' down from heaven.......but I was wrong...
It was snow, that's right, snow maties.....

I look outside from my "secret office", and still the snow is falling from the sky. It reminds me of the north pole, and my great polar bear friends such as Fred and Duncan ( anonymus, i just name 'em).........those polarbears must be riding on snowboards and sleigh, searching for chunky seal meat to feed themselves..
Or aren't they?
Are they still sleeping under the brown smelly soil?
You may have seen the movie "Earth" already. I saw it too, with Professor Rodrigo recently. It's a No.1 hit in Japan at the moment, believe it or not. ( Such an environmental movie would never be No.1 in the past...and No. 2 is Will Smith's movie goddam it! my god! the time has changed....).

Well, in that movie, Fred and Duncan is struggling since the icebergs in north pole have melted away too early due to global warming.

I guess if the world keeps on snowing like it is today in Tokyo for 1 complete year all across the universe, do you think
the globe will "cool down"?

Funny thing in that "Earth" movie is, that after showing all these videoclips of birds and dolphins and elephants and polarbears and flowers and mountains and the nature.......so on, on the endroll it goez something like...

"It's not too late........we, the humans CAN do something to preserve this beautiful planet......"

but I must say that I doubt it.

Unfortunately, I think that we humans have to be extinct in order to sustain those beautiful nature and wildlife that was shown in that movie. I mean, we are emitting more than twice as much CO2's than our tree's and nature's capacity.  If humans wanna stay alive, then I guess all our cars ought to be dumped!

The oil prices are soaring to $100 a barell, so I guess OPEC leaders should make it $500, no?!  ...'cos then, nobody would burn fossil fuelz, and global warming would no longer be such a great international issue anymore.

Or,  if that don't seem possible, I guess the earth needs to snow 1 whole  year to "warm down"

Good snow to you, Fred and Duncan...

From Mr.Snowman

Hi everyone! how are you?
Hope you are well.
Last weekend, I was in Kyoto for shooting an "eco shortfilm".
The place we shot was called Daikakuji Temple , which was built in Heian period about 1200 years ago.
If you happen to visit Kyoto, you got to visit there.............since there is a beautiful large lake and the whole area in which this temple lies in is extremely big.
You will feel the flow of history, no doubt!     (Think about U.S 1200 years ago......there was only American native Indians, no?)

 Kyoto is known around the world as the "Mecca" of Global warming.
 In Dec.1997, Kyoto protocol was signed among countries arond the world, to reduce the emission of CO2. Each nation was given a "Target percentage" to reduce green gasses.
 However, countries such as U.S, Australia, China and India did not sign it, so the actual effect it has on the whole global environment is a little dubious.
 I mean, U.S and China are the "leaders" of CO2 emissions to begin with!
 And from the country that "don't really care" about Global Warming, a man received the Nobel peace prize for his actions against global warming.
 I congratulate him, although he's gotten a little fatter than when he was the vice president. (If you are fat, you emit more CO2s, so watch out mister!)

 Lastly, I would like to introduce you a "BUS" of Kyoto.
 It is not very well known that the buses in Kyoto runs on "garbage" .........just like in the movie "Back to the future"
Well, to be precise, I must say that it uses Bio-Diesel fuel which contains "USED Tempura OIL" （vegitable salad oil made of corn, beans etc....) from homes in the neighbourhood!!!
More than 90 buses and 220 garbage-trucks run on this super eco-energy............so if you happen to visit Kyoto, always take a bus, always!
 

WE don't need it.
We don't.
Take a look at this photo I took at Azaboo-Joooban's coffee shop recently.

環境破壊コフィーのふた

2 days ago, I saw the documentary movie "Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore with my dude Tomonster @ Roppongi hills virgin cinemas.

Tomato express car

 Well, the pic on the right was taken by my spy agent, Mr.James Pond (Mi/7) in Tokyo recently.
 "Tomato" letters should be red of course, but it has changed to green because of huge pollution from energy consumption by cars....Mr.Pond reports.
 Talking about cars, I think out of about 300 people that was in the movie theatre the other day, nearly half had come by CAR. But my friend Al says "Don't ride cars use public transport or bicycle or RUN"......so the joke has already began at this point.
 
 My dad bought TOYOTA Prius last october, and it is damn good for the environment since it runs with electricity now and then, espcially on highways. I actually drove it myself, and was amazed at its silent engine, smoothness and its speed. It runs about 35Km/ Litre  ( round trip on Yamanote line!)
 When I told this to Tomonster, he said "Oh, my dad's gonna get it too pretty soon"

 We the humans have made this planet a very dirty place, since most people in this world wants to live a "CONVENIENT LIFE", let alone Christian missionaries or sisters. I truly admire them, especially those who go and live in middle of nowhere in Africa to help the poor.
  The MONKS in Japan are fat like an elephant.
  They drink budweiser, they stroll around strip bars and shit and they ride on Mercedes 600 like the "Dear leader" somewhere on the north. (They don't even get TAXED by the government! It's unfair boys and girls!)
  Last March, when I visited Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam with my mom, I saw these fat monsters (about 20 of them) having a party badly drunk. They were all skinhead, so I thought they must be monks. I asked one of the girl staffs "who the damn are these sumo wrestlers?" and the cute vietnamese girl answered " They are from Miyagi prefecture, Japan, and they are here for business-intercultural purposes"

 My god!  Inter-cultural?  Eating meat and drinking bottles of vodka though you are a bloody MONK?
 Boys and girls, I ought to remind you that the MONKS in Vietnam don't eat meat, and cannot have a wife whetheras, the MONKS in Japan can have anything they want, even NINTENDO Wii.
 It is truly a pity.
 I'm pretty sure that Bhudda is crying somewhere above the clouds.
 And I'm also sure, that there was HUGE emissions of CO2 to bring these FATTY FATTYs over to Vietnam from MIyagi on a jumbo jet, which of course results in Global Warming.

 Should I call Al Gore about this? That Japanese monks are enjoying such a "CONVENIENT" life?

 Arigato.