Must be that time of year again when I feel inspired to write in the blog.
My new year’s resolution is to be more environmentally friendly and report on the types of environmental activities that are going on in Tokyo. For those interested in environmental issues within Japan I hope I can provide bridge between organizations between the Japan and the US. I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbra Kingsolver. I think I could begin helping with my new fund environmental desire by helping them redesign their web site, a few tweaks here and there wouldn’t hurt.
Speaking with my Dad this evening we discussed the role that culture plays in shaping a nation’s conscious towards environmental issues. For the uninitiated, Japan has two primary religions Buddhism and Shintoism. In Shintoism, gods inherit all living and inanimate things on this earth. Ironically, I find very few Japanese around me who are deeply involved in religion, but I think that this underlying foundation could have had ripple affects towards Japan’s relatively progressive stance on environmental issues. I hope to investigate this further in the coming posts. Maybe there is no connection at all and maybe Japan isn’t as environmentally friendly as I’m making them out to be, so a more thorough investigation is needed.