Environment

In resource-poor Japan, which imports 90% of its fuel, Kuzumaki (population 8,000) is a marvel of energy self-sufficiency. Over the past decade the town has transformed itself into a living laboratory for the development of sustainable and diversified energy sources.

A video from Danny Choo. In Japan with the bicycle being so prolific one of the most disturbing sights are bicycles piled up especially around train stations. This could change the "bicycle landscape" of Japan! Would also make it more difficult for the bike thief's!

Lawson, Japan's second largest convenience store chain, is planing to introduce carbon offset products and a system that lets customers buy carbon offsets through accumulated loyalty program points.

Go forth and pollute no more...

now my favourite is the Sax Player on the bottom right - we have shared many a Summer Evening swapping riffs and yarns about The Bird and Rahsaan Roland Kirk - before I turn in on the Park Bench along side him...rem

Environmental groups such as WWF, Greenpeace and Oceana said the new quota will push the stocks beyond commercial recovery.

Twenty nations including Japan, Italy and Australia may be releasing more greenhouse-gas pollution than they agreed to under the Kyoto treaty to curb global warming.

Japan, which is home to Kyoto, which is home to the Kyoto Protocol, saw its greenhouse gas emissions rise to a record high in the year to March. This will put Japan at risk of an embarrassing failure to achieve its Kyoto target over the next four years.

The Japanese are so connected to Mother Nature and they appreciate this connection in a way that no other culture can come close to,(right-on brother!rem) that the effect one experiences in the best Japanese garden, often fools even the experienced mind...

Nerome says “It’s my dream to help the world’s people from right here in Okinawa. Okinawa’s northern forests are a mountain of treasures.”

right-on brother!!

rem

Rising sea levels caused by global warming could result in catastrophic flooding of key coastal cities around the world, including Osaka, Kobe, Shanghai, Mumbai and New York, a new U.N. report warns. The latest State of the World’s Cities report, compiled by the U.N.

Toyota Motor Corp plans to replace 20% (in mass) of plastics used for its automobiles with bioplastics by 2015.

Officially named Pandea rubra, the red paper lantern medusa (aka-chochin kurage) was first discovered in the Bering Sea in 1913, but details about its distribution and life cycle have long remained a mystery. In recent years, the creature has caught the eye of researchers at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) armed with high-definition video cameras.

The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry of Japan aims to introduce a system to provide 30 percent of the cooling energy at the New Chitose Airport terminal building in summer from snow collected in winter. The scheme is expected to reduce cooling costs by 30%.

its funny how you discover stories like this just around about lunchtime when you are fealing a bit peckish - I bet this crab is a tasty little critter...maybe it wont stay un-exstinct for long.

rem

The discovery of a luminous green substance in jellyfish that redefined the way researchers uncover biological processes earned the Nobel Prize in chemistry for one Japanese and two U.S. scientists.