
Environment
Unearthing Japan’s home-grown solutions to urban greening
by Francesco Bassetti
Urban greening not only boosts biodiversity and lowers air temperatures, it also provides a much-needed link to the natural world.
Unearthing Japan’s home-grown solutions to urban greening
Urban greening not only boosts biodiversity and lowers air temperatures, it also provides a much-needed link to the natural world.
Can Japan embrace an alternative approach to plastic?
Japanese companies are rethinking how we make, use and dispose of products by creating substitutes to fossil fuel-based plastics.
The true cost of the climate crisis on Japan
The prime minister has called for Japan to be carbon neutral by 2050, but bolder measures look necessary to reduce the economic damage caused by global warming.
C.W. Nicol, a committed environmentalist with deep humanity
Author and environmentalist C.W. Nicol died on Friday after being diagnosed with cancer in 2016. As a long-standing contributor to The Japan Times, we asked his equally long-standing editor, Andrew Kershaw, to write a few words in memory of the award-winning conservationist
We live in neither East nor West
With COVID-19 pulling the world apart, it's the people, from healthworkers to thoughtful neighbors that can bring it back together.
Japan 2030: Tackling climate issues is key to the next decade
The new decade kicked off with images of Australia in flames. As the country's bushland has burned over the past few months, more than an estimated 10 million hectares have already been reduced to ash. At least 28 people and more than a billion animals ...
Balance of power: Redefining Japan's energy needs
Sitting silently among the rolling pastures, rice paddies and lush forests of the idyllic village of Otama are rows upon rows of photovoltaic solar panels — vast swaths of dark gray injecting dissonance into the postcard-like landscape local residents pride themselves on. These solar farms ...
Throwaway society: Rejecting a life consumed by plastic
How much single-use plastic do you think you consume in an average week living in Japan? What if you were to collect all the plastic bottles, shopping bags, food cartons, hand wipe wrappers, straws, cutlery, packaging, packaging-within-packaging and packaging-within-packaging-within-packaging that you accumulate in a week, ...
Emergency on 'lucky island': Iki Island seeks to lead Japan's fight against the climate crisis
It's golden hour on Iki, a pristine island in southwestern Japan. A gentle breeze cools the day to a perfect 24 degrees Celsius. The roads are clean, the trees are green, a playground sits atop a grassy hill. Locals call Iki a "lucky island" ...
More than 1,000 traumatized Australian bush fire evacuees transfered to safety of Melbourne
Over 1,000 residents and vacationers who had been stranded on a beach by bushfires in southeastern Australia landed near Melbourne on Saturday after a 20-hour journey on two ships, relieved to escape terrifying smoke and fire. Teenagers, couples, seniors and families, plus dozens of pets ...
The fallen apples of Typhoon Hagibis
When the Typhoon Hagibis floods hit Nagano, it near-destroyed the apple farms for which the area is famous, with contaminants in the floodwaters making it impossible to salvage any of the surviving fruit.
At least 50 people have died in Bangladesh as cold weather continues to sweep across the country, officials said. The country's lowest temperature this year — 4.5 degrees Celsius (40.1° Fahrenheit) — was recorded early Sunday in Tetulia, a border town in the north of ...