"They work all day but still can't pay the price of gasoline and meat / Alas! Their lives are incomplete — Warren Zevon.
As demonstrated by the timid agreement that emerged from last week's G8 summit, it seems impossible to solve the problem of climate change on a global level. Any progress that's been made so far has been local. Take Kyoto, which has pledged to transform itself into "a model city centered on the environment." One of Kyoto's bolder initiatives has been to ask convenience stores to stop operations in the middle of the night in order to cut CO2 emissions. Several other local governments have followed suit.
Last month, the Japan Franchise Association, speaking on behalf of 12 companies comprising 42,000 convenience stores — 40,000 of which operate 24 hours a day — rejected their requests for voluntary cuts in hours, saying it wouldn't make much difference. Refrigerators would still have to operate while the stores were closed and deliveries that are now made during the wee hours would have to be changed to daytime, when traffic is heavier.