Search - environment

 
 
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 28, 2011

Daylight saving: Is it finally time to convert?

The nation's sweltering summers are threatening to become even more oppressive with the chance of power outages because of the Fukushima nuclear crisis and the reactor shutdowns that followed throughout the country.
COMMENTARY
Mar 22, 2011

The rejuvenation of Tokyo

With April's gubernatorial election in Tokyo just around the corner, major candidates have announced their decisions to run. This political event comes amid the world's red-hot competition for intercity popularity.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2011

The environmental link to economic growth

WASHINGTON — The worldwide drive for higher incomes in the face of mounting environmental destruction has heightened the tension between growth and the environment.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 13, 2011

Traditional paddies are great ecosystems

Japan's rice-farming areas face two broad trends: field abandonment and farm modernization. Both impact the environment as well as the economy.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jan 25, 2011

So you want Japan to be a true Asian business hub?

Dear Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda: Last month your ministry published "Current Policies to Make Japan Asia's Center for Business."
BUSINESS / Japan Pulse
Nov 1, 2010

Superlative design blows into Tokyo

Stormy weather dented the schedule of Tokyo Designers Week but nothing could dampen the creativity on display.
JAPAN
Oct 28, 2010

Japan's biodiversity pledge: $2 billion

NAGOYA — As Japan pledged $2 billion Wednesday to preserve biodiversity in the developing world, negotiators at COP10 reported progress toward concluding an international agreement on access to genetic resources and establishing biodiversity preservation targets over the next decade.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 24, 2010

COP10: A meet to save life on Earth?

The next time someone asks you what biodiversity is, try this: "It's about your life, life on this planet, and about what we're doing to this planet with our eyes open."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 7, 2010

World's top chefs forage locally for inspiration

Earlier this September, chef Yoshihiro Narisawa of the Michelin-starred restaurant Les Creations de Narisawa, in the Aoyama district of Tokyo, joined 15 of the world's top chefs to make dinner in Levi, Lapland, 170 km above the Arctic Circle.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Aug 31, 2010

Discipline in schools is not a bad thing

Dear minister of education Tatsuo Kawabata,
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 5, 2010

Niseko's real estate boom: Bigger picture in sight for local development

For some it was a flash in the pan, at best an experiment destined to fail, at worst a mini-bubble hyper-inflated by greedy "outsiders" with little interest other than the type accumulating in the bank.
BUSINESS / GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS SYMPOSIUM
Apr 30, 2010

Reliance on technology may leave Japan behind

Japanese firms need to change their strategy in emerging markets and know more about the consumers in those countries that serve as the new engines of global growth, scholars and business experts told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Mar 9, 2010

Hatoyama's growth strategy for economy raises questions

Responding to the criticism that the Hatoyama Cabinet lacks a growth strategy, the government on Dec. 30 unveiled the basic policy of its new strategy for economic growth titled "For a Shining Japan."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2009

Busting boundaries with a pioneer of magical music

Hearing Ryuichi Sakamoto talk softly about his 30 years in music, which have elevated him to the status of an officially designated National Treasure, is to witness a perfect exercise in Japanese modesty.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2009

Climate change mitigation by low-income countries

MUMBAI, CITIZENS NEWS NETWORK — The economies and resultant emissions of low-income countries are growing at a rapid pace. China and India are already among the top five greenhouse-gas emitters. The rest of the world may strive to stabilize its emissions at 1990 levels, but if China and India continue...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

An exhibition's critical charge

"In Japan, the city consists of parts perfect in themselves, but lacking a sense of or connection to the whole," observes curator Shino Nomura while discussing the work of Swiss architectural firm Diener & Diener.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2008

Was wrong bureaucracy targeted?

Double-murder suspect Takeshi Koizumi may have held a grudge against Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry bureaucrats because the system had euthanized a pet of his 34 years ago, but actually the Environment Ministry is responsible for destroying unwanted animals.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Nov 2, 2008

Probing the real Japan with Kenneth Pyle

Kenneth Pyle says his first memories of Japan were of watching war films when he was a child — "all the dogfights with Zero fighters and all that."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 29, 2008

Nara's cute, destructive deer

Nara's Kasugayama Forest Reserve doesn't look like a landscape in crisis.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 24, 2008

Biomimicry: Natural by design

I magine being able to maintain a perfect temperature and humidity in your home year round, without spending a single yen in electricity or gas bills. That's exactly what Professor Emile Ishida of Tohoku University in northern Japan is striving to achieve — and he got the idea from termites.
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Aug 23, 2008

Long-distance becomes longtime romance

Felix Moesner met Makiko Aikawa in 1991 when he was doing a one-year robotics internship at Toshiba Corp. and a home-stay at her grandmother's house in Yokohama. Then a university student, she often visited after cooking classes at a restaurant nearby.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2008

Foreigners fear for haven

Lake Nojiri, a renowned summer resort in the town of Shinano, northern Nagano Prefecture, has long been a spiritual home to foreigners in Japan.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 8, 2008

How green are Japan's urbanites?

The Group of Eight summit began Monday at the Windsor Hotel Toya, an exquisite, maximum- security resort in Hokkaido. There, the world's top leaders are holed up in conference rooms, trying to strike last-minute deals on various global issues, the most disputed of all being climate change.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jul 2, 2008

Talks may heat up and go nowhere but global warming isn't waiting

Eleven of the 12 years between 1995 and 2006 ranked among the 12 warmest years since 1850, and since 1993 the global sea level has risen by an annual rate of 3.1 mm.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami