Thanks to Peter for this discussion and summary.

Just to add a couple of points.

1. It's important to distinguish between the discourse on environmental issues, which has little direct impact, and direct action.

Clearly no one is saying that protest is the best way to reduce GHG emissions, which would be a laughable claim if it were not so tiresomely levelled at concerned citizens repeatedly by soft denialists as an attempt to divert. Of course, investment in renewables technology as a replacement for fossil fuel energy, expansion of wilderness areas, reductions in consumption and so on are, improvements in recylcing and pollution and waste prevention are what are needed to restore at least some of the Earth's life support systems. These are the most effective ways of achieving environmental restoration, it is obvious and needless to say.

However, it is also undeniable that protest is effective in garnering those with power and money to take the above action. Greta Thunberg's bravery and persistence has catalysed an enormous groundswell of concern into public protest and action by, mostly, younger people so that politicians feel able to act (or compelled) and businesses find themselves in ever more uncomfortabhle situations if their behaviour is destructive. Her action has also helped ordinary people to increase their own environmentally concerned behaviours in the way of reducing consumption, recycling waste, upcycling materials, etc etc. There are many other 'Gretas' out there who do not receive her recognition, particularly in developing countries. However, Greta's actions are nonetheless extremely important because the countries where she is having most impact are precisely those (except Japan) which are the most egregious contributors to environmental breakdown and ecological collapse.

So, although the discourse has little to no direct impact on environmental restoration, it certainly has enormous secondary impacts, and these are undeniable, despite complaints about the inconvenience caused by protest. Indeed, protests are supposed to be inconvenient to others, that's why they are effective.

2. On the role of HE.
Higher education is one of the most effective arenas for discourse and action in environmental restoration, which is perhaps why these issues are so 'hot' in universities.

In terms of action, it is in universities that much of the necessary environmental monitoring takes place so that we know exactly what we are dealing with and its extent. It is in universities where technology for improving sustainability is developed and enhanced for rolling out to effective investment. Moreover, universities are where the discourse on environmental matters is often hammered out in debate, discussion and, dare I say it, EDUCATION about the issues involved, which are extremely complex and decidedly difficult to piece together.

Indeed, it is in universities where the pieces of the enormous puzzle are put together in research articles and outputs, lectures, symposia, workshops, classrooms, dinner halls, pubs, and bedrooms, between those who monitor and observe the environment and report on its state (climatologists, bio-chemists etc), those who develop technologies for action (engineers of different kinds), and those who enable action to take place by weaving a path through the competing interests among stakeholders by developing the discourse and policy (social scientists and humanities scholars). All of these people are important and therefore all parts of the university have a role to play in changing our world so that present and future generations may be less threatened by environmental breakdown. It is only in universities where these different contributors can come together as one body to help resolve the issues, and it is therefore why universities are central to finding pathways towards resolutions.

Consequently, this is why NOT to do ALL of the above in universities is such a problem. This includes changing the way we educate, discuss, think, research etc. Debate, discussion, and yes, PROTEST, are vital and integral to university life. To eliminate these things from our institutions would be to reduce the effectiveness of action to restore environmental systems.

3. So, just one thing that is happening in Sheffield soon. In November there is a symposium being held on Academic Flying - yes, how to reduce the contributions of academia to GHG emissions and other atmospheric pollutants from flying. Academics do tend to fly a lot, and I am guilty of this. I'd like to know more about how I can fly less. Asian studies is perhaps worse than many subject disciplines in this respect so we have more to do than others, I suspect. We are also in my department looking at how we can reduce flying in other ways, or make our operations more productive and valuable when flying is necessary.

I don't want to play the 'we're better than you' card, as inevitably the above mention of anything we do in Sheffield attracts from people wishing to divert the conversation, but to inform and encourage those who might want to do similar. Do these things happen in Japanese universities? I have worked, studied, researched and hung out in Japanese universities throughout the country and over many years. In my experience the things, particulary the discourse part, happen less, and that is why I say perhaps they have further to travel. The fact that debate on environmental matters is regarded as a 'political' matter in Japan and therefore discussion and protest discouraged and prevented which is evidence of a systemic problem within the country as a whole - are to my mind antithetical to what universities are as institutions (see above) and misunderstand (deliberately?) the nature of the problem that we and succeeding generations face.

best,

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: SSJ-Forum Moderator <ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
To: ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Date: 2019/10/15, Tue 08:47
Subject: [SSJ: 10886] Re: Climate strikes and Green politics in Japan

From: Peter Cave <Peter.Cave@manchester.ac.uk>

Date: 2019/10/13

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. I'm going to
try to summarise my own thoughts in posts on different aspects of it,
starting with media.

A number of contributors have suggested that Japanese media coverage of
climate crisis/change topics is tame, and/or have hypothesised reasons
(e.g. Florentine Koppenborg suggested that 'well-staffed environmental
desks at big newspapers are rare and there are no powerful environmental
and climate NGOs that could put the topic on the agenda', while Yosuke
Buchmeier pointed to the kisha club system and other pressures on media,
and Nick Kapur suggested that media narratives might be affected by
oligopolies in corporate advertising and government 'quasi-control of
NHK' and what he described as a 'very impoverished, monotonic media
landscape'). On the other hand, Saki Mizoroki was more sceptical about
the role of the kisha club system. Meanwhile, Andrew DeWit suggested
that even a cursory search indicated that there has in fact been media
coverage of climate strikes in Japan.

Hypotheses are interesting and worthwhile. However, I find it quite
striking that nobody has been able to point to rigorous studies of how
climate crisis/change issues (or other aspects of green issues) have
been covered by the Japanese media. It seems to me that such studies
could be very interesting and fruitful - and even more so if they were
comparative. They would make good subjects for BA or MA theses by
linguistically able students.

A quick search of the Asahi Kikuzo database shows 30 uses of the term
気候危機 (climate crisis), and a search in Japanese with Factiva shows 145,
in both cases heavily concentrated in 2019 and especially the last few
months. On the other hand, a search using the term 地球温暖化 (global
warming) comes up with 21022 items on Kikuzo, and 199,636 on Factiva.
Obviously other terms could also be used, and it would be important to
analyse the content of the articles, the style, and so on. It is also
quite easy to do searches on documentary programmes on the NHK website.

While the Japanese media, like media in other liberal democracies, has
shortcomings, I think there should be considerable caution about
assuming that it is substantially worse in its coverage of environmental
and climate crisis issues than media elsewhere. In the UK, for example,
there are some media outlets (such as The Guardian) which give extensive
coverage to such issues. But The Guardian has a circulation of less than
half a million, even though the online readership may well be higher. I
strongly suspect that most of the UK press gives much less, and much
poorer quality coverage of climate issues. Nor do I have the impression
that climate issues are covered with that much intensity by the BBC (I
don't think I can actually remember a TV programme dedicated to the
issue, though obviously there are slots from time to time on news and
current affairs programmes), and, indeed, environmental activists have
repeatedly criticised the BBC for giving too much time to climate change
deniers and for inadequate coverage.

However, it seems to me that there is perhaps one hypothesis that might
be worth exploring. That is, while the coverage of climate crisis issues
might not necessarily be more extensive or of better quality overall in
(for example) the UK, it could be that the pockets of much more
intensive coverage in media outlets such as The Guardian help to inform
and motivate a relatively small number of more committed activists who
engage in street protest. If Japan lacks these pockets of intensive
coverage, then that could help to explain a situation where you have
broad acceptance of climate change and the need for action to combat it,
but not a significant minority of highly committed activists.

At any rate, there seems a lot of scope for empirical research to fill
the lack of knowledge we have. A quick and no doubt inadequate search on
CiNii suggests there is little research on this subject in Japanese too
(though there is an interesting survey comparison of consciousness of
German and Japanese students published in 1999, with the title
日独若者の環境問題に関する意識調査 - it shows some differences between the two
groups, but at a cursory glance seems to show quite high environmental
consciousness among the Japanese students).

Next, maybe, education.

Peter

Peter Cave
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SALC, University of Manchester
Samuel Alexander Building
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3195
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/


Dr Peter Matanle
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies,
National Institute of Japanese Studies and School of East Asian Studies
University of Sheffield, UK, Tel: +44 (0)114 222 8407
General Editor, electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies
Website: www.japanesestudies.org.uk
e-mail: editor@japanesestudies.org.uk