When you think of natural disasters do you think of earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons? How about guerrilla rainstorms, landslides and heatwaves? As we approach the fifth anniversary of a major disaster that hit Hiroshima, Okayama and Ehime prefectures, Joel Tansey joins us to discuss what we’ve learned and what we’re in for when it comes to supercharged rainy seasons in Japan.

Hosted by Shaun McKenna and produced by Dave Cortez.

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Transcript note: Deep Dive is made to be listened to, and we recommend this transcript be used as an accompaniment to the episode. This transcript has been generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcription, and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the episode.

Shaun McKenna  00:09  

Welcome to Deep Dive from The Japan Times, I'm Shaun McKenna. We are in the rainy season, or tsuyu, here in Tokyo and at the start of June Tropical Storm Mawar kind of skirted past Japan, but the combination of the storm and rainy season resulted in a lot of damage in Aichi, Shizuoka, Wakayama and Ibaraki prefectures. This week we'll speak with Joel Tansey, he's one of the editors of Our Planet, The Japan Times’ climate and environment page. He's on to talk about an article he wrote back before the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, at the end of May, that was meant to remind our audience about a more recent disaster to hit that area, guerrilla rains and flooding from coming up on five years ago that killed over 230 people mainly in Hiroshima, Okayama and Ehime prefectures. So what have we learned from these kinds of disasters? We'll talk to Joel about that in a moment.

Joel Tansey, welcome back to Deep Dive.

Joel Tansey  01:11  

Thanks, Shaun. Thanks for having me.

Shaun McKenna  01:13  

You're currently in Osaka, how's the weather out there?

Joel Tansey  01:16  

Well, it's kind of into that rainy season gloom, I suppose. Quite overcast, no rain today but kind of humid and tsuyu.

Shaun McKenna  01:26  

Yeah good day to stay in and record a podcast. 

Joel Tansey  01:28

Sure is. 

Shaun McKenna  01:29 

Before we get into the rain and the climate issues that you specialize in, last week we did a show on same-sex marriage and it seems there has been some more movement on that front. You're also a news desk editor at The Japan Times, can you fill us in on what happened last week?

Joel Tansey  01:44  

Sure. So first of all, there was yet another decision in a court case in Fukuoka, that really just adds the pressure building on the government to take action on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Shaun McKenna  01:56  

Yeah, we talked about this on last week's Deep Dive. There's been this series of ping-ponging court decisions that is keeping the issue in the news. There was a court in Sapporo that said the ban on same-sex marriage was “unconstitutional.” Then an Osaka court said it “wasn't unconstitutional,” followed by a Tokyo court that said the ban presents an “unconstitutional situation.” And then a Nagoya court deeming the ban “unconstitutional.”

Joel Tansey  02:22  

Right. So clear as mud, right? So you know, that's a lot of legal jargon and, well, here comes some more. Last Thursday, the Fukuoka Court ruled in line with the Tokyo decision, saying that such a ban is in “a state of unconstitutionality” and that denying same sex couples the benefits of legal marriage is at odds with parts of Article 24 of the Japanese Constitution.

Shaun McKenna  02:47  

We talked about Article 14 Last week, what does Article 24 say?

Joel Tansey  02:51  

So, Clause 1 of the article reads — and keep in mind, this is an English translation provided on the government's website. But you know, of course, the arguments and debates are happening in Japanese. Anyway, so the article says, “Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes, and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.” Clause tw2o reads, “With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce, and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.”

Shaun McKenna  03:34  

OK, and Article 14 states that all people are equal under the law, which would include anyone identifying as LGBTQ+.

Joel Tansey  03:43  

Right. So, you know, basically that gives us a situation here where there's a slight majority of rulings that appear to say that banning same-sex marriage is actually at odds with the Constitution.

Shaun McKenna  03:54  

Right, this story seems to be changing at a fairly quick pace. So, you the listener can check out last week's Deep Dive to hear directly from some of the people who are actually being affected by not having the right to marry. OK, Joel, switching from, I guess, bridal showers to actual showers. Two weeks ago, we experienced what some called a once-in-a-century rainfall that caused a considerable amount of damage in central Japan. Do you want to fill us in on what happened?

Joel Tansey  04:23  

Sure. So there was a tropical storm, named Mawar, and that was actually a very large super-typhoon that hit you know, the Philippines and Guam earlier in that week. A weakened Marwar was passing to the south of the country and that coincided with an active rain front that was covering most of Japan's main island already. The National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience said that based on past data, the amount of rain that fell in some areas met the requirements for being called “once in a century.” 

Shaun McKenna  04:56  

I feel like this term “once in a century” is a bit misleading as we've experienced a similar disaster in Atami in 2021. And it kind of gives the sense that something like this isn't going to happen again for another 100 years?

Joel Tansey  05:10  

Well, actually, you're right. It is a little bit misleading isn't. That phrase is kind of misunderstood, I feel. Instead of thinking of it as something that happens once every 100 years, think about it in terms of percentages, that there's a 1% chance of such rainfall happening in any given year. When a once-in-a-century storm hits in one year, then the following year, there's another 1% chance that such a storm is going to hit again. And that's actually based on past rainfall data, which also might be problematic as the planet warms. And what was 1% a few decades ago, may need to be updated to reflect the changing realities on the ground or, I suppose, in the skies.

Shaun McKenna  05:49  

Gotcha. Well, let's talk about the piece you wrote that came out ahead of the G7 summit titled, “In G7 host Hiroshima, a climate disaster in all but name.” While everyone was focused on the symbolism of these world leaders placing wreaths in remembrance of the atomic bombing, you wanted to remind them of this more recent disaster, one that was closely associated with climate change.

Joel Tansey  06:11  

Yes, so in 2018, starting around the end of June, Hiroshima and nearby Ehime and Okayama prefectures were hit with torrential rain that caused flooding, landslides and erosion. It ended up costing 230 people their lives, and financially it cost ¥1.16 trillion, which at the time was roughly $10 billion. To make things worse, the rain was immediately followed by a deadly heatwave across much of Japan.

Shaun McKenna  06:40  

You know, I remember some of the images that came out of the disaster, and it was people stranded on the roofs of their homes and kind of being rescued by the Self-Defense Forces in the streets.

Joel Tansey  06:49  

It was, it was an awful scene really. You know, going into Hiroshima, of course, you know, everyone agreed it was an appropriate backdrop to discuss the dangers of nuclear proliferation. But I also felt it was, you know, an appropriate time to discuss the climate crisis and the disasters that are already happening because of it.

Shaun McKenna  07:07  

Were there any decisions on how to mitigate climate change made among the G7 members?

Joel Tansey  07:12  

Well, there were promises to expand the use of renewable energy, which would help, of course, decrease greenhouse gas emissions. But most of this was discussed at a gathering of the G7 environment ministers in Sapporo ahead of the Hiroshima summit. There was an agreement to drastically expand offshore wind power, for example, and there's already some movement on that front. Eric Johnston reported on that in Hokkaido for The Japan Times. But the high costs involved have raised some concern about how quickly that can really come to fruition. Nuclear power was also discussed, Japan is looking to rely on that amid the current energy crunch. And that comes despite, you know, the awful history with the Fukushima No. 1 plant and the meltdown that happened there. The main outcome from support that I think is really worth noting is that Japan really led the resistance against a firm timeline for the total phase-out for coal. Instead, Japan is pushing what's called co-firing, and the plan is to co-fire it with ammonia. And, you know, what Japan hopes will help create a cleaner version of coal. But climate experts have generally lambasted this approach as not the right way to go about things in 2023, and that a full exit from coal as soon as possible is the desired approach.

Shaun McKenna  08:40  

Joe, can you tell us a little about Yoko Iwamoto?

Joel Tansey  08:43  

So Yoko Iwamoto is an associate professor at Hiroshima University, which is actually in Higashihiroshima, which neighbors the capital of Hiroshima. She's a marine chemist who studies the interaction between Earth's oceans and its atmosphere, and what that means for climate change.

Shaun McKenna  09:01  

You spoke to her for your piece. Was she in Hiroshima at the time of the disaster?

Joel Tansey  09:05  

Yes. So she was working at the university and, you know, she had strong recollections of the rain just getting stronger and stronger as the night wore on. Then suddenly, you know, an alarm went off on her smartphone, and she trekked through the parking lot to try and get home. And she described the parking lot as basically a pond at that point in the night. 

Shaun McKenna  09:26 

Hmm. Was her home OK?

Joel Tansey  09:28 

Yes, thankfully Her home was fine. But her brother's family was living in neighboring Kure, which is actually where Iwamoto grew up, and they were without water for two weeks. That was also you know, at the time when the major heatwave arrived across much of Japan, so you can imagine how that would be. But during that storm, you know, it kind of started on June 28 and ended around July 8, 24-hour rainfall records were broken at 77 weather stations out of 1,300. And 48-hour records were broken at 125 stations and 72-hour records were broken at another 123 stations.

Clip  10:06  

Nearly 2 million people have been ordered to evacuate. Many were placed in emergency shelters. The sound of the water was loud and scary, but the landslide smelled so bad that if I opened the window, I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Shaun McKenna  10:21  

That was Zlatica Hoke reporting for Voice of America nearly five years ago. Joel, that sounds like a lot of rain and one of the people Voice of America interviewed there mentioned the smell from the mudslides.

Joel Tansey  10:33  

Yeah, Iwamoto and her brother were both spared from the greater destruction of mudslides, or landslides, which is actually how a lot of the people in Hiroshima Prefecture lost their lives in this disaster. You know, Japan is a very mountainous country, a lot of people live on slopes or hilly terrain, these places are very susceptible to landslides. So altogether, according to the government, 1,234 landslides occurred in Hiroshima prefecture in 2018 alone, that's more than the average for the entire country up until the year prior. And landslides have continued to be a problematic part of these increasing torrential rainstorms.

Shaun McKenna  11:10  

So on that you also spoke to Shuji Moriguchi, for your piece. He's an associate professor at Tohoku University's International Research Institute of disaster science and an expert on slope disasters.

Joel Tansey  11:22  

Yeah, so professor Moriguchi explained to me that, you know, large areas of Japan, particularly in the West, are covered with a weak layer of granite soil, with hard bedrock lying underneath. I'll quote him here. He says that “granite soil is a very problematic soil and has very high risk of landslides.” And he said that this was in large part to blame for many of the landslides that we saw in 2018. 

Shaun McKenna  11:47  

Is there a way people in Japan can tell if they're living on one of these potentially dangerous hillsides?

Joel Tansey  11:52  

Right, so the Japan Meteorological Agency produces real time landslide hazard maps, but Moriguchi says that the data isn't really granular enough to warn residents ahead of time, and it's not detailed enough to know if the individual slope that you happen to be living nearby is at risk of failing. So he hopes to change that and eventually give people more precise alerts telling them when exactly it's time to evacuate. But he adds that, you know, whether they choose to actually evacuate is another matter. 

Shaun McKenna  12:24  

That sounds ominous. 

Joel Tansey  12:26 

Yeah, I think it's meant to. You know, one of the reasons there was such a high death toll from the 2018 floods was because residents of the affected areas simply, you know, failed to evacuate safely. You know, there are a lot of factors that go into a decision to evacuate your home. And in this case, experts believe that maybe the evacuation alerts came too late at night; weren't clear enough; or, if you are an older person, maybe evacuating in such treacherous conditions just simply wasn't a realistic option. You know, with that said, the JMA actually revamped its warning system after the disaster, with the most severe level now urging people to do whatever it takes to save one's own life.

Shaun McKenna  13:07  

Right, so I think we saw that kind of come into play in the recent rain storms that happened in the Shizuoka area, right?

Joel Tansey  13:15  

That's correct. A few areas. I know there's one city in Aichi Prefecture, and one in Wakayama that had this “highest level alert to protect your life” issued.

Shaun McKenna  13:25  

Right. So if you see that, really consider evacuating, right?

Joel Tansey  13:29  

It's like interesting, because at that point, when you get that warning level, the experts are almost saying that, you know, the time for evacuation has passed. And you're now at a point where you just make actions and decisions to protect your life and those around you. But Moriguchi also said, you know, despite the evidence of these disasters from the past, there are people who just don't really think of torrential rain as something that can lead to a life-threatening situation. He said that a major challenge facing disaster experts moving forward, even in 2023, will be to get people to recognize when an evacuation needs to take place. And you know, with these new types of disasters that are being brought about by climate change, it's really going to take some time for people to realize that something like torrential rain or, perhaps, some sweltering heat, could be a life-threatening situation.

Shaun McKenna  14:29  

The Japan Meteorological Agency published data for 2022 recently that connected the changes in heavy rainfall we've been getting to those of extremely hot days. So the average frequency of heavy rainfall over the past decade is almost twice that for the period around 1980, according to the website Nippon.com. Joel, did you come across any data like that in your research?

Joel Tansey  14:51  

So I actually spoke to a scientist with the agency's research arm and, you know, he looked into the link between climate change and the Hiroshima 2018 floods. And, you know, he noted that the rains were 6% to 7% more severe because of warming. And he also noted that the rains of that severity were three times more likely to occur. You know, that's because warmer air can hold more water vapor leading to more precipitation. And this raises kind of the key question, you know, how how severe this problem might get as the planet continues to heat up.

Shaun McKenna  15:26  

Joel, you mentioned that this kind of linkage between catastrophic weather events and climate change also isn't usually made by the Japanese public?

Joel Tansey  15:35  

Right. You'd think that given these experiences, people in Japan would be a bit more worried about this, but a lot of surveys show kind of only a mild level of concern when it comes to climate change. A Pew Research poll showed that only 26% of Japanese respondents were “very” concerned about how climate change would affect them personally. And that was actually down eight percentage points from a previous survey in 2015. On the other hand, you know, among some of Japan's G7 peers, you know, the very concerned share of people actually shot up to 37%, in both Germany and the U.K.

Shaun McKenna  16:12  

So last year, we spoke with Hanae Takahashi for an episode on Japan's climate apathy. She said very similar things to what you talk about in your piece, and I suggest revisiting that episode to hear more. But in general, though, she said the media were partly or a-lotly, like, to blame.

Joel Tansey  16:30  

Well, I also spoke to Yasuko Kamayama, who's a professor and senior researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Studies, and, you know, she largely agrees with that. She pointed to a bunch of studies, and one was actually from Yale University, that showed only 21% of people in Japan, reported hearing about climate change once a week, compared to percentages like 48% in Canada and 41% in the U.S., and around 50% in countries like France and Australia and the U.K., and actually over 60% in Germany and Sweden. So the professor said that, you know, people in Japan, they learn about climate change, they understand that it's a bad thing. But the media here generally doesn't link it with the disasters that you're actually seeing in real life.

Shaun McKenna  17:16  

So if we fix the media, then we save the world?

Joel Tansey  17:20  

Well, it's not quite that simple. You know, and another thing that Kamayama pointed out was that political leaders also need to do more to educate the public on climate change in this country. I think of U.S. President Joe Biden visiting California in January after deadly storms had lashed parts of that typically dry state, and here's how he opened his remarks.

Clip 17:43  

If anybody doubts, the climate is changing, the  they must have been asleep for the last couple of years.

Joel Tansey  17:51  

So if you compare that to when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the aftermath of the 2018 floods, and you know, he actually didn't mention climate change at all in his official statement on the disaster. Though, to be fair, he did make that link later that year, but it was also in an English-language op-ed for the Financial Times. You know, Shaun and I we’re both from Southern Ontario, and, you know, a more recent example is those fires that have been raging in Eastern Canada, right, and all the smoke that that's, you know, brought to cities like New York and Toronto. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he's been very adamant to make the link between these fires and climate change. You know, Shaun, you know, we grew up in the same place. Do you ever remember this kind of wildfire smoke, you know, descending upon our childhood homes? 

Shaun McKenna  18:36

Never. 

Joel Tansey  18:39  

Yeah, for me, it was always, you know, a problem that you heard about happening in Western Canada, where it’s much drier, typically in the summer months.

Shaun McKenna  18:47  

Yeah. Is Prime Minister Fumio Kishida doing any better at making the link between natural disasters and climate change?

Joel Tansey  18:55  

So I looked into this, and I guess it's fair to say, maybe he's doing slightly better? You know, Kishida’s mentioning climate when it comes to disasters, but he's doing this largely in, you know, official meetings where the attention of the public maybe isn't quite as intense. You know, he also really, there hasn't been kind of a major disaster in his short tenure, where he might have had that opportunity to have a Biden in California moment. I mean, if he unfortunately finds himself in that position in the future, I hope he is able to make that stronger link because I think it would probably have a really large impact on the public.

Shaun McKenna  19:31  

OK, so in the meantime, what can those of us living here in Japan do to help protect ourselves against climate-related disasters?

Joel Tansey  19:38  

So I think it's quite similar to what you would do with other disasters. You know, it's important to know your evacuation routes, it's important to have any necessary disaster notification apps on your phone, and, you know, of course, in Japan, you know, most people are used to having a go-bag for earthquake-related disasters. And, you know, that can of course be a huge help in the event of landslides and floods.

Shaun McKenna  20:01  

Yeah, we'll actually put a link to an article in The Japan Times that kind of gives advice for evacuating in the case of a typhoon. I think it's best to start applying those tips to events like guerrilla rainstorms and extreme heat days, too. Joel Tansey, thanks for coming on Deep Dive.

Joel Tansey  20:17  

Thanks for having me.

Shaun McKenna  20:24

My thanks to Joel for coming on this week's show. We'll put a link to his story about Hiroshima in the show notes and we'll also include links to an article contributing writer Eric Margolis wrote for us about the language of climate change in Japanese and how you can speak to your friends about these issues, as well as a story by Tomoko Otake that just came out this week on how Japan is bracing for a more intense typhoon season this year. 

Elsewhere in the news following up on the conversation Joel and I had at the top of the show, Japan's Lower House of parliament passed a contentious LGBTQ+ understanding bill on Tuesday, mostly supported by the ruling coalition — that's the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito. Opposition parties including the main Constitutional Democratic Party voted against the bill, citing the wording as a problem. The bill prohibits “unfair discrimination” based on sexuality and gender identity. Critics have questioned what “fair discrimination” would mean. 

LGBTQ+ groups have also criticized a section that says educational institutions should work to spread awareness about LGBTQ+ issues, but only with the consent of parents and guardians. The bill is expected to pass the Upper House as early as Friday and become law by the end of the month. 

If you're looking for longer reads, we recently published a piece by culture critic Thu-Huong Ha about the Gwnagju Biennale. That piece itself takes a different approach to what you would consider an art review. It caused a lot of discussion between Deep Dive producer Dave Cortez and I. Another longform to look out for comes from Alex K.T. Martin, who wrote an epic on the discovery of a cache of photos in a Japanese bookstore that led to several mysteries. The piece has a very noir feel about it. It's called “Stakeout Diaries” and you can find both those stories on japantimes.co.jp. 

The producer of Deep Dive, as I said, is Dave Cortez. The closing theme is by Oscar Boyd and the theme music was written by the Japanese musician LLLL. I'm Shaun McKenna. Thanks for listening and podtsukaresama.