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November 23, 2024
 

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Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 3, 2023

Norway's quest for 'black gold' from used car batteries

An essential part of many clean energy technologies, 'critical minerals' may energize the transition to a decarbonized economy.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 26, 2023

The world is losing the 'war on plastic.' What can be done to curb waste?

The U.N. this month took a major step toward what could become the world’s first treaty to curb plastic pollution. But a recent report highlights the immense challenge that lies ahead.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 24, 2023

Department stores focus on sustainability for Valentine's Day gifts in Japan

Department stores in Japan are trying to ride a shopping wave for Valentine's Day confectionary gifts with products featuring sustainability.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2023

How eco-friendly is that product? Here are four ways to spot greenwashing

Research in the EU found that more than half of the 'green' claims it studied were vague, misleading or unfounded — and that consumers don't trust businesses to tell the truth.
A camp of informal gold miners in Los Amigos, in the Madre de Dios region, Peru. The Peruvian government estimates that illegal miners dump about 180 metric tons of mercury in Madre de Dios annually.
WORLD
Aug 7, 2023

Gold mining in the Amazon poisoning scores of threatened species

Miners in southeast Peru use mercury to find gold — inadvertently contaminating hundreds of species native to the area.
The "furoshiki" style of wrapping gifts takes advantage of a fabric that can be used more than once.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 10, 2023

Eco-friendly eating with a healthy helping of Japanese

Sustainability-related vocabulary isn't the only way to get your thoughts across on sustainable food practices in Japanese.
Surging populations of plant-eating insects are disrupting farms and the food supply chain, causing problems far more serious than sticky windshields from bug excrement.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2023

The insect apocalypse is coming to your neighborhood

Polar bears and sea turtles get most of the attention as victims of climate change, but when the bugs invade we're all going to feel it personally.
A handful of trees stand at the Tabqa Reserve near the village of Jaabar, in the Kurdish-held part of Syria's Raqqa province.
WORLD / Society
Aug 21, 2023

Illegal logging turns Syria's forests into 'barren land'

Fuel shortages and rampant poverty have pushed many Syrians to chop the trees to sell or use for heating, dealing a blow to the nature surrounding Jaabar.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a ministerial meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 22, 2023

Japan to begin releasing treated Fukushima water Thursday

Despite fishing cooperatives' lingering worries of reputational damage, the government will go ahead with its plan.
A Saudi Aramco oil tank at the Ras Tanura refinery and terminal in Saudi Arabia
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 27, 2023

U.N. experts challenge Saudi Aramco over climate change

The largely state-owned enterprise plans to ramp up national oil production capacity to 13 million barrels per day by 2027.
The Environment Ministry plans to launch a survey in fiscal 2024 on how manufacturers recycle plastics and metals contained in industrial waste.
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2023

Japan to conduct survey on closed-loop recycling

Closed-loop recycling is spreading in recent years on the back of improvements in technology to remove impurities from recyclable waste.
Packs of raw fish at a Japanese food store in Beijing prior to China's ban on Japan's seafood products
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 6, 2023

China takes its anti-science disinformation campaign to a new level

Japan can counter China's disinformation on the safety of the Fukushima water release, and gain people's trust, by sharing the data.
Plaintiffs and supporters opposed to the expansion of a coal-fired power plant in Kobe protest after the Kobe District Court dismissed their civil case in March.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Sep 17, 2023

Climate litigation remains a tough sell in Japan despite wins overseas

So far, Japan has seen just four climate lawsuits, all concerning the construction and operation of coal-fired power plants.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has described the climate crisis as a fossil fuel crisis.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 18, 2023

California files lawsuit against energy firms over climate crisis

The move follows the world’s hottest summer on record, in which the state grappled with wildfires, blistering heat, drought, severe storms and flooding.
Tuvalu's Finance Minister Seve Paeniu shows a picture of his grandchildren on his phone while attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November 2021.
ENVIRONMENT / Oceans
Sep 22, 2023

Tuvalu partners with Australia as rising seas threaten survival

The project will test a new U.N. blueprint under which one rich nation takes responsibility for raising funds to support a climate-vulnerable country.
Central to China’s global media campaign is the aggressive use of new technologies to target and spread messages, silence critics and create a digital infrastructure that is more easily controlled.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2023

Pushing back against China’s media offensive

China is using propaganda, disinformation, censorship and covert tactics to promote its preferred narrative and suppress critical reporting.
The Environment Ministry previously planned to carry out the probe on the so-called forever chemicals, which have been detected in well water in many parts of Japan, in fiscal 2024.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Oct 10, 2023

Probe into PFAS contamination to take place earlier than planned

The Environment Ministry previously planned to carry out the investigation on the so-called forever chemicals in fiscal 2024.
In almost 30 years of fighting wildfire, Art Gonzales has seen blazes grow progressively bigger and stranger.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 20, 2023

‘It’s all-consuming.’ Wildfire whispering is now a year-round job

What was once limited to certain months now encompasses an entire ‘fire year'
EF Polymer CEO Narayan Lal Gurjar (right) and COO Kunihiro Shimoji at the company in Onna, Okinawa Prefecture, in August
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Oct 30, 2023

Organic polymer brings water to drought-hit farmlands

The India-born, Okinawa-nurtured product seeks to replace petroleum-derived polymers to promote sustainability.
If you spot a wild animal in the city, it's likely lost. Still, alert authorities immediately to prevent any unpleasantness.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / Longform
Nov 13, 2023

The concrete forest: Bears, boars and more head to the cities

Warmer winters, less food and an aging society all play a part in why wild animals are increasingly venturing into human-populated areas.
An exhibition on marine life at COP28 in Dubai. The conversation around oceans and climate change was not the main focus of the conference, despite the key role oceans play in absorbing carbon.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2023

COP28, didn't the oceans deserve more attention?

Oceans are key to mitigating climate change and severely impacted by it. Yet they didn't take center stage at COP28 — though some progress was made.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2018
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Dec 17, 2023

A made-in-Japan solution for space junk that goes against the grain

As space junk clogs Earth's orbit, a Kyoto University team has a new solution: wooden satellites.
A colorful coral reef made out of wool to raise awareness about climate change, at a museum in Baden-Baden, Germany, in January 2022
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Dec 31, 2023

The art world's big planetary problem

Over the last five years, it’s become increasingly clear to major art institutions in Japan and around the world that the sector has a sustainability issue.
An offshore wind turbine off the coast of Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, in 2013. Japan aims to increase its offshore wind power capacity to 10 GW by 2030.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET
Jan 21, 2024

As Japan makes major investments in wind power, some residents are pushing back

In a sense, the city of Ishikari represents the idealized, natural version of Hokkaido for many Japanese. Some residents say massive wind turbines will destroy that image.
Collapsed homes in the town of Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 12. Ever since breaking off from the Eurasian continent 20 million years ago and opening the Sea of Japan, the archipelago has always been at the mercy of nature’s seismic whims, its landscape and ecology undergoing perpetual transfiguration.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / OUR PLANET
Feb 4, 2024

For Japan, earthquakes are an existential matter

The New Year's Day quake was a stark reminder of how Japan has been shaped by rumbling, grinding and often deadly convulsions and volcanic activity.
Tourists in Tokyo's Asakusa district ditch their jackets amid unseasonably warm temperatures in the capital and across Japan on Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Feb 18, 2024

Preparing for the hottest year Japan has ever seen

In 2023, summer heat persisted across Japan well into the fall. Predictions by scientists indicate 2024 could be even worse.
A housing development next to the Sasol’s petrochemicals plant in Sasolburg, South Africa.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 2, 2024

What it's like to live in the most polluted place on Earth

Coal and steel plants offer steady work for residents in South Africa's Vaal Triangle, yet they’re also pumping out harmful emissions.
High tides in Funafuti, Tuvalu, in February. About 40% of the main atoll and capital district Funafuti is already underwater at high tide, and the tiny nation is forecast to be submerged by the end of the century.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 4, 2024

Tuvalu preserves history online as rising seas threaten existence

"We cannot outrun the rising tides, but we will do what we can to protect our statehood, our spirit, our values," minister Simon Kofe said.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, speaking at an Upper House budget committee session on Tuesday, said that if Japan is unable to sell the new fighter to other countries, the joint project’s success could be undermined.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 6, 2024

Fighter exports crucial for ‘favorable security environment’: Kishida

The prime minister is seeking the backing of Komeito to revise export rules for fighter jets that Tokyo is seeking to build with Britain and Italy.
A worker checks the carbon fiber at the composite production line at the Swancor factory in Nantou, Taiwan, in February.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 9, 2024

Recycling wind turbine blades can solve the industry’s biggest problem

Swancor is one of several firms globally trying to develop products that mimic the physical properties of current blade material but can be recycled.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono
The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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