2. 自然環境
2. 自然環境By the l980s, environmentalists had forced the inclusion of previously ignored costs: downstream dam impacts, restoration of mining operations, energy inefficiencies, or clean up of power plant wastes. Combined ecologic-economic accounting drastically altered the perspectives of national governments, multilateral banks, and loan agencies such as the World Bank. Responsibility for the impacts of harvesting, transporting, manufacturing, use, re-use, and disposal could no longer be ignored as "external" to business or account sheets.
By the l990s, the industrial ecology branch of the environmental movement (more-with-less, recycling, re-use) took shape. It has promoted reduced off-site manufacturing impacts and efficient use of resources. It invigorated "waste-not-want-not" philosophies; and pushed some natural resource companies and manufacturers to adopt "cradle-to-grave," then "cradle-to-cradle" models for their product cycles.
Simultaneously, in the United States, the "green scissors" branch of the environmental movement challenged perverse Congressional subsidies and price supports that encouraged wetland and forest damage, made nuclear power appear financially sound or tilted the market to favor agri-business fertilizer and pesticide pollution. Environmental groups formed unexpected coalitions (sometimes called "nightmare coalitions") with fiscal conservatives. They highlighted the biases of allegedly free markets. They made citizens aware that they had paid taxes to both energize private businesses and developers and then clean up the mess they left. A minority of businesses now understand that being green can also mean equal or increased profits. "Green certification" programs have blossomed in Europe and the U.S.
Environmental phenomena that could not be easily monetized—such as the continued existence of whales, a sacred lake, redwood forests, urban greenbelts, or the health consequences of organic vs. genetically modified foods—have increasingly gained public interest and political weight. Called "inherent existence values," the spiritual branch of the environmental movement has encouraged new discussions and visions of non-utilitarian values. Examples include the Deep Ecology movement (started in Norway by Arne Naess but strongest in the U.S.), new liturgical studies and sermons by the major world religions, and new non-violent and legal actions of groups such as Rabbis for the Redwoods and Evangelicals for the Endangered Species Act. All of these initiatives have given legitimacy to cultural landscapes (e.g., respect for rainforest peoples with respect for the rainforest itself). Inherent-existence-value has shaken the narrow purview of old cost/benefit analyses.
Today's environmental movement has matured. It expanded both its spatial and temporal thinking about human influences on us and on the planet. It started out saying: Think globally, act locally. Now it's: Think and act locally; think and act globally.
In Japan, vivid environmental movements during the mid-1960s and early-1970s have withered with the government policy initiative and the Japan’s outstanding environmental success in the 1970s and 1980s. The legal restriction of establishing domestically active environmental ‘NPOs’ in Japan was big obstacle. In contrast, increasing numbers of internationally-involved environmental ‘NGO’ and their activities are prominent characteristics of the Japanese environmental movements since 1990s.
A series of significant events such as oil spill, reclamation and over-dioxin issue raised the public attention to environmental problems during the mid-1990s, and the implementation of so-called NPO law opened higher possibility of active environmental movements. Literatures on Japanese environmental movements, in general, present two contrasting figures: weakened environmental NPOs and flourishing environmental NGOs. In fact, regardless of their argument, many scholars’ indications of the weak Japanese environmental movements do not provide enough evidence. There are plausible factors that might influence the perception on the Japanese environmental movement as weak. This study show the characteristics of environmental NPOs. Focusing on environmental NPOs since 1990s, this study will present current situation of Japanese environmental movements.
Important NGOs are Grennpeace, Worldwide Wildlife Fund (WWF), Sierra Club or Japan Ecological Society
