Japan's Lessons on the Economy and the Environment: Our Pollution Experience

The Country That I Know As Japan

Japan, as many people perceive, is the most technologically advanced country in the world. For many Filipinos, especially the older ones, the Japanese are considered the models of discipline.

I have been one of the few fortunate Bosconians who was able to travel to Japan via the Salesio Polytechnic of Tokyo Exchange Student Program. I had a glimpse of how advanced and beautiful that country is currently. The environment is as clean as it gets and the technology well advanced than what I’m used to.

Of course, I can only compare to what I know. I lived in the Philippines my whole life and that trip to Japan was my first out-of-the-country experience. I do not want to compare and criticize my home country to that of a foreign one like Japan, but I have to say, there are certainly some better aspects of living there relative to what we have here.

Lesson Defined At Its Finest

Last Monday’s film viewing of a documentary entitled Japan's Lessons on the Economy and the Environment: Our Pollution Experience certainly opened my eyes on a few new things.

I used to think that Japan has always been the model that it is now since the start of time. However, I was gravely mistaken, dead wrong. After watching that documentary, it shocked me to know that it was only recently (a few decades ago), that Japan went through various challenges, fallen down, and tried desperately to get back up.

Focusing too much on improving their economy, they hurt their environment to its worst and by reaction affecting the health and lives of many of the Japanese natives. There was an outbreak of various serious diseases that seemed like the payback of Mother Earth for what was then the foolish ignorant Japanese.

Do not be mistaken that my regard for the Japanese went down, in fact it went up to an all-time high. They were able to remedy their problem in what I believe was a hopeless situation. Finding the right balance on economy and environment was key to their success and it is showing right now at this moment of time.

Hope for Us

Looking at our situation now, pollution is definitely getting worse. It may not be as worse as what Japan had experienced before but will we really wait for those things to happen? For the lives of many to be taken away by the revenge of our environment?

Surely, the time to act is right now. If we don’t then we have a perfect example of what our road will lead to and it is not a pretty sight. There is hope for us, if the Japanese did what they did, then I will be going out of my way and say that we can do it better. Rise up and become the number one environmental country, Philippines!

Caramoan Peninsula

The Secret Paradise - Caramoan Peninsula

Many tourists treat the many different islands of the Philippines as the best paradises of the world. Well, it is no new knowledge to us locals that our beloved country is as tropical as it gets, a characteristic that never misses out on everyone’s idea of the perfect paradise.

Filipinos can be really proud of their own habitat that many foreigners treat as paradise. Our place is well known for the white beaches of Boracay, Palawan, Puerto Galera and many more. But it often escapes the thoughts of many that we are composed of 1,700 plus islands, which also means thousands of beaches, caves and more that are yet to be known. One cluster of these not-so-famous paradises is the Caramoan Peninsula, a secret paradise as admitted by the very website of Caramoan.

Dreamlike and World-Class Beauty

Pictures say a thousand words, as the saying goes. No one can describe the beauty of these islands that will justify its value. It is the picture of our dreams, the perfect paradise that is seen only on Hollywood films. In fact, the Caramoan islands hosted many seasons for various countries of the reality show Survivor, a testament to show the appreciation of famous world-wide movie and television producers around the world.

Below are some images of the Caramoan Peninsula. Savor and admire these dream-come-true pictures of a worldly heaven. 

Author’s Notes

Though I’ve never been to the Caramoan Peninsula before (I didn’t even knew of the place before the blog assignment), I can say that those pictures above can compete with the famous white beaches of Puerto Galera where I’ve been to before.

Even if I’m not the adventurous type (I’d rather drink coffee in a place with a good view than do island and cave hopping), these new found information about the secret paradise certainly peaked some interest out of me. Hopefully, I would be able to experience these first-hand, and that’s coming from a guy who is too lazy to go out of the house.

References: < http://www.caramoan.ph/>

Transforming Cultures

There are 6.8 Billion people living in Earth right at this very moment. It is safe to say that most of which are living condensed in the fast-paced way of life of modern urban cities and communities. I admit that I am one of them.

Here, time is crucial. Productivity is key because money makes our lives go forward. We consume electricity for air-conditioning, television and many more other appliances. We eat instant and processed foods off the supermarket because they are cheap and easily accessible. We are consumers.

More Than OUR Earth Can Handle

In actuality, we are only one family out of millions worldwide living the same lifestyle. A lifestyle that does harm to the very planet that offered us shelter, a place to live.

We are extracting more natural resources that the Earth can handle. All to sustain a way of living that is frankly much too luxurious than what I think Earth originally planned for us.

Way back when in the past generation, where people live much simpler than today, we can see from studies that there are exponential increases in the extraction of our natural resources. We need to know that Earth cannot sustain this rate.

Our population is increasing, and with every increase, the demand for resources to sustain the life of that additional person also increases.

Rich people has more ecological footprint than the poor ones basically because they are more capable. But in order for Earth to sustain the 6.8 Billion of today, all of us must live like poor people, consuming only what we needed to survive and stop living gallantly.

Action Generation

This time it’s crucial. Signs are showing and we cannot just turn our eye blind to these changes.

Our generation will be the key if we want our kids and future generations to live in the Earth that we know today. We should be taking actions and we should be taking it now.

The Meatrix

The Meatrix, an animated film aiming to increase awareness to us consumers about the harm meat and other processed goods contribute, is a good step forward in our actions for change.

The clip tells us that we should spread the word and individually apply these new-thought lessons. It starts with us, stop going with factory products and go with fresh local goods. We may not be as big a footprint with our actions alone, but combined with the rest of the world, we will be powerful enough to make a change.

Culture

This is our culture, no one can blame us for our past actions. That is what we’ve grown and used to doing. But at some point we need to change and re-shape our culture for the betterment of our species.

Personally, I do not think reverting back to the simple ways of life is the main answer to our problems but to find ways around our “necessities of today” such that our ecological footprint would never be a problem.