Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan: A History of Knowledge and Action toward Sustainability (Politics, Science, and the Environment)

✍ Scribed by Ken Wilkening

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 341
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan is a pioneering work in environmental and Asian history as well as an in-depth analysis of the influence of science on domestic and international environmental politics. Kenneth Wilkening's study also illuminates the global struggle to create sustainable societies.The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended Japan's era of isolation- created self-sufficiency and sustainability. The opening of the country to Western ideas and technology not only brought pollution problems associated with industrialization (including acid rain) but also scientific techniques for understanding and combating them. Wilkening identifies three pollution-related "sustainability crises" in modern Japanese history: copper mining in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which spurred Japan's first acid rain research and policy initiatives; horrendous post-World War II domestic industrial pollution, which resulted in a "hidden" acid rain problem; and the present-day global problem of transboundary pollution, in which Japan is a victim of imported acid rain. He traces the country's scientific and policy responses to these crises through six distinct periods related to acid rain problems and argues that Japan's leadership role in East Asian acid rain science and policy today can be explained in large part by the "historical scientific momentum" generated by efforts to confront the issue since 1868, reinforced by Japan's cultural affinity with rain (its "culture of rain"). Wilkening provides an overview of nature, culture, and the acid rain problem in Japan to complement the general set of concepts he develops to analyze the interface of science and politics in environmental policymaking. He concludes with a discussion of lessons from Japan's experience that can be applied to the creation of sustainable societies worldwide.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Series Foreword......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 12
Notes on Style......Page 14
Abbreviations and Acronyms......Page 16
1 Sustainable Rain?......Page 20
2 Sustainable Science, Politics, and Environment......Page 30
Packages of Science......Page 32
The Role of Science in Environmental Policy......Page 41
The Acid Deposition Problem......Page 52
Nature and Culture in Japan......Page 57
Science in Japan......Page 67
Japan’s Acid Deposition History......Page 73
First Environmental Era (1868–1945): Prewar Industrialization......Page 80
Copper Mines......Page 81
Early Precipitation Chemistry......Page 95
Analysis of Period 1......Page 97
Early Urban Air Pollution......Page 114
Precipitation Chemistry Comes of Age......Page 116
Analysis of Period 2......Page 131
Second Environmental Era (1945–1967): Postwar Reconstruction......Page 140
Third Environmental Era (1967–1973): Domestic Environmental Revolution......Page 145
Quiet Acid Deposition Research......Page 152
Analysis of Period 3......Page 160
Fourth Environmental Era (1973–1990): Transition......Page 168
Moist Air Pollution......Page 171
After Moist Air Pollution......Page 177
Analysis of Period 4......Page 182
Acid Rain Surveys......Page 192
Analysis of Period 5......Page 201
9 Period 6 (1990–present): East Asian Transboundary Air Pollution......Page 212
Fifth Environmental Era (1990–present): Global Environment......Page 213
Internationalization of Acid Deposition......Page 216
Regime Formation and Regional Sustainability......Page 241
10 Sustainable Rain: Knowledge and Action......Page 244
Appendix Japan’s Present-Day Acid Deposition Science......Page 256
Major Scienti•c Research Programs......Page 257
LRT Problem-Framework......Page 261
Notes......Page 284
References......Page 308
Index......Page 334