KAZE, September 2020
COVID-19 and My New Book
Saburo KATO
A new book of mine entitled “Hopes beyond the Crises” will be publishedvery soon. The book has originally intended a memoir or commentaries based on
more than 50 years of my experience of environmental policies both as agovernment official and an NGO organizer. I wanted to write that the rapid andextensive environmental degradation will ruin human society in due course, andthat, to escape from the demolition, we need to quickly establish an environmentallysound civilization. To be specific, I aimed to illustrate such civilization from political,economic, technological, and educational points of view.
1. How people responded to the COVID-19 crisis
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in February. All meetings andevents were canceled, and, like many of you, I stayed home most of the day. This
stay-home period provided me with enough time to deeply think about the booktheme. Encouraged by my colleague, Ms. Fujimura, and the book editor, Mr.
Inamoto, I started to reorganize the book chapters taking into consideration of thepandemic impacts. It was a kind of surprise that people accepted the government
requests of curbing economic activities and staying home once they recognize therisk of the pandemic as a crisis.
2. Pandemic crisis and the environmental crisis
We have long been appealing the serious environmental crisis. We havebeen telling people that a drastic change in our lifestyle and our economic activities
is necessary. However, our voice did not reach policymakers, nor even the generalpublic. We have been frustrated at not being able to persuade people of the hugerisk that our planet is facing.
Now, I learned the difference between the corona pandemic crisis and theenvironmental crisis. People can immediately see the serious effects of thepandemic. They recognize that it is a real crisis closely related to their daily life, so
the scared people willingly follow the government instructions.
On the other hand, the environmental crisis is less than convincing because it isabout “possibilities” of environmental degradation “toward the end of this century”,
not about “today” or “tomorrow”. People cannot sense the urgent need for change.
In other words, people CAN change the ways of their life once they fully understandthe serious impacts of the environmental crisis.
3. The environmental policy requires diversity
During the Abe regime, it was more than disappointing to see politicians
and government officials reading between lines and became defensive.

Consequently, the policy processes became dull and stay stagnant without making
any effort of steering varieties of rich experiences and knowledge existing in thiscountry into the government. (The typical example was the decision-making
process of the nuclear power generation project.) However, the environmental
issues are linked to a broad range of fields, and therefore the policy-making process
should become dynamic involving people as widely as possible. Thanks to Greta,young people in Japan are becoming more active. As regards the environmental
field, women have been performing the central role leading NGOs and NPOs of thiscountry.
For these reasons, I decided on the new structure of my book focusing on
the possibilities that people can change their ways of life before it is too late. I alsodecided to emphasize the potentials of young people and women in the futuresociety.
4. Image of Japan in the future
The Japanese society remains stagnant for a long, not only environment
but also in politics, economy, science, and education, etc. How can we revitalize
ourselves and in which field can we contribute to the global society? In other words,
which field of business can we prosper in the next few decades. I believe it is “theEnvironment”, becoming an environmentally sound nation. It is not about promoting
business related to environmental technologies. What I want to see is a recovery ofJapan as an ethical country based on our rich cultural sensibility and traditional
knowledge/wisdom. There are a lot of issues that require nation-wide movements;
amendment of Constitution, greening economy and technologies, educational
reform, institutionalizing civil participation in policy-making processes, etc. I wrote
my thoughts on these issues in my new book, and cannot wait for receiving yourresponse.