Just a few blocks from my home a street that was suffering chronic traffic jams was widened to add two more lanes. Homes and businesses were torn down to make room for more cars. Owners were handsomely compensated with tax yen. The new section is now nearly complete, and the heavier volume of traffic is helping to make the city s already acrid air even worse. For me this typifies the way the Japanese Government deals with environmental problems.
Congestion is dealt, with by street-widening, rather than by cutting traffic volumes.
Pollution and effluent are good business. Japan aims to be the world s leading vendor of pollution abatement technology - smokestack scrubbers and effluent purification units. Companies that have installed a large number of units to eliminate sulphur and nitrogen emissions in Japan are now selling the technologies to other countries, particularly in Asia. I once had the pleasure of covering an international environmental symposium featuring ministers and other assorted luminaries from Asian countries. Mr. Aoki Masahisa, then director-general of Japan s Environment Agency, delivered an address stressing Japan s dependence upon the bounty of nature.