For those who think I have it out for everyone on the right...the Sankei Shimbun deserves a huge amount of credit for its recent publishing of front page article after front page article on the consequences of global warming.
Today's front page "Nihon Yo!" op-ed, the first of the year from Tokyo Governor and purported xenophobic troglodyte Ishihara Shintarō, is a case in point (no link yet). In the essay Ishihara lays down the long list of unmistakable indications that the climate's gone haywire. He also enumerates the incredible amount of waste and emissions human activity generates every second of every day (prefectural governors tend to have to know something about dealing with waste). Ishihara excoriates those who refuse to take action to curb humankind's impact upon the Earth, citing for particular blame the governments of the United States and Japan and the leaders of Japan's business community. Unlike his fellow Sankei denizen Komori Yasuhisa, Ishihara does not play to the cheap seats with the cheap shot : he does not even mention China's generation of greenhouse gases, preferring to take aim at the rich rather than the poor.
So my hat's off to Ishihara Shintarō and the Sankei today.
Today.
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1 comment:
Well said. It's unfortunate that Ishihara is such a troglodyte on so many social issues, and unfortunate that he's so adamant about bringing the Olympics to Tokyo, because he seems to have been right on environmental issues for some time - from making Tokyo's air pollution a campaign issue, to trying to do something about the cedar monoculture around the city, and more.
It is also nice to see that he avoided the shot at China that, I admit, I would have expected.
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