japan

There is a mystique surrounding these beautiful Japanese rock gardens, aka Zen gardens, that originated in the Japanese culture hundreds of years ago.

With financial support from Greenpeace, humpback whales have been tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research and Opération Cétacés. The satellite tagging, skin biopsies and photo identification has already provided a huge amount of information about the migration patterns of threatened humpback populations. The "scientific whaling" carried out by the Japanese government does not address the most important needs identified by the International Whaling Commission, and can not be seen as justifiable. This year their quote includes 50 humpback whales.

A new poll released today shows that the number of Japanese who don't support whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is growing - the 69% figure is a slight increase on the number found by a similar poll last year. Perhaps surprisingly, the Greenpeace commissioned poll showed that 87% were unaware that their tax money was being used to subsidise the whaling operation.

Japan's prime minister hopes to make a splash with a speech on the environment this weekend in Davos, but the beleaguered leader faces hurdles convincing the world he can spearhead the fight against climate change.

Who'd have thought it? Two Japanese paper firms lied about the amount of recycled paper in their products!

 A British anti-whaling protester was detained on board a Japanese harpoon ship last night after storming the vessel in an attempt to scupper Japan’s controversial whale hunt.

The R1e can drive 85km before needing a recharge. It has a top speed of 120km/h and the lithium battery made by NEC Lemilion Energy would need replacing every 190 000kms or so. I’ve read conflicting reports that quick charging would take between 3 and 15mins.

The average temperature in Japan could rise by up to 4.7 degrees Celsius (8.5 Fahrenheit) this century unless steps are taken to combat global warming, the Environment Ministry said on Wednesday.

Japan is planning to buy up carbon credits yielded by its investments in emissions-cutting projects in China, a newspaper said on Thursday. <br>

The Japanese government has confirmed that they have abandoned plans to kill humpback whales in the Southern Ocean this season.

Hungary will Tuesday sign a framework agreement to sell carbon credits to Japan, Hungary's Environment Ministry said in a statement Tuesday. <br>

The United States, Japan and Canada are putting the brakes on progress in the fight against global warming, observers at a UN climate change conference charged Wednesday. <br>

Japan's first ‘scientific’ whaling program, called JARPA, spent 18 years and killed 6,778 minke whales attempting to determine the natural mortality rate, M. In 2006 an expert workshop of scientists from the International Whaling Commission, meeting in Tokyo, agreed (including the Japanese scientists) that the natural mortality rate was not determined - the confidence limits around estimates of M from JARPA data were so wide that M remains effectively unknown. These were so wide that even a value of M=0 was not excluded.

The Nisshin Maru, the 8,000-tonne flagship of Japan’s whaling fleet, left Shimonoseki port for the Antarctic along with catcher boats around midday on Sunday, environmental group Greenpeace said, adding that others in the fleet were expected to follow soon.