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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
February 22, 2008
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| January 30, 2008 |
Junko Edahiro: Global Warming and Envisioning a Happier Future |
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Though people think of her as an interpreter, Ms Edahiro says her main goal is to use communication and connections to initiate change in the world |
Junko Edahiro, an environmental journalist and simultaneous interpreter/translator, joined the Peace Boat for the first time as a guest educator from Singapore to Seychelles. While onboard, Ms Edahiro gave a lecture series on global warming and her environmental conservation activities. She also shared her experiences as a simultaneous interpreter, as well as her involvement in the Japanese language translation of the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In Ms Edahiro’s first onboard lecture, participants discussed the film through a “café dialogue” discussion facilitated by Ms Edahiro, challenging participants to reconsider current global conditions and how human development has affected the environment. |
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| Akari Edahiro joined her mother onboard, and made the most of her time on Peace Boat, dancing, drumming and studying English |
Ms Edahiro continued to present various causes of global warming, and different approaches to combating related problems. She spoke about small Tuvalu, an island in Oceania that rises a mere one meter above sea level at its highest point. Rising ocean levels caused by global warming put Tuvalu at risk of deforestation and eventual submersion. This case illustrates the paradox that while carbon dioxide emissions are caused largely by economically advanced countries, the effects are often felt most seriously in places like Tuvalu that produce relatively little carbon dioxide locally. Currently, the world produces approximately 7.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, but the earth can only reabsorb 3.1 billion tons. The remaining 4.1 billion tons of emissions continue to warm our future planet. |
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| Ms Edahiro confers with Peace Boat staff member Kentaro Yamaki before her lecture |
Ms Edahiro discussed more specific issues such as carbon offsets, carbon neutrality, emissions rights and emissions trading in her third lecture. The important task now is not to actually prevent global warming, but rather to find new ways to reduce further warming and to adapt to a warmer planet. To create a carbon neutral planet that can reabsorb all of its carbon dioxide emissions, Ms Edahiro explained that current emissions must be reduced by 70%, to approximately the level emitted in the 1960s. To help as individuals, proposed strategies include calculating how much carbon dioxide produce in people's daily lives, reducing emissions where possible, and purchasing carbon offsets to minimize their carbon footprint. Ms Edahiro also introduced the carbon rights system, which would allow people a certain amount of carbon emission rights based on the carrying capacity of the earth. In this scenario people and nations that produce less carbon dioxide could sell their emission rights in a carbon trading system, which would help balance the uneven distribution of wealth and resources throughout the world and compensate unfairly affected areas like Tuvalu. |
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To learn more about Japan for Sustainability, the NGO established by Ms Edahiro to spread awareness of environmental issues, visit: www.japanfs.org |
Ms Edahiro also held more personal lectures, during which she told her story of becoming a simultaneous interpreter, and spoke on goal setting through visioning your future self. When pursuing a goal, she first envisions the outcome, and then uses a technique she calls “backcasting,” in which she outlines a self and time management system to realize her goal. She suggested that people think about what they like, what they are good at, and what they believe to be important when thinking about their futures. Ms Edahiro encouraged people to create a vision of happiness and then use her “backcasting” technique to establish a plan to realize that happiness. Most importantly, she encouraged people to just be themselves, and reminded them that being different was perfectly fine. |
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| Junko and Akari Edahiro see the Peace Boat off at Port Victoria in the Seychelles |
On her last day onboard, Ms Edahiro lectured on the global oil crisis. Now writing a book on the same topic, she shared figures about the global oil industry and an energy forecast for the future. Currently, the world consumes three times the oil that it produces, and as it becomes increasingly difficult to produce oil in the necessary quantities, rising oil prices will cause the next oil shock. Looking back, from 1850 to 2006 the total amount of energy used by the world increased by 43 times, while world population grew by about five times. Here, Ms Edahiro emphasized that the problem is not a lack of energy in the world, but that the world aims for limitless growth and development on a planet with limited resources. |
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