“It was always a lie,” an anti-nuclear protest song by Kazuyoshi Saito

斉藤和義 (@kazuyoshi_saito) の『ずっとウソだった』という歌は反原発への感情を表しています。

Kazuyoshi Saito (斉藤和義) turned his commercial song for Shiseido cosmetics, a love ballad “I always liked you,”  into an anti-nuclear song, “It was always a lie” (ずっとウソだった). I like the simplicity of the web video mixed with his scathing protest message.

Decades of propaganda convinced many Japanese that nuclear power was safe. There were even special programs aimed at persuading young mothers that it was OK to live near a nuclear plant. Recent street protests in Tokyo and online media challenge a decades-old consensus between corporations, governments, and university researchers.

I am moved by the mix of outrage and rebellion.

『ずっとウソだった』

この国を歩けば、原発が５４基
教科書もCMも言ってたよ、安全です。

俺たちを騙して、言い訳は「想定外」
懐かしいあの空、くすぐったい黒い雨。

ずっとウソだったんだぜ
やっぱ、ばれてしまったな
ホント、ウソだったんだぜ
原子力は安全です。

ずっとウソだったんだぜ
ほうれん草食いてえな
ホント、ウソだったんだぜ
気づいてたろ、この事態。

風に舞う放射能はもう止められない

何人が被曝すれば気がついてくれるの？
この国の政府。

この街を離れて、うまい水見つけたかい？

教えてよ！
やっぱいいや…

もうどこも逃げ場はない。

ずっとクソだったんだぜ
東電も、北電も、中電も、九電も
もう夢ばかり見てないけど、

ずっと、クソだったんだぜ

それでも続ける気だ

ホント、クソだったんだぜ

何かがしたいこの気持ち

ずっと、ウソだったんだぜ

ホント、クソだったんだぜ

I found the lyrics translated into English online, but I’ll try to improve the translation later:

“You have been telling a lie”

When we walk around this country,
we can find 54 Nuke power plants

My text book and CM always told me,
“It’s SAFE”

You have been telling a lie,
then your excuse is just “UNEXPECTED”
I remember the clear sky,
but now, it turns black rain

You’ve been telling a lie,
it was exposed after all, I know
Yeah, it was a lie, “Nuke is completely safe”
You’ve been telling a lie,
I just wanna eat such a delicious spinach once again.

Yeah, it was a lie,
You should have noticed this ball game

We can’t stop the contaminated wind anymore
Do you accept if you find it about how many people would be exposed by the radiation?
How do you think? I’m asking you, Jap Gov.

When you leave this town,
Coudl you find delicious water?
Tell me, whatever, there’s no way to hide

They are all suck, Tepco, Hepco, Chuden and Kanden
We never dream a dream anymore
But they are all suck
They still keep going
They are truely suck
I wanna take action, how could I handle this feeling?

They are telling a lie….
We are all suck….

Town creates art in rice paddies for economic revival

The New York Times ran a great story about how a small town in northern Japan named Inakadate has been creating art works using colored rice as a way to attract tourists and revive a struggling economy. Creating this living art work has brought the community together and draws up to 170,000 visitors to this town of fewer than 9,000 mostly elderly residents.

Five colors of rice plotted intricately on the field yield this image of a samurai fighting a warrior monk. The cost of renting and planting the field is about US35,000 making this an affordable rural revitalization effort. Last year 170,000 visitors came to view the rice art. And each year the town tries to outdo previous efforts to continue to gain media attention and visitors.

DPJ and the Environment

As I wrote earlier, the Democratic Party of Japan, which recently won a landslide election, is calling for major environmental changes, including significantly greater carbon emission targets than the outgoing LDP party. This week I learned that, on the premise of reviving the struggling Japanese countryside, the DPJ has also promised to reduce the gasoline tax and highway tolls. These pro-automobile ideas will not help with emissions targets.

Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, is strongly opposed to the more ambitious emission goals. By calculating the difference in today’s prices between fossil fuels and renewable energy, numbers have been created to alarm the public about costs to consumers and businesses. A particularly Japanese explanation I heard from one Japanese corporate spokesperson was articulated as concern for the finances of business customers.

This organized resistance to change strikes me as short-sighted. According to a Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs chart based on International Energy Agency data, Japan is already the world’s most energy efficient nation (calculated as energy supply per unit of GDP): three times more efficient than the global rate, twice as efficient as the US, almost twice more than the European Union, and more than seven times India and China.

In the United States, Obama has called for 25% of electric energy to come from renewable sources by 2025. The DPJ’s solar subsidies and carbon taxes will spur adoption of solar energy, benefiting Sharp and Kyocera. In a world of climate change and peak oil, investing now in renewable energy seems vital for Japan’s energy security and global technology exports.

If the focus is strictly on carbon emissions, and not renewable energy, Japan risks further dependence on nuclear energy. Already 26% of electric power in 2007, nuclear power produces dangerous waste, all the more so in a small island nation prone to earthquakes. This makes news that nuclear industry and international energy leaders are seeking to increase operating rates. From the Japan Times,

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, urged Japan last year to relax its “hyper cautious” atomic safety standards to increase output.

The country’s operating rate averaged 59 percent in 2008, compared with 90 percent in the U.S. and 76 percent in France, according to industry group the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc.

With energy use increasing in the developing world, now is the time to debate the difference between carbon neutral and renewable energy, and the role of national governments in promoting change that can spur international competitive economic advantage.

(from the Nuclear Fuel Transport Co, Ltd)