The impact of climate change on Japanese culture

thomas · 2 Mar 2023

Nikkei staff writer Sayumi Take on the impact of climate change on Japanese culture, particularly haiku. The prospect of northern hemisphere summers coming to account for half the year by 2100, winter for less than two months, and spring and autumn shrinking threaten "Japanese culture where a sense of the seasons plays an underlying role from literature to cuisine to the arts. This admiration and appreciation for seasons stem from Japan's geography, which has traditionally provided four seasons of roughly the same duration."

Haiku are based on kigo (季語, "season words"), words or phrases traditionally associated with a particular season.

"Take koharubiyori (小春日和), a kigo of late autumn to early winter used to express a day of warm, mild, sunny, almost springlike weather in the midst of harshly cold days, associated with a sense of soothing and comfort," says Etsuya Hirose, a professional haiku poet. "Nowadays, more days are warm at that time of year, so you can't really empathize with that kigo, that season and emotion." Another such kigo is shinryoku (新緑) meaning the first fresh green of early summer's young leaves. The term is seemingly losing its presence among terms like sakura and aoba, the lush green of leaves in the deep of summer, as hot weather quickly takes over spring and plants adapt to keep up.

Other examples were osechi ryori, for which once commonplace ingredients were no longer available; sado, the Japanese tea ceremony, where certain seasonal plants that are symbolic decorations were becoming scarce: all of them were part of the intangible price the Japanese were paying for global warming.

Payment alert:

Is climate change killing the haiku?

Loss of distinct seasons threatens traditional Japanese culture

asia.nikkei.com

musicisgood · 2 Mar 2023

Spring is longer , summers are shorter. That has been happening here down south. Winter here starts at the end of December and last with cold weather ( spring ) into the end of April.

Lothor · 3 Mar 2023

thomas said:
Nikkei staff writer Sayumi Take on the impact of climate change on Japanese culture, particularly haiku. The prospect of northern hemisphere summers coming to account for half the year by 2100, winter for less than two months, and spring and autumn shrinking threaten "Japanese culture where a sense of the seasons plays an underlying role from literature to cuisine to the arts. This admiration and appreciation for seasons stem from Japan's geography, which has traditionally provided four seasons of roughly the same duration."

Haiku are based on kigo (季語, "season words"), words or phrases traditionally associated with a particular season.

Other examples were osechi ryori, for which once commonplace ingredients were no longer available; sado, the Japanese tea ceremony, where certain seasonal plants that are symbolic decorations were becoming scarce: all of them were part of the intangible price the Japanese were paying for global warming.

Payment alert:

Is climate change killing the haiku?

Loss of distinct seasons threatens traditional Japanese culture

asia.nikkei.com

Interesting, but I'm far more concerned about the effect of the climate on agricultural yields (and the ensuing instability and violence) and the collapse of the ecosystem than on the loss to some rather elitist aspects of Japanese culture!

thomas · 3 Mar 2023

Haha, of course. There's no one who wouldn't share your sentiments, including the author, Mrs Take. She's in charge of climate change at Nikkei and wanted to point out that there were cultural implications, too.

cloa513 · 9 Mar 2023

Lothor said:
Interesting, but I'm far more concerned about the effect of the climate on agricultural yields (and the ensuing instability and violence) and the collapse of the ecosystem than on the loss to some rather elitist aspects of Japanese culture!

You mean how increased carbon dioxide and slight warming are boosting yields- so terrible.

Lothor · 10 Mar 2023

cloa513 said:
You mean how increased carbon dioxide and slight warming are boosting yields- so terrible.

Extreme events such as flooding, typhoons, droughts are going to have a major adverse effect on yields. Increased variation of temperatures, such as mild winters followed by snow in March, such as we are seeing in California now, are also likely to cause problems - farmers like predictability, hence irrigation systems and greenhouses. Finally, increased temperatures are predicted to reduce rice yields in Japan. https://www.naro.go.jp/english/laboratory/niaes/files/fftc-marco_book2019_177.pdf

And don't tell me what I mean, thank you.

cloa513 · 10 Mar 2023

Lothor said:
Extreme events such as flooding, typhoons, droughts are going to have a major adverse effect on yields. Increased variation of temperatures, such as mild winters followed by snow in March, such as we are seeing in California now, are also likely to cause problems - farmers like predictability, hence irrigation systems and greenhouses. Finally, increased temperatures are predicted to reduce rice yields in Japan. https://www.naro.go.jp/english/laboratory/niaes/files/fftc-marco_book2019_177.pdf

And don't tell me what I mean, thank you.

That there isn't an upward trend on typhoons or droughts or severe rainfall (flooding is not necesarily because of the rain) is borne by the data .Farmers can adapt as they have many times- ENSO cycles cause all sorts of craziness.

Lothor · 10 Mar 2023

The ENSO cycle is only 3-7 years, whereas we've had a continuous warming trend for a few decades that scientists are virtually unanimous is going to continue, and a mechanism by which it occurs. I'll take that over your "all sorts of craziness". And here's a graph showing the trend of billion dollar climate disasters in the US since 1980. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

I'm going to end this conversation, because if you're still unconvinced by all the warnings of scientists (and the results of research that oil companies carried out, then sat on for a few decades) and your own perception of how the climate has changed during your lifetime, there's nothing I can do to persuade you otherwise.

mdchachi · 11 Mar 2023

cloa513 said:
That there isn't an upward trend on typhoons or droughts or severe rainfall (flooding is not necesarily because of the rain) is borne by the data .Farmers can adapt as they have many times- ENSO cycles cause all sorts of craziness.

Which data?

What Big Oil knew about climate change, in its own words

Transcripts and internal documents show how the industry shifted from leading research into fossil fuels’ effect on the climate to sowing doubt about science.

theconversation.com

Grandpa Frank · 11 Mar 2023

Seems obvious to me that cleaning up air pollution has caused global warming. Now more sunlight can get through to the earth and cause the overheating. We need more crap in the air to block out the sun. All the oil company scientists agree on this , LOL.

cloa513 · 12 Mar 2023

mdchachi said:
Which data?

What Big Oil knew about climate change, in its own words

Transcripts and internal documents show how the industry shifted from leading research into fossil fuels’ effect on the climate to sowing doubt about science.

theconversation.com

Climate Disaster Confusion | Watts Up With That? natural disasters deaths are going down.

cloa513 · 12 Mar 2023

cloa513 said:
Climate Disaster Confusion | Watts Up With That? natural disasters deaths are going down.

That stuff is consistently debunked- the oil companies have magic scientists who know everything and including how to breech the laws of physics in order to produce this transformation. Major lawsuits based on this nonsense have completely collapsed.

cloa513 · 12 Mar 2023

mdchachi said:
Which data?

What Big Oil knew about climate change, in its own words

Transcripts and internal documents show how the industry shifted from leading research into fossil fuels’ effect on the climate to sowing doubt about science.

theconversation.com

The US oil companies are not big oil- that is all government owned companies-

Saudi Arabian Oil Co. ( Saudi Aramco) ...
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. ( SNPMF) ...
PetroChina Co. Ltd. Exon is there but their money mostly the not the oil production but the supply.

. The US owns the biggest energy companies who were happy to produce renewable energy for the subsidies but it is

mdchachi · 12 Mar 2023

cloa513 said:
That stuff is consistently debunked- the oil companies have magic scientists who know everything and including how to breech the laws of physics in order to produce this transformation. Major lawsuits based on this nonsense have completely collapsed.

What is debunked? They had science that pointed to the rise of CO2 and the effects on the climate and they chose to ignore it. They have other "science" regurgitated by people like your friend Kip Hansen (the author of the article whining about the NYT article). Kip Hansen is a prolific "journalist" who writes for such venerable groups like The CO2 Coalition -- a group that promotes the benefits of carbon dioxide.

cloa513 · 13 Mar 2023

mdchachi said:
What is debunked? They had science that pointed to the rise of CO2 and the effects on the climate and they chose to ignore it. They have other "science" regurgitated by people like your friend Kip Hansen (the author of the article whining about the NYT article). Kip Hansen is a prolific "journalist" who writes for such venerable groups like The CO2 Coalition -- a group that promotes the benefits of carbon dioxide.

They discovered that it has some possible effect not definitely proof that the climate system is controlled by the presece of one or more trace gases. The IPC found that too. Tons of evidence for the benefits of CO2- just look at the plants. When you look at the actual science, no one says anything about predicting the future except those that continually wrong.

nice gaijin · 14 Mar 2023

The greenhouse effect is actually good for the environment... if your goal is to look like Venus.

Petaris · 15 Mar 2023

nice gaijin said:
The greenhouse effect is actually good for the environment... if your goal is to look like Venus.

I heard only women are allowed there so you better....

nice gaijin · 15 Mar 2023

Petaris said:
I heard only women are allowed there so you better....

View attachment 101501

I don't submit to John Gray's planetary binary!

You know what they say, go to Mars for the scenery, go to Venus for the weather...

The impact of climate change on Japanese culture

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