Japan's sustainable society in the Edo period
by TreeHugger on 04.12.05
We doubt that there is a treehugger among us who is not in love with the simplicity and elegance of Japanese design and art from the Edo period.(the Shogunate, from 1603 to 1867) It appears that this period was also a model of sustainable living, as this recently republished article describes.
Japan closed itself off from the world and minimized its contacts with the outside- the complete opposite of globalization that was going on in the rest of the world, first due to British and then American ambitions.
In Japan, they had to become a recycling society. Everything ws a vaulable resource- there were tinkerers, ceramics repairers,even (our favourite) used umbrella rib buyers.
For energy, Edo period Japan was a plant based economy- almost all food, clothing and shelter was essentially plant based, making it essentially a solar-energy based economy.
Oil for lighting was made from sesame and other seeds, wax for candles from trees.
Charcoal for heating and cooking came from branches and brush rather than standing forests.
Read more at :: Energy Bulletin , stick a Kurasawa movie in the DVD player and think about this example of living with less. by [LA]
LOHAS 9 presents the Outstanding Sustainable Style Awards (TreeHugger nominated!)
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Sunpipe by Terry Payne for Monodraught
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Its also worth reading the section about Edo Japan in 'Collapse' by Jarad Diamond. He talks about how close they came to getting it all wrong, and how they returned from the brink of deforestation (which would have lead to the downfall of the japanese culture/population/pretty much everything).
Jo Pitts
And then, when Japan crawled out of it's backward ways in the early 20th century, they were playing catch up with the west. They then decided to leap ahead of the west by waging war on their asian neighbers. This has got to be the worst argument for Tree Hugging ever...
What does Japanese imperialism have to do with a plant-based and reusable economy being a TreeHuggery idea?
Um, Avs, I believe that point that Philip is making is that Japan cultivated self-satisfaction along with self-sufficiency to the point where it severely damaged their ability to reintergrate with the rest of the world ... not inaccurate in light of Japanese history.
It's absolutely true that the cult of Bushido (the way of the warrior) reached its height in the Edo period, strenuously encouraged by a government anxious to cultivate unlimited loyalty. The Way of the Warrior was fine as long as Japan was at peace in isolation. The problem is that once the isolation ended the peace-time strategy of glorifying self-sacrifice and loyalty to the idea of the emperor led onto a path of absolutely lunatic militarism.
Ugh, the old myths of Japanese militarism. Love the cultural essentialism. They fell into nationalism and imperialism like the rest of the world.
More on topic, during the Edo period, there was also a thriving "nightsoil" trade. One reason Japanese crowded cities (among the largest in the world) were so clean was that they used outhouses (didn't dump into the streets). The nightsoil was then collected by folks who sold it to the farmers to use as fertilizer. I don't know if they were paid to collect it or if they bought it.