I read last year in Time magazine that Japan had the cleanest air in all of Asia and the most improved air quality in the world. Living here, there are clear indications as to why Japan is deemed the forefront leader of global warming efforts.
When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, I carried a sweater everywhere I went in the summer because every building, house and car had its air conditioning cranked to sub-arctic temperatures to counteract the 180 degree sunshine outside. Even with perpetual heat-saving grace people constantly complained about how hot it was to walk from the freezing car into their frigid house.
Rotate floors to Japan where the summers are so brutally hot and humid that friends take turns spitting on each other in relay attempts at heat stroke prevention. Summer humidity in Fort lauderdale is a fresh breath of relief compared to the wool blanket suffocating you three minutes after you have stepped outside in Japan.
So, whatever, summer is summer and it's unbearable anywhere. The big difference, however, is that global warming initiatives in Japan mean that you will be publicly shunned for using your air conditioning. Government buildings are not granted to turn them on at all. My elementary school, with four stories and two wings, did not once turn on its air conditioning units located in every classroom installed in the glorious days of pre-global warming ignorance. I had to go to the bathroom every hour and give myself a sponge bath in a stall to survive.
Now it's winter and of course the heat is not being used. I wear a scarf and three sweaters inside the school all day. I was drinking literally three cups of green tea per half-hour to keep myself warm, but had to switch to hot water as my urine was flourescent green like the Hulk's.
I am proud that I live in a country that takes the environment so seriously that it actually takes action to save it rather than simply preach about change from inside an air conditioned building where the trash is not recycled and the lights stay on all night. But knowing that we are one of the only countries in the world actually giving up our comforts for the environment is tortuous.
I have more to say on the subject, but my fingers are frozen. I'm putting my mittens back on now.
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Ahhh, how I don't miss trying to tame my 'fro in that humidity.
You know what was weird at my school? They'd turn the air con on in the summer, but leave the doors open.
I once pleaded with the manager to please close the doors because we felt like we were gonna pass out. He told me it's not inviting to customers to have the doors close. Put aside how retarded that is considering the doors were automatic. As the guy was telling me this, he is literally oozing sweat. So I say:
"You wanna know what's not inviting?" *points to bead of sweat rolling down face* "that."
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