We all are quite familiar with the Cool Japan campaign to promote global interest in Japan’s music, fashion, anime, manga and traditional culture (tea ceremony, kimono). But the coolest part of post-3/11 Japan is an opportunity through recovery to create a future-oriented sustainable society that establishes a balance between humanity and nature. Humankind’s respect for nature–its glory and its fury–is a longstanding tradition in this earthquake-prone archipelago. Why not make Japan a model of growth through sustainability for the Asian region as well as the world? Today’s Japan Times‘ editorial makes exactly that point in its call for the Noda government to “push environment-friendly policies in earnest.”
The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe has made it clear that Japan has no alternative but to push energy savings and green energy to reduce its reliance on nuclear energy and to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.
The new plan calls for the realization of a sustainable society through efforts to build a low-carbon and recycling society, and to promote harmony between people and nature on the foundation of ensuring safety. Harmonization between people and nature is included from the viewpoint of protecting biodiversity. When looked at closely, though, the plan contains various problems… The plan calls for strengthening measures to recycle and utilize useful resources such as rare metals in electronic appliances. But attention should be paid to the basic issue — drastically changing our current mass-production, mass-waste society.
Brand Japan, Cool Japan, whatever we want to call it, must include a model for sustainability and respect for the natural environment. We are more than consumers. We are stewards of this planet. What suggestions do you have for promoting a “cool, green Japan”?
Tokyo Nancy Snow 
A thorough analysis on the nuclear crossroads Japan faces can be found here: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_crossroads_for_japan_revive_nuclear_or_go_green/2534/
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The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe has made it clear that Japan has no alternative but to push energy savings and green energy to reduce its reliance on nuclear energy and to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.
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This concept is what’s wrong with the nonsensical “green” movement. France, the country most successful at cutting back emissions, also has the most nuclear plants. Wind, solar, all these “alternative” energies are a joke right now. Maybe they’ll be something more 50 years from now, but they aren’t capable of providing the energy of even 1 reactor from the 50-year-old Fukushima site. From a logical standpoint, the solution isn’t to turn away from nuclear power but to update outdated plants. Given all the misinformation and fear-mongering peddled by the media about radiation (much to their profit), that’s unlikely to happen though. Instead you will see a global increase in emissions. Good job.
I think this effort towards putting some force on the facts of nature is ideal as a model for the “Cool Japan.” I think so because the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident surely dealt a significant amount of damage towards Japan, but it also made Japan consider its energy problems in more detail. Therefore, it can be seen as a new stance on energy problems. That is why I agree with this topic, and think it is worth the effort to begin some pressing efforts that other countries have not tried yet. My idea for sustainability in the “Cool Japan” lies in the saving of electricity and I suggest that we should keep it that way, because the use of nuclear power still has its drawbacks even if it can produce a vast amount of energy for the people to use. This will produce the ideal model of a developed country which maintains its economical value and environmental value at the same time, therefore making a “Green” and “Cool Japan” towards the foreign people.
Over the course of history, Japan was the first country to get damaged by the atomic bomb and it was also the first to get rid of its military as a way of peace. This topic may seem to be of an smaller scale, but the ideas which are included within this topic have the same kind of touch that we should all have in our minds when we look at where Japan’s ideas lie in its foreign policies.