Japan: the new "setsuden" culture

[phantom power]

While the kanji for "hot" was chosen as emblematic of 2010, setsuden, or electricity conservation, seems to be the keyword for 2011, or at least for the coming summer.

Offices and factories are turning up thermostats and turning off lights, cutting back on overtime, and shifting work hours. Stations throughout Tokyo have turned off lights and escalators. Beverage vending machines are under attack for eating up too much electricity.

Individuals are being urged to turn off lights, limit the use of air conditioners and turn down the brightness on their TV screens. Arakawa Ward in Tokyo is planning to hold a summer setsuden "mileage" contest in which residents can win setsuden products, such as a strap enabling one to recharge a cell phone with solar power, if they can demonstrate use of 20 percent less electricity than in the same month the year before.

Such appeals seem to be having an effect. In one recent newspaper survey (Asahi, May 7), 86 percent of respondents report taking energy-saving measures at home. They are turning off lights, unplugging appliances when not in use and turning up the setting on air conditioners.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20110515a2.html

[LiberalLoner]

1. I have to say I admire how they are pulling together and how they are willing to

sacrifice some comfort for the overall good of their nation right now.

I wish we could have more of that in the U.S. I think there was a time when we did have that ability, like during WWII maybe, but it seems to be gone now.

[aquart]

2. We aren't scared to death and they are.

Makes a difference.

[LiberalLoner]

3. Oh. Yeah, I guess that would make a difference. n/t

[Nihil]

4. You are *always* scared to death about something so that argument doesn't apply.

They are in the middle of an emergency and know that
they *need* to cut back on waste & increase efficiency.

You neither know nor care about waste and think that
"efficiency" is one of them darn libral words that no
self-respecting American needs to bother their pretty
little heads about.

That's the difference.

[Bonobo]

6. No that is not the difference.

Americans will still suck up every available watt disaster or no disaster.

A sense of responsibility to others is the difference.

[txlibdem]

5. It's a sensible decision: they just lost 6 of their 49 nuclear reactors

With no prospect of bringing enough reliable 24/7/365 electricity generation it only makes sense to conserve.

It will take decades to replace the zero-carbon electricity that those plants produced.