Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Japanese told to go to bed an hour early to cut carbon emissions

I didn't actually see this news in Japan...

The Morning Challenge campaign, unveiled by the Environment Ministry, is based on the premise that swapping late night electricity for an extra hour of morning sunlight could significantly cut the nation's carbon footprint.

I have previously complained about the time zone here, which is very inconvenient and inefficient, especially in summer when the sun rises around 4am and sets at 7pm. Why can't they just adopt summer time like just every other country on the planet (or even change the time zone year round)? Iceland is another exception, but there isn't much they can do about their 24h sunlight in summer and 24h of night in winter.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's an interesting thought though - when I go camping, I often realise just how much infrastructure is required to allow me my late nights.

Anonymous said...

"Iceland is another exception, but there isn't much they can do about their 24h sunlight in summer and 24h of night in winter."

LOL :)

David B. Benson said...

Actually, Iceland is just below the Arctic Circle and so there are some rather short days around WInter Soltice.

Unknown said...

I have not seen the piece of news either. Perhaps it is a piece of "olds". And I have an old conviction that Japan should not have "summer time".

It is formidable for millions of office workers walking home (walking from the office to a railway station and then a railway station to home) at 4 p.m. standard time in a summer day in a climate perhaps warmer than today. It is still hot at 5 p.m., but this is more tolerable.

Situation may be different in higher latitudes. I did not object a colleague of mine in Hokkaido who is in favour of time shift. Maybe we will have different time zones across Tsugaru Strait.

jules said...

Kooiti:
But no one at all goes home at 5pm.... well, only the "part-time" workers. We go home in the dark all year, which is really quite sad, especially when we are missing out n valuable daylight hours in the morning....apart from James, of course, who wakes up at dawn!

EliRabett said...

Nothing at all compared to China, one people, one nation, one time zone.