Environment, Electricity, Emission, and Elections
Recently Mr. Al Gore visited Japan for promoting his movie on conservation of the world environment and prevention of green-house gas emission.
Almost at the same time, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her entry in 2008 Presidential Race.
I wonder how many people who can better serve the nation than any other incumbent politicians are in the United Sates.
An order of millions or not?
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In Japan, a shock and a commotion ran Sunday night in the political community.
A new governor was elected in a certain prefecture (with a population of 1.2 million) in western Japan where a former governor had been arrested for some scandals and forced to resign.
The new governor is a middle-aged ex-entertainer who had once put a halt to his show business after some scandals and entered a university in Tokyo, his playing field, to learn local governing; then having dropped out of the university last March, he ran for the emergent governorship race in his home prefecture this January and won on Sunday night, making forecast of all the media helplessly wrong.
Other two hopeful candidates, supported directly or indirectly by the two major political parties in Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan, lost to the entertainer.
The parties have lost face as with those candidates, each a guaranteed ex-elite bureaucrat.
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The TIME magazine has recently reported on Kyoto in light of environment issues. (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580391-1,00.html)
(The report mentions Japanese Government's "Cool Biz policy in 2005, under which offices save energy by keeping summer temperatures at a stifling 82.4°F (28°C)," which was promoted on the initiative of then woman Environment Minister whose charm seemed to nicely contribute to bureaucrats' compliance.)
This might be simple coincidence. But, Mr. Al Gore should be encouraged to pursue environment protection in the world regardless of his possible presidential candidacy for 2008.
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As for green-house gas emission, people should stop burning naively fossil fuels as soon as possible, or introduce advanced technology to significantly reduce CO2 emission from power generators.
Following is CIA statistics on world electricity production ranking in https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2038rank.html:
No. 1 US______3,979,000,000,000 kWh
2 China_______2,500,000,000,000
3 Japan________974,400,000,000
4 Russia________952,400,000,000
5 India_________630,600,000,000
6 Canada________573,000,000,000
7 Germany______566,900,000,000
8 France________540,600,000,000
9 Brazil_________380,900,000,000
Tackling the environmental issue means to deal with the big powers in the world as well as the future great powers, most of which have a huge population.
The issue is different from managing a prefecture of 1.2 million residents based on one's experiences as an entertainer and a student, while driving out a dishonest governor.
You really need tested ability for handling the world players in the 21st century, though sometimes even devils empower man's ability.
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I do not especially recommend you to invest in a certain industrial sector in a certain country for your own profits.
However, if I have funds, I will think about electricity in other poor countries.
Which, then, regardless of your religion, will you serve, God or Mammon?
"THE TIME IS COMING AND ALREADY HERE"