中国可以从日本清理雾霾的进展学到经验 [日本媒体]

China can learn lessons from Japan's progress in cleaning up smog

中国可以从日本清理雾霾的进展学到经验

【日期】2015年12月10日

TOKYO — The face masks, thick dark haze and pollution warnings plaguing residents of China’s capital this week once were a fact of life for people living in Japan’s biggest industrial cities.

曾几何时，口罩、浓黑的雾霾和本周折磨着中国首都居民的污染预警是生活在日本最大工业城市居民的日常生活的一个现实。

Japanese suffered from dire pollution problems for nearly a century, from the time the country first began industrializing in the late 1800s. But a combination of public protests and lawsuits, local government action, use of nuclear energy and upgrading of industries and technology helped to turn the tide in the 1970s and ‘80s.

从19世纪末期这个国家的工业化开始，日本民众被迫忍受可怕的污染问题将近1个世纪，但是在公众的抗议和法律诉讼的作用下，地方政府通过使用核能以及升级工业和技术在20世纪70，80年代扭转了这个局面

Some of the key factors that helped Japan’s big cleanup could offer hope for China, India and other countries facing severe environmental crisis:

日本这个大清扫中的一些关键因素可以为中国、印度和其他面临严重环境危机的国家提供一些借鉴：

CITIZEN ACTION: Japan has a tradition of popular protest dating back to the early years of its modernization in the 19th century Meiji era, when
farmers sought help against copper smelters and other polluters that poisoned their fields and forests. Japan’s democratic freedoms and independent courts were crucial weapons in the modern fight for a cleaner environment.

公民行动：日本有一个可以追溯到19世纪明治时代工业化早期的公众抗议传统，那个时候，农民在寻求帮助反抗铜熔炼厂和其他毒害他们土地和森林的污染者。日本的民主自由和独立法庭是现代为获得更清洁环境斗争的关键武器。

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: Demands from the public and local governments have driven the creation and enforcement of pollution standards, even as early as the 1920s. Pollution from power plants, chemical factories and other manufacturing surged with Japan’s ascent as an industrial power following its defeat in World War II. Today’s adults in Tokyo still recall days off from school in the 1970s due to pollution alerts. In the end, local pressures prevailed over corporate interests and bureaucratic lethargy.

地方政府：早在1920年代早期，公众和地方政府的需求导致了污染排放标准的产生和实施。二战战败后，随着日本崛起成为一个工业强国，电厂、化工厂和其他制造企业的污染排放迅速升高。今天东京的成年人仍然可以记起1970年代由于污染警报导致学校关门的日子。最后，地方的压力战胜了公司利益和官僚主义。

HIGH OIL PRICES: Heavy dependence on costly oil imports once Japan’s coal reserves were depleted in the 1960s gave the resource-scarce country a strong incentive to improve its energy technologies. The oil crises of the 1970s were further motivation for Japanese automakers, which initially fought efforts to reduce vehicle emissions, to devise more fuel efficient cars.

高油价：在1960年代，日本的煤炭储量一旦被消耗完毕，对昂贵石油进口的严重依赖给了这个资源贫瘠的国家一个强有力的刺激去提高其能源利用技术。1970年代的石油危机促使已经在努力降低汽车排放的日本制造商设计出更加节省燃料的汽车。

PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Most people commuting to downtown Tokyo or Osaka do so by train, subway or bus. Japan’s efficient, safe and extensive public transport networks help to reduce city traffic congestion and the vehicle exhaust that is suffocating residents in Beijing.

公共交通：大部分去东京市中心或者大阪上班的人通常坐火车、地铁或者公交车，日本高效、安全和广泛的公共交通网络起到较少城市交通拥堵状况和汽车排放，后者现在正在窒息北京的居民们。

CUSTOMS: Japanese are used to living without central heating due to the high cost of electricity. There is no household burning of trash in the cities, and construction sites and workplaces tend to minimize dust and other pollution.

习惯：由于高电价，日本人已经习惯生活中没有集中供暖。城市中没有家庭垃圾焚烧，建筑工地和车间习惯于最大程度减少粉尘和其他污染的排放。

NUCLEAR POWER: Japan’s adoption of nuclear power beginning in the 1960s helped the country slash emissions from coal and oil-burning plants. Some of those gains were lost after reactors were shut for safety checks after the 2011 meltdown in Fukushima, but the government cites pollution as a key reason for reviving nuclear power.

核能：日本在1960年代采用了核能，大大减少了燃煤和燃油电厂的排放，2011年福岛核电站事故之后，由于安全检查的原因关闭了部分核电站使得这些收益受到损害，但是后来政府把污染作为重启这些核电站的关键因素。

BACKSLIDING: Tokyo and other cities still endure hazy days, sometimes due to dust and pollutants drifting over from China. New types of toxins such as dioxins from trash incinerators and carcinogenic volatile organic compounds like benzene and tuolene pose fresh concerns.

倒退：东京和其他城市仍然会有一些雾霾天，有时是因为从中国飘来的粉尘和污染物。一些新的毒素，如垃圾焚烧炉产生的二氧杂芑和致癌的挥发有机化合物，如苯和tuolene带来新的问题。



YubaruDec. 10, 2015 - 07:40AM JST 
There was an interview done about the problems of pollution in China on NPR radio a couple of weeks back. The reporter was asking highly educated Chinese professors, men and women working on post-graduate degrees, and other people in academic circles about pollution problems that are plaguing China and what should be done about them for the future generations of Chinese.

几周前，NPR电台做了一个关于中国污染问题的访谈，记者问一些高学历的中国人，其中包括教授、研究生和其他一些在学术圈子里的人关于这个正在为害中国的污染问题，以及应该为后代采取哪些措施。

The number one reply was rather scary in that all the respondents replied with basically the same answer, "Why should or why do we need to worry about a problem that will affect us (50, 60 or 100 years) after we are dead?" " We need to take care of today, and worry about today, let the people after us deal with tomorrow!"

令人非常吃惊的是，所有人的答案基本一样，“我们为什么要担心哪些在我们死后50、60甚至100年之后才影响我们的问题。”“我们只需关注今天的事，担心今天，让我们的后人处理明天的问题。

I thought about that response for quite a while, and it gave me an different insight about how I view China and Chinese people that we get down here as tourists (bad manners, etc etc) and I thought, if people from China are only concerned about "today" and not the future, then why care about the little things.

我思考了这些回答好一会，这给了我对中国和哪些来这里的中国游客（不良举止等等）一个不一样的认识，如果中国人仅仅关注今天，而不是未来，那么他们何必关注哪些小事呢？

China in many ways is just like Japan. If someone wrote a reverse article talking about how Japan could learn from China about something or another, the Japanese people would reject it out of hand as interfering with an internal problem. 

中国在很多方面挺象日本，如果有人写一篇相反的文章关于日本人应当如何从中国学习这些方面或另外一些方面，日本人会认为这是干涉内部问题而马上反对。


However these environmental problems that BOTH countries have, ironic an article now about how China can copy Japan when just yesterday there was an article discussing how Japan lags behind in issues regarding climate change,
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japan-ranked-among-worst-performing-nations-in-tackling-climate-change
Kind of typical response here, obfuscate and deflect, taking the focus off your own failures or inaction.

然而，这些环境问题两个国家都有，具有讽刺意味的是，现在有篇文章关于中国该如何复制日本，而就在昨天，有一篇文章讨论了日本是如何在处理气候改变问题上落在后边的。
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japan-ranked-among-worst-performing-nations-in-tackling-climate-change
这里典型的回答就是，大家都在模糊自己的过错和不作为，避免指责，或者把大家的焦点移开。