Energy-Saving Summer Season Has Begun

June 1^st begins Japan’s summer energy-saving campaign, and it started on a cold day with all the employees of at least one company (covered on the nightly news) wearing polo shirts to work. This is interesting on many levels. Japan has a tradition of having everybody change from one sort of attire to another on June 1^st, with the official start of summer-wear. For instance, when I worked in junior high schools, the school uniform included long-sleeve shirts and jackets for boys, sailor outfits for girls, with an optional thin sweater to wear in the cold months. On June 1^st, all the students would change to short sleeves, and nobody needed to feel out of place (unless they forgot about the change).

In the early 2000s when Koizumi was Prime Minister, he promoted a ‘cool biz’ environmentalist attire for summer, doing away with neckties (but keeping on their suit jackets!!!). On June 1^st of that year, all the male members of his party (the vast majority) did away with neckties and showed off their ‘cool biz’ looks, which was differentially complementary or looked out of place for the various members of his party. This also caught on in society at large, and ‘jaku reibo’ (弱冷房, or “weak AC”) became common on trains and elsewhere, and people put up with it, because they didn’t wear any more neckties (although they still had suit jackets).

What was ironic this June 1^st is that it was a cold day and the news program had to make the case that the decision of a company (they were covering with video clips and interviews) to have all their employees wear polo shirts was an energy-saving measure. Typically in my office at ICU, the heater goes off in mid-April, so my electric stove next to my desk goes on when I get cold, but I avoid that by wearing sweaters, not polo shirts!

Anyway, Japan will certainly raise the environmentalist ante this summer by teaching the world how to really save energy during summer. The Fukushima Daichi Power Plant disaster has created a situation in which we must decrease the electricity load by an additional 15% this summer. Nevertheless, Japanese schools only got air conditioning within the last ten years, so it is not an impossible reversal. Some people are hoping that the air in urban centers like Tokyo will become slightly cooler if people give up using air conditioners.

But realize that Japan has always had very hot summers, and last year was the hottest on record. Mothers are concerned about their small children, and schools in areas of Fukushima that are close to the nuclear disaster cannot open their windows, so students study in very hot classrooms. Having given up the ‘field day’ outside one Fukushima school managed to hold it in the gymnasium. A poignant look of relief and gratefulness was on the faces of parents as they watched their children running and playing and having a break from sitting in hot classrooms.

One response to the need for cutting electrical use is the use of LED light bulbs. We might even see a LED renaissance this summer, as consumers are catching on and the demand is soaring. Small (3mmX3mm) chips are being used to light convenience stores from the ceiling, and LED now lights the Yamanote Line trains (the central circular line in Tokyo). A TV news program recently advised consumers to use LED for places that need lighting for long periods (such as ceilings outside the genkan [玄関]　or entryway), because LED bulbs are certainly expensive but this is a good place to quickly get the value that you pay for (motoga toreru).

What I personally fear about summer is mold. In our home we constantly use three dehumidifiers during the summer to keep the mold from growing, and this is another energy-eater. For many in Tokyo air conditioners serve the purpose of dehumidification, and if people are being encouraged not to use them mold could become a large problem here, I feel, depending on the moistness of the location.

All told, this will doubtless be a challenging summer for Japan and an educative summer for the world. Undoubtedly Japanese society will develop better ways of saving energy in everyday life and the world will be hardly able to light a candle to Japan’s efforts—as usual.