Environmental Consciousness in Japan (<Special Issue>Environmental Consciousness in Southeast and East Asia: Comparative Studies of Public Perceptions of Environmental Problems in Hong Kong(China), Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam)

Abstract

Through semi-structured interviews with 33 Japanese respondents, using a protocol adapted from Kempton et al., we seek to limn the environmental consciousness of Japanese and compare it with that of Kempton's American sample. After exploring views on the environment in general, we use the salient, contested, and weakly understood issue of dioxin as a way of probing the cultural models of respondents. We find that national differences are minor in environmental discourse, and hypothesize that the most significant disparity, in acceptance of the precautionary principle, is related to a feeling of political and social powerlessness. Unlike in America, which may be the outlier, religious discourse does not explicitly enter into the presentation of environmental consciousness in Japan.