Abstract
The heavy and chemical industries, which flourished during Japan’s era of rapid economic growth, wreaked egregious damage to the environment and caused severe human health damage. In the first half of the 1960s, laws were created for the symptomatic treatment of air and water pollution, which in particular required measures for abatement.
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Notes
- 1.
Descriptions of the itai-itai disease-damaged area are based on Kubota (2019a, b), which readers should see for detailed references. Although this chapter does not go into detail about the current state of decontamination in the area ravaged by itai-itai disease, one view is that cropland has not recovered its expected quality. Because my investigation is still insufficient, this is a subject for future study.
- 2.
This information is based on interviews with Kunihiro Takagi, museum documents, and other source materials.
- 3.
I feel that the situation is serious enough to require use of the exaggerated term “paradigm shift.” Especially in urban planning in the broad sense, there is no thorough examination of the public-interest/public-harm balance invested in the objective of the entity declaring it, and the planning is mere immature engineering technology in every sense, such as the justifiability of the means used to attain objectives, and the soundness of post-construction assessment. It seems there is a shallow understanding of time, humans, space, and other elements. On this matter see Kubota (2021a, b).
- 4.
Pollution Resource Center Network: https://kougai.info.
- 5.
Nuclear Power Disaster Research Center furusato: Iwaki Yumoto Hot Spring, https://furusatondm.mystrikingly.com/#furusato.
- 6.
If something is unacceptable to the involved parties, then to the entity promoting a public works project, it is likewise unacceptable and will be abandoned when the burden of co** with damage is included, especially when the economic cost is too great. On the other hand, citizens at risk of becoming victims will think about how much in compensation they will need if they suffer harm, or if they will use that public service even at a high price, or wonder if there are other means to be used instead, and if, after having considered those, they feel the project is still unacceptable, one imagines they will give up that public service. I discussed such situations not with respect to Fukushima after the nuclear accident, but with respect to the still uncompleted maglev train in Kubota (2022a).
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Kubota, A. (2023). How Do We Cope with Pollution, a Form of Environmental Damage? Learning from a Community Devastated by Itai-Itai Disease. In: Yokemoto, M., Hayashi, M., Shimizu, M., Fujiyoshi, K. (eds) Environmental Pollution and Community Rebuilding in Modern Japan. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3239-9_4
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