Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan is a pioneering work in                  environmental and Asian history as well as an in-depth analysis of the influence of                  science on domestic and international environmental politics. Kenneth Wilkening's                  study also illuminates the global struggle to create sustainable societies.The Meiji                  Restoration of 1868 ended Japan's era of isolation- created self-sufficiency and                  sustainability. The opening of the country to Western ideas and technology not only                  brought pollution problems associated with industrialization (including acid rain)                  but also scientific techniques for understanding and combating them. Wilkening                  identifies three pollution-related "sustainability crises" in modern Japanese                  history: copper mining in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which                  spurred Japan's first acid rain research and policy initiatives; horrendous                  post-World War II domestic industrial pollution, which resulted in a "hidden" acid                  rain problem; and the present-day global problem of transboundary pollution, in                  which Japan is a victim of imported acid rain. He traces the country's scientific                  and policy responses to these crises through six distinct periods related to acid                  rain problems and argues that Japan's leadership role in East Asian acid rain                  science and policy today can be explained in large part by the "historical                  scientific momentum" generated by efforts to confront the issue since 1868,                  reinforced by Japan's cultural affinity with rain (its "culture of rain"). Wilkening                  provides an overview of nature, culture, and the acid rain problem in Japan to                  complement the general set of concepts he develops to analyze the interface of                  science and politics in environmental policymaking. He concludes with a discussion                  of lessons from Japan's experience that can be applied to the creation of                  sustainable societies worldwide.

Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan: A History of Knowledge and Action toward Sustainability (Politics, Science, and the Environment) PDF

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