Tag Archives: Japan

Finances, History

The Quadra Project: Globalization – Part 1

Peter Zeihan, in his 2022 book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, offers an insightful and credible explanation for the globalization process that affects us all, and is becoming increasingly relevant because of global economic, political and environmental factors. Although his book might exaggerate the importance of America, his ideas deserve our attention because they provide a framework for illuminating other related subjects.

At the end of World War II, in 1945, the world was in a political and economic mess. Although Germany and Japan had been defeated, most of the rest of the world had been heavily damaged by the conflict. In the East, an imperial Japan was in ruin, as was China after the Japanese invasion of its northern territories. In Europe, Germany, too, was in ruin. Great Britain, Italy, France, Russia and their many adjacent countries had been heavily damaged.

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Energy

how 2025 is shaping up to be a big year for LNG in B.C.

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

After years of construction, nearly 100 arrests, billions in government subsidies and dozens of environmental infractions, B.C.’s long-promised liquefied natural gas, or LNG, export industry is poised to start shipping overseas this year.

It’s been more than a decade since an idea to transform a little northern B.C. industry town into the first community in Canada to export LNG across the Pacific Ocean was just a twinkle in a corporate boardroom. This year, LNG Canada will send its first shipments from Kitimat, B.C., to Asia, marking Canada’s entry into the global LNG market.

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Environment

Paul Watson: Activist, Pirate, Friend

interview with Rex Weyler (All 5 Podcasts of an FM radio special feature originally airing January 21 -25, 2025).

In December 2024, the environmental activist Paul Watson was freed by Danish authorities from detention in Greenland.  He had been held there due to an Interpol red-notice (warrant) issued against him by the government of Japan. The Danish Ministry of Justice denied official requests to extradite Watson for trial in Japan, and he was released to rejoin his family.

What did Paul Watson do that so angered the Japanese government?  Watson, born in Canada, has spent most of his adult life — ever since the 1970s — protesting against the commercial slaughter of whales and other marine mammals.  He was a founding member of Greenpeace, and participated in their early actions to document and obstruct the Russian whaling fleet in the North Pacific.   One of his shipmates on these early campaigns was longtime Cortes resident Rex Weyler.

In this special feature, we offer an extended interview with Rex Weyler; he offers his personal memories of the early Greenpeace campaigns and of Paul Watson, who became a lifelong friend.

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History

The Quadra Project: Edo Japan

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Maybe Edo Japan is an echo of our better past and can be a model for our better future. It was a period in Japanese history began with the consolidation of power by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 and lasted until 1867, an ending that came as a result of the destabilizing effects of American and European traders who forced an isolated and sustainable Japan into the world of 19th century commerce and values.

The beginning of the Edo Period, as the Tokugawa Shogunate is known, brought to an end a century of political and military struggle among feudal lords (daimyo) that had left Japan in economic, social and environmental chaos. Internal warfare had created massive poverty as well as social disorder, and badly managed resources in the past had so damaged the natural ecology that it was unable to support the population of 12 million Japanese. By the end of the Edo Period, however, wars were long gone, Japan was comfortably providing for a population of 30 million, employment had established a meaningful place for everyone in the Japanese society, and the environmental problems had been corrected. So, what happened during the 264 years of the Edo Period?

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Indigenous Nations, Transportation

First Nations Climate Initiative signs green shipping corridor agreement

Editor’s note: another sign that communities are beginning to take climate change more seriously.

By Seth Forward, Prince Rupert Northern View, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

More than 11,000 kilometres away from Northwest B.C., the West Green Shipping Corridor agreement was signed on Dec. 6 by the First Nations Climate Initiative (FNCI), a group comprising Lax Kw’alaams, Metlakatla, Nisga’a and Haisla. 

The North Coast group attended the COP 28 (Conference of the Parties) conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

Other signatories to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) included Canada and the Port of Prince Rupert, along with ports in the UAE, South Korea and Japan. The FNCI says it would like to see the Port of Prince Rupert become a pioneer in decarbonizing its operations. 

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