Today attended a Unitarian Universalist meeting in Tokyo with guest speaker Azby Brown, author of Just Enough: Lessons on Living Green from Traditional Japan. His presentation was fascinating, focusing on the lessons we can glean from the successes in sustainability Japan achieved during the Edo period (ca. 1600-1868).
Conversation after the talk led to the question, "How can we apply lessons from this period to the current post-industrial economies of the world's richest countries?" In other words, people in Edo Japan lived sustainable lives, reusing everything from garment scraps to nails out of necessity. In a society with surplus resources (time, energy, and money), excessive consumption, and a culture of debt, how can we have the same sense of urgency about conservation?
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