The Future of Coal: The “Dead Island of Hashima”
source: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/30/283457/the-future-of-coal-the-dead-island-of-hashima/
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What happens when a community dependent on a finite fossil resource can no longer go on exploiting? These powerful pictures tell the story.
The dead island of Hashima delivers a lively warning about the importance of foresight. It offers a view of the end result of “development,” the fate of a community severed from Mother Earth and engaged in a way of life disconnected from its food supply. In short, Hashima is what the world will be like when we finish urbanizing and exploiting it: a ghost planet spinning through space—silent, naked, and useless.
— Brian Burke-Gaffney, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science
Located 18 miles off the coast of Nagasaki, the island of Hashima was once the hub of Japan’s coal mining activity. From the early 1900′s to the 1970′s, the island played a major role in Japan’s economic growth. Owned by Mitsubishi, it was home to dangerous undersea mines that killed hundreds of people. At its peak, Hashima was producing about 400,000 tons of coal per year — more coal than the U.S. exported to China in 2009.
Hashima was was completely dependent on the outside world. It had coal, and that was it. The community, which peaked at over 5,200 people, had to import everything — food, fresh water, building materials and clothing. So when Japan started transitioning from a coal-based economy to an oil-based economy, the island had nothing else to rely on. Mitsubishi began laying off workers in the 1960′s and eventually shut down the entire community in 1974.
According to Brian Burke Gaffney of the Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, who wrote a history of the island in Cabinet magazine, the Japanese government as used pictures of Hashima in newspaper ads promoting energy conservation — reminding people of what happens when a community (or country) uses up everything it has with no back-up plan.
By Stephen Lacey on Jul 30, 2011 at 11:21 am
More at website
The dead island of Hashima delivers a lively warning about the importance of foresight. It offers a view of the end result of “development,” the fate of a community severed from Mother Earth and engaged in a way of life disconnected from its food supply. In short, Hashima is what the world will be like when we finish urbanizing and exploiting it: a ghost planet spinning through space—silent, naked, and useless.
— Brian Burke-Gaffney, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science
Located 18 miles off the coast of Nagasaki, the island of Hashima was once the hub of Japan’s coal mining activity. From the early 1900′s to the 1970′s, the island played a major role in Japan’s economic growth. Owned by Mitsubishi, it was home to dangerous undersea mines that killed hundreds of people. At its peak, Hashima was producing about 400,000 tons of coal per year — more coal than the U.S. exported to China in 2009.
Hashima was was completely dependent on the outside world. It had coal, and that was it. The community, which peaked at over 5,200 people, had to import everything — food, fresh water, building materials and clothing. So when Japan started transitioning from a coal-based economy to an oil-based economy, the island had nothing else to rely on. Mitsubishi began laying off workers in the 1960′s and eventually shut down the entire community in 1974.
According to Brian Burke Gaffney of the Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, who wrote a history of the island in Cabinet magazine, the Japanese government as used pictures of Hashima in newspaper ads promoting energy conservation — reminding people of what happens when a community (or country) uses up everything it has with no back-up plan.
By Stephen Lacey on Jul 30, 2011 at 11:21 am
More at website
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Right now China has not only surpassed the United States in greenhouse emmissions. China is also leading the world in the production of green technology.
It must be a communist plot! - 10 months ago
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