Japan is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. The climate crisis is already affecting everything from the strength of typhoons and flooding to the timing of the cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, Eric Margolis explains in the latest Deep Dive podcast.
With weather-related disasters predicted to inflict more damage more often, startups are piling into disaster prevention and reduction, leveraging their strength in tech and their ability to quickly develop goods and services to address needs in afflicted areas.
Deep Dive podcast, Episode 104: How Japan is already being impacted by climate change | THE JAPAN TIMES
And no region knows more about Japan’s vulnerability to calamities than Tohoku, which bore the brunt of the triple disaster of March 2011. A number of companies around the Miyagi capital of Sendai are launching disaster tech businesses — such as apps to track people at evacuation shelters and relief supplies — thanks to initiatives by the city, the Kahoku Shimpo reports.
But weather-related disasters are not the only ecological threat Japan faces. French and Japanese researchers are analyzing samples from the archipelago’s coastal waters to study how microplastics impact ecosystems, the food chain and human health.
Little is known about the so-called plastisphere, where microorganisms live among discarded plastic, including whether some of the bacteria that thrive there could act as vectors for disease.