世論 What Japan Thinks

This headline will no doubt have most of my readers groaning, but more of that a couple of paragraphs further down. This was one of the curious results from a recent survey conducted by Japan Research Council into concerns about environmental problems.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 19th of November 2007 (before the aforementioned Japan Tobacco had a number of their China-made frozen gyoza laced with poison, a case that is still unresolved) 1,200 people were randomly selected from resident databases in 200 representative areas. From each of the locations 6 willing survey respondents were chosen for face-to-face interviews. 50.4% of the sample were female, 6.2% were in their teens, 15.2% in their twenties, 17.9% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 18.5% in their fifties, 15.9% in their sixties, and 11.1% in their seventies.

Although Toyota do produce a lot of fuel-efficient cars, with the Prius the star amongst them, and are not slow to blow their own trumpet on the topic, other cars in their range are not so great fuel-wise, and indeed as I mentioned before, their new Noah and Voxy have 10% worse fuel consumption than the old models! As for Japan Tobacco, this survey highlights how clever, evily clever, their advertising team are. Smoking outside has been changed from a health issue to litter and safety issues, with the dangers being poking children in the eyes with lighted ciggies or dropping butt ends rather than dying horribly from cancer or living out your twilight years dragging an oxygen bottle behind you. Also note that Japan Tobacco outranks Sharp, the world’s largest producer of solar panels.

This survey can be cross-referenced with another recent one on Warm Biz from the same company.
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One of Junichiro Koizumi’s (a recent Prime Minister of Japan) legacies are the twin energy-saving initiatives, Cool Biz for the summer, and in this survey conducted by NRC (Japan Research Centre), Warm Biz.

Demographics

Between the 30th of January and the 11th of February 2008 1,200 people from NRC’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 605 were feamel, 75 were in their teens, 181 in their twenties, 215 in their thirties, 184 in their forties, 221 in their fifties, 192 in their sixties, and 132 in their seventies.

Our office is sure to stick up the posters every summer and winter promoting the campaigns, although the effort put into carrying them out is minimal, if not often nonexistant. Today, as most days of the winter, the temperature in the office was a comfortable 24 degrees Celcius, 4 degrees over the recommended maximum. Last night’s and this morning’s train was also rather hot, although that could have had something to do with both times being jammed in tight!
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