Review: Bad Water, Nature, Pollution and Politics in Japan, 1870-1950

Abstract

Bad Water is full of ideas by mostly environmental figures in Japan. There are also references to western thought, in particular Darwin, Marx, and Deep Ecology. Japan struggled with waste from mining operations which made them rethink the way they viewed nature and politics. It also had those who had green Agrarian dreams and those who sought to understand and define man’s role in the environment. In this history, the conceptualization of Nature as a provider changed to something that is at the will of our politics. The author argues, like Marx, that nature has been subsumed by capital. The story presented does seek to make arguments that everybody in the field will not agree with or be happy with. Common terms may mean different things in different political nations with the author having his problems with the ideas of liberalism and sometimes Deep Ecology in these battles. The author even writes: As mentioned, I also completely disagree with the exaltation of an untrammeled, unpeopled nature at work in Deep Ecology. This represents nothing more that the overcoming of the crisis merely in thought, in individual consciousness. (p. 202)