Tag Archives: IGU

Kyoto Climate Talks

 KICC

Kyoto International Conference Centre

Talks on climate and climate change have a long history in Kyoto, not as long as the 1200 year history of the city but in terms of climate talks, Kyoto is historic.

There were very few biogeography talks at the conference, roughly 6 sessions could fit into what is classically called biogeography.  Though they also would have fallen out under remote sensing, nature society, livelihoods and landscape planning. Due to this limitation of biogeography talks at the meeting I went to talks of the dominant physical geography group “climatology”.  While they were the dominant physical discipline, over all physical geography is grossly under represented at the conference.

An example of how under represented physical geography is can be seen from the 65(8) US based geographers at the conference 3 would be considered physical.  GIS is also poorly represented.  The dominant group is Human Geography. I don’t even know how well Nature Society was represented for in almost all of the biogeography talks one to two talks were about livelihoods in relation to nature, so maybe they too are underrepresented.

Back to the climate.  There were three main climate themes: Historical, Urban and Monsoons.  I primarily attended the historical climatology sessions.  These talks were primarily about Japan showing reconstructions of precipitation, temperatures and ENSO from historical documents.  I was extra interested in these topics considering my research and that I shall be working on reconstructions from the tree rings in central Japan.

Historical Climate

I learned about some more good resources to look at for historical climate data as well as I had some insights on how to merge unusual data sources for my research. Such as the Japan Climate Data Project which is compiling these old documents into useable data.

The mountains huts have been running for roughly 50-100 years.  I am going to ask if they have daily climate data for any span of time that I might be able to use to validate or debunk the laps rates and radiosounde data.

One of the interesting things that came up in many presentations was that in the 1850-1860’s it was especially warm in Japan.  This period of time corresponds with the end of the little ice age here in Japan and throughout East Asia. It will be interesting to examine my tree establishment data to see if there is a trend of greater establishment around this same period.

While I was hoping for a good variety of biogeography talks at IGU, I felt honored that I could attend so many talks on climate at the historic grounds of the Kyoto Protocol.

At One with Nature?

Preliminary talk “Where there in the Japanese Language Originally Equivalent to the words ‘Environment’ and ‘Nature’?” by Dr. Minoru Senda

Dr. Senda discussed why ‘Environment’ and ‘Nature’ were not words found in Japanese before the second half of the 19th century, for before than these words did not exist.  He argues that this is because there is no divide between people and nature in Japanese culture.  To exemplify this point he introduced us to Tobusa Tate which is the ritual of tree respect and worship.  A prayer is made before the tree is cut and again after it has been felled.  On the stump branches are placed and a small shrine is created.

 Senda's talk

Slide from Dr. Senda’s talk, Quote from Keiji Iwata “A tree becomes a person, and a person becomes a tree”

While I found Dr. Senda’s talk interesting and enjoyed learning about Tobusa Tate, I am not sure I agree that there is no divide between people and nature in Japanese culture.  This may have been true before the second half of the 19th century, but I do not think it is true today.  He gave an example of how gardening and rock gardens show that how at one they are with nature.  To me this makes no sense.  By manipulating the plants and rocks into designs is not at one with nature it is controlling nature.

Silver pavillion

Sand Garden at the Silver Pavillion (Ginkaku-ji)

 My experiences in the Japanese Alps which is about as natural as you can get in Japan is that people fear nature rather than being at one with nature.  They are frightened of bears, don’t like to sweat or get dirty and put rain gear on so quickly in a drizzle you would think they might melt.    These do not seem to be behaviors of people who are at one with nature.

That being said I have also seen thousands of people flock into the mountains to be at One with the mountains.   They climb the mountains to watch the rising and setting sun across the amazing landscape of the Japanese Alps (when it is not raining or foggy), however, they distance themselves by sleeping in comfy beds and eat hot food at the lodges.  Yet still claim to be one with nature.

Helio on Tsu

5am, post-sunrise on Tsubakuro a helicopter arrives to drop of supplies.  We saw more than one Keg being unloaded from the cargo net.

IGU- Let the Conference Begin

International Geographic Union – IGU

IGU Banner

This year the IGU regional conference was held in Kyoto at the Kyoto International Conference Centre (ICC).  The conference ran from August 5th-August 9th.The day before the conference began there was a public lecture at Kyoto University in Japanese in order to both introduce and welcome Kyoto to geography and the conference.

The opening ceremony for the conference was held on Monday morning.  Before attending the conference we were told that there would be a security check before entering the opening ceremonies.  The program said that in addition to the many welcoming speeches that a message from the Prime Minister, due to the security there was speculation that the Prime Minister might actually be in attendance.  However, this was not the case.  Instead to our delight the Imperial Prince and Princess Akihito were in attendance.  It turns out that Prince Akihito has a PhD in Molecular Biology and specialized in chicken domestication in East-Asia.

Near the end of the opening ceremonies the gold metals were given out to the International Geography Olympiad (iGeo, http://japan-igeo.com/english/) winners.  The iGeo Olympiad is a competition for aspiring high school geographers.  The top 10 winners were from an interesting group of countries: Romania, Slovakia, Mexico, Singapore, Croatia, Australia and Latvia.  The top winner was a young man from Singapore.

At the end of the opening ceremonies there was a high school drumming group (KUSW Konko Toin High School Drum Troop), Helena and I had seen a similar drum group in Matsumoto a few weeks ago.  However, this group at the opening ceremony was amazing.  They were so in sync and animated that they really did an amazing job.

KyotoICC_Geog

Geographers in the garden of Kyoto ICC

After the opening ceremony there was a group lunch where I met up with my friend Tim Reiffenstein from Mount Allison University.  It was great seeing him and meeting new geographers.  After lunch there was time to relax before the first sessions began.  I presented in the second of the sessions that ran that day.  I took some of the break to sit in the gardens of the Kyoto ICC to go over my talk and mentally prepare for my presentation.

Tim and Me

Tim Reiffenstein and me in the gardens at the Kyoto ICCC

My session was titled “Landscape Analysis and Landscape Planning”, there were two talks in the session.  The first talk was by Dr. Victor Ermoshin, a Russian professor from the Pacific Geographical Institute whose talk was on “Functional zoning of the Amur River basin landscapes”.  Then I gave my talk on “Structural variation between an angiosperm timberline and gymnosperm subalpine dominated forest, Hida Mountains, Japan”.  The audience was primarily Russian colleagues of Dr. Ermoshin, however, there were also a few Japanese professors there too.  They asked some good questions, understanding that the work I presented was a pilot study that I am using as a platform for my dissertation research.

After my presentation was a cocktail party hosted by IGU.  They had a large buffet as well as an open Sake Bar.  I met lots of interesting new professors and students from all over the world during the party.  Post party I went out with a group of Urban and Rural Geographers, interestingly they were primarily Spanish speaking from both Europe and Japan.  It was a great time and I really enjoyed meeting these geographers from different countries and disciplines.

IGU CocktailParty Toast

Toast made by the President of the IGU Vladimir Kolossov at the Cocktail Party

IGU CocktailParty Sake

Sake Bar

IGU CocktailParty

Milling about and socializing