Japanese Government Wins in Supreme Court: Tents of Anti-Nuclear Groups Next to METI Ministry Building to Be Forcibly Removed
On July 28, Japan’s Supreme Court handed down its ruling in a case filed originally by the national government over tents pitched by anti-nuclear groups outside buildings of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. It upheld an earlier order that the groups evacuate and pay for their use of the land.
The court’s petty bench, led by Judge Naoto Ohtani, rejected an appeal made by members of the groups against a lower court ruling. The Tokyo District Court is expected to carry out the forcible removal of the tents upon the request of the government, though members of the groups are expected to resist.
The three tents were erected almost five years ago—in September and October 2011—at the north corner of the premises of METI in a space along the sidewalk. Since then, members of a shadowy coalition of primarily far-left groups have continuously occupied them, displaying signs criticizing national nuclear policy and proclaiming the site a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement.
The groups had argued that setting up the tents fell within the concept of freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution, and that the suit by the government was an attempt to interfere with the expression of opinion in violation of that. The Tokyo District Court ruled in the first instance that the government’s filing of the suit was a proper part of managing national property and not unjust, and that it did not interfere with the expression of the same opinions by other means. The Tokyo High Court affirmed that in the second instance.
The ruling includes an order that two defendants of the groups pay about JPY21,000 (USD206 at USD1 = JPY102) per day for use of the land, for a total of nearly JPY40 million (USD392,000) for the five-year period, plus interest.
1.This Month
United Nations: demasking the Torture of Julian Assange. Rico Brouwer and Nils Melzer
Three Mile Island (& Fukushima) Lies & Cover-Ups w/ Gundersen & Wasserman
Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019
Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:
- It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
- It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
- It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.
A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.
Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019
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