RetireJapan

A bit topic but relevant for when I consider retiring. I want to live in a clean place when I have wonderful views and clean air. While I don’t like downtown Tokyo, there are some wonderful suburbs in the Kanto region. However, over the past few years, Tokyo has gotten more and more polluted and the air quality is just terrible.

My Windy app is telling me that NO2 is super high, Accuweather says PM2.5 and PM10 are high.


I don’t know how accurate these apps are but when I look out the window, there’s something in the air and a lot of it. Living on the 19th floor now just seems a constant reminder of how dirty it is outside.

I’m not sure what’s behind the growth of pollution in Tokyo (and Japan). I’m guessing construction has a part to play. Planting trees doesn’t help as they prune them back to the trunk. Does anyone know of a plan to address this or is this it? If this is it, I need to plan accordingly.

The good news is that in Tokyo average levels of many major air pollutants have in fact been decreasing over recent years - see below data. The bad news is that the pollution levels are still higher than the clean air of the inaka. And at the current rates of decrease, it will take years for Tokyo to get there.

Ultimately we know how to improve air quality and have done so for a long time - stop burning fossil fuels. Whether the switch will come quick enough for you I guess depends on your situation and retirement plans.

Try AQI: https://aqicn.org/city/japan/shinjuku-k ... -shinjuku/

Looks great right now.

And it's sometimes interesting to zoom out enough that you can see this part of the world--from china, across korea, and back to here.

TBS wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:01 pm The good news is that in Tokyo average levels of many major air pollutants have in fact been decreasing over recent years - see below data. The bad news is that the pollution levels are still higher than the clean air of the inaka. And at the current rates of decrease, it will take years for Tokyo to get there.

Ultimately we know how to improve air quality and have done so for a long time - stop burning fossil fuels. Whether the switch will come quick enough for you I guess depends on your situation and retirement plans.

Thanks for using data to correct my assumptions!

Can we use geothermal here like Iceland or does that upset the onsen crowd? I see a lot of solar but they’re kind of eye sores out in the countryside. Not sure these are good solutions.

Ax6isB wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:37 am Thanks for using data to correct my assumptions!

Can we use geothermal here like Iceland or does that upset the onsen crowd? I see a lot of solar but they’re kind of eye sores out in the countryside. Not sure these are good solutions.

With air pollution in the big cities, it tends not to be the electric power stations that are often far away, but the trucks, vehicles, factories, incinerators, construction sites, and stoves and heaters in people's homes that are the main cause. Switching these equipments to electric, or at least away from the dirtier fuels like diesel oil, will help a lot. A quick google showed up this document with interesting information on what the Government and Tokyo-to have been doing. It is a little old though. Perhaps someone else knows of a better resource?

Dropped the working behind the above graphs I did on GitHub here. It will be interesting to follow what happens with Tokyo air quality in coming years. Will things keep improving, or will they flatline because of Japan's continued obsession with hybrid vehicles at the expense of fully electric EVs?