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Paris Freedom from Oil France is the first major industrial country to cut its energy dependence on oil to below the 50 per cent mark. By the end of this decade the French government hopes to reduce the proportion of oil in its national energy requirement to 30 per cent. As soon as the OPEC boycott went into effect in 1973, plans were drawn up to reduce oil dependence. The first step was the large-scale development of nuclear energy, which in 1980, for example, increased 48 per cent over the preceding year. By the end of this year, two-thirds of France’s electricity will come from nuclear sources. Another reason for the decrease in oil use is conservation, according to the Ministry of Energy. Last year, there was a reduction of 1.2 per cent in total energy consumption over 1979, and a drop of 6 per cent in gasoline use. Some of this reduction is no doubt due to higher prices of gas and fuel oil, as well as to general economic conditions; but the figures are there just the same. What is still unknown is how far development of other energy sources, especially nuclear ones, can be pushed if the economic return becomes unfavorable.

Tokyo The Urban Disease Environmental anxiety is at last besieging Japan, the country that leads the world in production of steel, electronics, cameras, automobiles, and many other things. Industrial centers, particularly Tokyo, are so densely urbanized that even ordinary apartments within reach of factories and offices are too expensive for all but the wealthiest businessmen. Those who are unmarried often live in “dormitories” near where they work; the ordinary suburbanite must travel hours back and forth from his garden plot. Complaints abound about the lack of parks, overcrowded living conditions, noise pollution, traffic congestion, and lack of industrial zoning. A basic problem is that Tokyo, twice destroyed in this century—by an earthquake in 1923 and by fire-bombing in the Second World War—was twice rapidly rebuilt with hardly a thought for planning or environment. Urban congestion is in fact so bad that the government is developing a long-range plan to move the capital elsewhere should Tokyo, with its 11.5 million people, be crippled by another major earthquake. Some 140,000 persons were killed and 600,000 buildings destroyed in the 1923 disaster.

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Paris Freedom from Oil France is the first major industrial country to cut its energy dependence on oil to below the 50 per cent mark. By the end of this decade the French government hopes to reduce the proportion of oil in its national energy requirement to 30 per cent. As soon as the OPEC boycott went into effect in 1973, plans were drawn up to reduce oil dependence. The first step was the large-scale development of nuclear energy, which in 1980, for example, increased 48 per cent over the preceding year. By the end of this year, two-thirds of France’s electricity will come from nuclear sources. Another reason for the decrease in oil use is conservation, according to the Ministry of Energy. Last year, there was a reduction of 1.2 per cent in total energy consumption over 1979, and a drop of 6 per cent in gasoline use. Some of this reduction is no doubt due to higher prices of gas and fuel oil, as well as to general economic conditions; but the figures are there just the same. What is still unknown is how far development of other energy sources, especially nuclear ones, can be pushed if the economic return becomes unfavorable.

Tokyo The Urban Disease Environmental anxiety is at last besieging Japan, the country that leads the world in production of steel, electronics, cameras, automobiles, and many other things. Industrial centers, particularly Tokyo, are so densely urbanized that even ordinary apartments within reach of factories and offices are too expensive for all but the wealthiest businessmen. Those who are unmarried often live in “dormitories” near where they work; the ordinary suburbanite must travel hours back and forth from his garden plot. Complaints abound about the lack of parks, overcrowded living conditions, noise pollution, traffic congestion, and lack of industrial zoning. A basic problem is that Tokyo, twice destroyed in this century—by an earthquake in 1923 and by fire-bombing in the Second World War—was twice rapidly rebuilt with hardly a thought for planning or environment. Urban congestion is in fact so bad that the government is developing a long-range plan to move the capital elsewhere should Tokyo, with its 11.5 million people, be crippled by another major earthquake. Some 140,000 persons were killed and 600,000 buildings destroyed in the 1923 disaster.