Hiroshima lemons - ATCM in Japan

I had been waiting for this so much! ATCM in Japan - almost at home.

Of course, Hiroshima is not Kyoto. Particularly culinarily, I was surprised how little “at home” I felt. No fine tofu dishes - big fat okonomiyaki or yakisoba instead, and, to be true, I have never been a fan of these. Also, lots of gluten in it. But Hiroshima lemons - the lemon juice, jelly or ice cream - were wonderful. And when hiking up the hill to the wonderfully fresh and enchanting Mitaki temple, I got hold of some maccha warabimochi, and had a nice quiet Japan moment with friends.

I had the privilege of presenting Estonia’s Antarctic Education and Outreach activities at the dedicated workshop; the presentation was also submitted to the ATCM as IP132.

Hiroshima is the city of peace and it was no coincidence that the Japanese government had decided to hold the meeting here. Antarctic Treaty is a peace treaty, and Japan did everything they could to broker peace at this meeting. To no avail. As productive as the meeting was for me, it was rather unproductive for the Treaty as a whole. The main contested issues of the last several meetings - the protection of the emperor penguins, and the acceptance of new consultative parties - remained unresolved. The host country communique can be found here. Thorough and rather neutral, its publication was nevertheless contested by “some parties”. The lemons are sometimes very sour, even in Hiroshima.

I have been fascinated by the story of the canary birds taken to Antarctica by the first Japanese Antarctic expedition in 1957 by its overwintering leader Nishibori Eizaburō. The expedition felt weary about the airtightness of the module housing and was worried that the CO2 levels would get too high. In such an event, the canary bird would have given an early warning.

The true canary birds of the Antarctic are the emperor penguins. Except that “some parties” fail to listen to their warning signs. Despite clear signs of population decrease and dependence on reducing sea ice, Russia and China keep blocking their inclusion in the Specially Protected Species list. But do we others really listen? The inclusion in the Specially Protected Species List would allow limiting other anthropogenic pressures on the birds, which is helpful and necessary, but to actually save the emperor penguins, we would need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now. Instead, we are voting whether our dying canaries should get an undisturbed nest in the mine.

By the way, Nishibori’s canary birds were eaten up by the expedition’s cat, but there seemed to be no oxygen problems in the station anyway.