Advanced Technology and Measurement Technology

Question:
Dr. Yamamoto, the word ecodesign is being heard a lot nowadays, but please tell us what got you started doing research in this field.

I originally specialized in materials. Fifteen years ago I helped plan and edit a book called Future Society and Materials Engineering which discussed visions of the future of materials engineering as well as the relationship between resources, environment, and ecological problems. The investigations I did of environmental problems at that time led me to become concerned with ecological problems.

The environmental problems we've finally started to face over the last ten years such as global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer are ones that have been accumulating for such a long time, and over such a wide area, that they will be very difficult to solve. What we didn't realize until recently was that it takes 50-200 years for the carbon dioxide gas that exists in the atmosphere to be slowly absorbed into the oceans and forests, so the CO₂ gas that is currently being expelled will continue to have effects on all life on the surface of the earth

table 1
Evaluation of CO₂ Levels in the Environment
-From"Global Common Logic" Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers-

Sustainable continued output levels of CO₂ = 10-12 billion tons per year
Current output levels of CO₂ = 25 billion tons year

To alleviate concentrations of CO₂ in the air by 450 ppmv, we must limit CO₂ emissions to 600 billion between 1995 and 2100.

Per person per year release of CO₂
(based on a UN prediction for average populations)

2 emissions (in tons)	1995	2010	2020	2050
Developed countries	10.3	5.3	4.1	0.9
Developing countries	1.8	3.1	3.4	1.7

* Assuming methane and nitrogen compound emissions remain at present levels

for the next 50 to 200 years. Therefore quantities of CO₂ emissions from the developed countries must be reduced to one-tenth of 1995 levels by the year 2050. Although we never imagined it, we now realize that every little thing people do has impacts on the global environment that transcend time and locality.

Another point I'd like to make is that because science and technology has developed so far, we take many everyday materials for granted and we have basically lost our sense of how precious and important one material in particular is, metal. In space, huge explosions continued for 12 billion years bringing together various elements to form meteorites, and those meteorites in turn combined to form our earth. The metals that we use are the precious materials that condensed over the 4.6 billion year history of the earth. Our wasting of those metals is terrible thing.

Yet an even bigger problem is the increasing use of organic compounds which don't occur naturally. Presently we can detect 300 such substances in breast milk, and these compounds are being transferred to babies through breast feeding, and even to fetuses through the umbilical cord. We have to confront these realities. Because of theses types of findings, we are starting movements and research projects to promote ecomaterials.