Complexity in History: Who Should be Blamed?

              In a class, an English teacher asked me ,"Who should be responsible for throwing nuclear bombs in Japan? Should the scientists who invented it be accused?" I said, "Well, I think the government which took an advantage of the scientific invention should be accused. Any invention such as dynamite and airplanes can be beneficial and harmful, largely depending on how people use it. " I think my answer was convincing enough, but the teacher reasoned that nuclear bombs, which are definitely weapons, would not have been made without those scientists and thus the scientists should be accused!

               To me, this question was very hard to answer with confidence. The responsibility for this incident in Nagasaki and Hiroshima can be attributed to many individuals and groups, and I think this is the complexity when we try to have a consensus on recognition of historical events. For example, Some people could argue that WW2 would not have happened if WW1 did not happen even though both of them did not seem directly related each other. But then, if Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria did not go to Sarajevo, WW1 would not have happened. But then, if....

              I think we can endlessly keep attributing the cause of the WW2 to the past events. History, most of the time, happens with cause-effect relationships. Thus, if I try to answer the question teacher asked in a class, I could say, "Perhaps, the god should be responsible for the nuclear bombs because it created us."

An Innovative Solution to Great Pacific Garbage Patch

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljrbtYlku-k

            I have watched this Tedtalk about how the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be solved. The speaker is a18 year-old highschool student, and I find his idea very innovative.

            . We have always thought of education and increasing the awareness as a first-step of the solution for such global environmental issues. But we have never thought of how we can directly solve such issue. His idea is rather direct and simple because his idea is a machine that is simply trapping trashes.
           

            His idea is still very radical because he used ocean current as a mover of the machine to save the maintanace costs of the machine. As a result of this low-budget solution, he expected some entrepreneurs could invest to profit from selling plastics. This profitable solution certainly increases demand for investment.

            His idea is not concrete yet and we might have to be skeptical about his statistics and expectations. But his idea is innovative and I believe some developments will be made on his idea.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

            Have you ever heard of Great Pacific Garbage Patch? For those who have never heard, it is an environmental issue in which trash mainly from Japan and the United States are accumulated in the center of the Pacific Ocean as a result of North Atlantic Gyre.

            I just found this serious and global environmental issue from my geography class and was totally shocked that Japan was the large contributor of throwing away garbage in the ocean. In Japan, I used to hear that Asian Dust and air pollutions from China were very problemic for Japan, and I see many people complained about China`s loose environmental policy. Nevertheless, I have never heard of my Japanese friends and media talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Although Japan should be largely responsible for this issue, many Japanese people including myself are not aware of this global issue. (which is also problemic!)

            I think when I consider any global issue, I cannot judge the responsibility for it based only on my personal experience which is often influenced by Japanese media because my country might be doing something unacceptable in other parts of the world. From this finding, I realized that "perspectives" are very important whenever we evaluate the responsibility of any country for the global issues because a seemingly environmentally friendly country like Japan - at least I think Japan is - can be a monster in "unknown" environmental issues.