The Days of Winter Unwinding 2006-2007 A Realization of Climate and the Sprouting of Literaturization

The Days of Winter Unwinding 2006-2007 A Realization of Climate and the Sprouting of Literaturization

At the end of 2006, Japanese news and columns were lined with the words "December is strange" and "It's winter, but it's twenty degrees. The articles took everyday sensations rather than number tables as their starting point and spoke of a modulation in the feel of the season. In Tokyo, too, the unusually warm weather at the end of the year became a topic of conversation, and at the beginning of the year, a record 22 degrees Celsius for January was observed in New York's Central Park. The streets were filled with people in short sleeves, sharing the sensation of the contours of winter unraveling.

In the background, there is an unusual global warming trend. The Japan Meteorological Agency declared 2006 the third hottest year in recorded history since 1891, and December was particularly warm. Even in terms of numbers, it was a winter that confirmed our experience. Japanese newspapers described this winter with stories and descriptions of cityscapes. Instead of a linear graph of temperatures, they collected fragments of real experiences, such as "the way home without a scarf" or "the lightness of the morning air," and tried to describe the changes in climate in the language of daily life.

This style of writing can be seen as the literaryization of environmental thought. At the same time that British economics was methodically formulating the climate crisis as a market failure, Japanese discourse was sharing the crisis through the entrance of experience. While the Stern Review exclaimed that "climate change is the biggest market failure in history," people first understood the situation by the anomaly of the air touching their cheeks.

Later, research dealing head-on with sensations and emotions sorted out that climate emotions are associated not only with anxiety and sadness, but also with anger, hope, and a desire to act. The disturbance of winter as body memory led to the mapping of emotions, and we began to verbalize the changes in our breathing. It was a small revolution to speak about the crisis in the language of life and to connect it to action.