+10,000hits (July 1 2007)Thanks!


"Mottainai"

The waste steam co-generation system is considered a promising technology to generate electricity and hot water with high efficiency and low environmental impact. Don't you think?

"Mottainai" is a Japanese term, that has become a catchphrase for Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, equating it roughly to the English phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". In the past, "Mottainai" has had various meanings, including, "it was inconvenient" and "more than my situation". However, today Mottainai has a meaning, roughly translated as "The value such as the thing, the people, and phenomena cannot finish being made the best use of enough and it is useless". Wangari Maathai visited Japan for an event related to the Kyoto Protocol in 2005. At this time, she learnt this word through newspaper coverage of the event. She was impressed by the depth of similarity between the Japanese meaning of the world and equivalent concepts in English and Swahili, about how a person has a responsibility to respect the earth through frugality and conservation in behavior. Since her learning of the word, she has attempted to enter it into the international lexicon, as a symbol of the truly global and ancient nature of environmental respect. She has used the word in numerous speeches on her current world lecture tour, and while speaking before the United Nations, has made the General Assembly repeat it in chorus. (From Wikipedia)