Japan's disasters must prompt a radical rethink of citizens' quality of life

In his counterpoint for the Japan Times, Roger Pulvers questions what can be done to limit catastrophic destruction such as the Great East Japan Earthquake, the tsunami it triggered and the subsequent meltdown crises at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, from assaulting any region of this country again. He points at the blind national faith in economic growth at virtually any cost as one vulnerability factor and introduces the GNS. This stands for "Gross National Safety (against Natural Disasters)," as named by its creator, Osamu Kusakabe, president of the Japanese Geotechnical Society and of Ibaraki National College of Technology in Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture.

"We need to estimate just how dangerous it is to live in this country with its frequent natural disasters," says Kusakabe, listing indices about earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes, slope and sea level, that could provide numerical values to aid decision-makers, both public and private. "GNS," says Kusakabe, "will allow those who make policy decisions on whether and how much to invest in the improvement of the land's safety to have scientific bases for their decision-making at their disposal."