The Environmental Load for Basho's Okunohosomichi is 180 EU

Japan in Edo Era had a great social system as long as has to do withenvironmental problems. Let's see form "the Environment in Edo Era"(Environment Civilization Research Institute).

"Edo Era started from the Edo Shogunate of Ieyasu Tokugawa (1603) to TokyoOpening (1868), lasted 265 years. Japan had closed the country during themost of the era, and in Japanese history, it is placed as the era ofpost-modern feudalism.
In this period, there was Tokugawa Shogunate in the central, but there were also self-supporting small governments called Han in each and every district, and there, various industries adequate to each district had grown. Flood control and exploitation of new paddies had been carried out actively, and the rice production had increased until Genroku Era, in the early Edo era. It was, so to speak, the age of development. The population was, we actually do not have precise statistics though, about 10 million in the beginning of Edo Era, and it jumped up 3 times to 30 millions in Genroku Era which was right 100 years after the Shogunate opening.
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If you see the whole daily lives, each Japanese use 10,000 kcal a day nowadays. Converting this amount into petroleum, it would be as much energy as 10 litters. Comparing with this, the power which had been used in Edo era was only man power. It seemed that source of energy was only charcoal, and what is more, they used only a part of woods which grow one after another. This means that only the solar energy burned a part of things which became woods. If you calculated a labor power in a day as 1,000 kcal, it is equivalent to 1% of today, one hundredth.

As mentioned above, men did not influenced natural environment in Edo Erathat Basho lived. If anything, it was an age which nature influenced men bynatural disaster and famine. Thus, the 6 months journey of Basho was trulyrisked his life. Now, the Ecological Unit of Basho's Okunohosomichi was180 days times 1EU, which is equivalent with 2,000 kcal of energy he takesin from food, so the Ecological Unit is 180 EU. Now, what it would be forOkunohosomichi today?

Ecological Unit(EU ):It is difficult to recognize global ecological problems. Counting the food energy of 2,000 kcal that we need for a day as 1EU to look at our environment, the earth look somehow different.