Shades of Grey

Is anyone else struck by the apparent irony of holding such an environmentally significant conference, that culminated in the Kyoto Protocol, in a country like Japan; where if it weren't for sudden massive mountains, everywhere would most likely be hard grey concrete, holding onto hot hot heat, making a massive hothouse that hasn't had it's misters turned on for weeks (BTW, does anyone else happen to be picking lettuce leaves at Fresh Provisions, when they turn the misters on? Every Single Time?). Solid greyness as far as the eye could see and the only undulations to pierce the monotony would be the perfectly symmetrical skyscrapers and the dog boxes that are arguably called apartments. Or is it just me?
Perhaps it has less to with irony and more to do with the fact that I've just been on a bus travelling through Osaka - a city of every shade of grey imagineable - to the airport so I can flee the impermeable bubble of Japan and return to Australia, where, currently, even my greys will seem brighter.