The Special Lecture for Students “Tradition and Environmental Issues in East Asia” was held in the morning on November 12th, 2007. Professor Kim (SNU), Professor Nha (VNU), Professor Liu (PKU), Dr. Luan (VNU) and Professor Mino (UT) gave lectures for students. Some of them summarized the presentation of the previous session and others gave new speeches which were also very exciting. Professor Kim quoted some phrases from the Old Testament and addressed that we must not overlook the fact that the Western Civilization itself used to have the idea of stewardship of Nature. He also referred to the very environmentally-friendly nature of Korean tradition. Professor Liu spoke about Taoism and explained enthusiastically the notion of the unity of Heaven and Man (天人合一) and other Yin-Yang
tradition in China. Professor Mino (UT) compared the modern understanding of sustainability, which consisted of the society-economy-ecology (ecosystem) triangle, to the new definition of sustainability developed by IR3S, the definition which illustrates the triangle of global, social and human systems. According to his explanation, low-carbon society would be located between global and social systems, human security between global and human systems, and resource-circulating society between social and human systems. All lectures coincided with the advantage of the East Asian knowledge on diversity, holistic approach, and inter-generational sustainability.
Again, Dr. Kimura and her students assisted substantially this lecture session.
