We live on the Earth, the 3rd planet of the solar system. The Earth has nurtured life as a watery planet, and life has recreated the Earth into the planet with a rich natural environment. Coal, oil, and natural gas are essential resources for modern societies, but these stock resources made in the course of evolution are exhaustible. On the other hand, the 20th century was the period when various artificial systems had spread rapidly by development of science and technology. Aircraft, car, railway, and other transportation systems sped up traveling on the Earth, and rocket transported humans to the moon. Also, humans acquired unprecedented energy from nuclear power which needs no biological production activity. Semiconductor device gave birth to tools with memory and computing power far higher than humans' capability. Information system extended our audio-visual abilities beyond space-time. Consequently, these technologies builded convenient transportation network, energy network, information network and today's such enormous artificial environments. However, as is generally known, these artificial environments had an irreversible impacts on the natural environment such as depletion of stock resources, mass emission of waste, global climate change, which raised the challenges of sustainability. Now, these issues we are confronting are not just technological problems. Words as "energy security" and "global worming" suggest that these issues are not what only a single country or a region has to handle, but political, economic, and civilizational problems that whole countries on the Earth have to deal with. In this lecture, from viewpoints of science, technology, politics, and economy, let us overview how academia is challenging these energy and environment issues.

Conflict Between Natural Environment and Artificial Environment

Responsibilities of Technology in Energy and Environment Issues

The Climate System as a Basis for Energy and Environment Issues

Governance of Energy and Environment Issues

Energy and Environment Issues:From a Viewpoint of Economics