THE 4th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was disclosed in the spring of 2007. The Japanese Ministry of Environment has also announced an of?cially translated version in Japanese. In this paper, we first summarize the 4th report from the IPCC, and second describe past environmental conditions and/or climatic change of our planet Earth. In other words, what phenomena and events have happened on the planet Earth until now? Third, we disseminate information suggesting that the present time may be a major turning point for dramatic environmental changes. Although we can only speculate and hypothesize at this stage, it is realistic to conceive that considerable and severe environmental transformations may arise unless current conditions are addressed. Finally, we would like to describe how Buddhism would approach environmental problems from the perspective of the Buddhist principle of the “middle way,” particularly from the stand point of “the wisdom of the doctrine of origination in dependence” and “the wisdom of the middle way.”
