Congratulations to everyone in the School of Marine Life Sciences, School of Marine Resources and Environment, and School of Marine Technology for graduating today. And congratulations to everyone in the Department of Marine Science and the Graduate School of Marine Science and Technology. I would like to express my sincere respect to all of you who have stuck to your original intentions when you enrolled and advanced to this university and achieved your ambitious goal of graduating and completing your studies.

　Please congratulate yourself on your efforts in overcoming countless hardships to reach this day, and be sure to share that joy with your family and friends.

　We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to Mr. Kazuaki Matsumoto, Chairman of Rakusui-kai General Incorporated Association, and Mr. Hiroshi Sekine, Chairman of Kaiyo-kai General Incorporated Association, for taking time out of their busy schedules to attend today's event.

　Now, you who are setting sail from the Japan Studies Institute will board a new ship, meet new friends, and head for a new port. As students of our university, there are high expectations for you to become experts in academic fields related to the sea. Furthermore, on this new ship, you will find colleagues from different fields of expertise, and you will continue to sail together. We hope that you will find colleagues with whom you get along well, but there may be some with whom you feel that you do not get along. This is because society is made up of a wide variety of people, and this is the new ship you will be boarding.

　I came across the phrase "Buji Kore Kinin" in a book I was reading the other day. It was originally written in the Chinese Tang Dynasty Zen book "Rinjiroku," and "Buji" does not mean "no injuries or accidents" as we usually use it, but rather refers to being as you are without trying to cover up. And Kinin literally means a noble person. If we apply it to us, it means that if we don't desire honor or praise, and always concentrate on our work with a calm mind, we will find ourselves becoming a key member of the team before we know it. In a group made up of diverse people, I think it is important to value communication with each other, sometimes say "That's good," and act in a way that allows us to perform at our best as a team.

　On the other hand, when you judge from the knowledge of your field that you have learned so far that your colleagues are heading in the wrong direction, you must remain calm and explain logically with scientific evidence, and make an effort to make them understand that they are wrong. For example, due to distrust in the global warming countermeasures being taken around the world, the United States issued two presidential orders to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. In order to dispel this vague distrust,2021Years8The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)The Sixth Assessment Report of theEvent AttributionBased on scientific evidence, it concludes that "there is no doubt that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land."allotmentmeans "to attribute a cause to something" and thisEvent Attributionis a research method that uses probabilistically derived numerical values ??to clearly answer vague questions such as "Is the recent abnormal weather caused by global warming?"IPCCThe assessment reports serve to raise public awareness of the problem and a sense of crisis, and also to promote measures to combat global warming in each country.

　By the way, thisEvent Attribution The original research was conducted by Professor Shukuro Manabe, a senior researcher at Princeton University.1969This is the "Atmosphere-Ocean Coupled Model" published in 2013, which demonstrated that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration affects global warming.2021He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007. Initially, it was a numerical simulation in a limited computational domain, but many researchers and engineers from a wide range of fields have been working on it.Event AttributionThis was expanded to include simulation calculations for the entire Earth using supercomputers, enhancing its practical value. This is probably what led to the Nobel Prize being awarded. I think this is a typical example of how the involvement of many people across research fields can lead to even higher levels of results.

　In Japan, where the birthrate is rapidly declining, I believe that the presence of people like "Muzu kore kijin" who are not fixated on their own specialty and who actively communicate with people from different fields, will be the key to supporting the sustainable development of society. Unfortunately, I have no contact with Professor Manabe, but according to interview articles by people close to Professor Manabe on the National Institute for Environmental Studies' website, Professor Manabe seems to enjoy talking to anyone, and this attitude remains the same whether it is an interview for the Nobel Prize or a research presentation by a student whose name I don't even know. I believe he is truly a "Muzu kore kijin" person.

　What I would like you to keep in mind today is that, first, you are part of a group of researchers and engineers who understand the ocean better than anyone else. I also want you to become key members of this new ship, knowing that "safety is happiness." I understand that setting sail on the vast ocean of society can be accompanied by anxiety. However, you are not alone. Far offshore, there are many allies waiting for you.22Many of you have graduated from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and its predecessors, Tokyo University of Mercantile Marine and Tokyo University of Fisheries. The network of alumni that spreads around the world will give you great strength. I hope you will become a member of the Rakusui-kai or Kaiyo-kai and get off to a smooth sailing start. And in the future, I hope you will become people who can strongly lead your juniors. Also, when you want to aim higher through reskilling and upskilling, please come back to Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. We hope that our university will always be a university that warmly welcomes you.

　I look forward to seeing your smiling, energetic faces again.

 

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Toshio Iseki, President of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology