Sustainability Sutra: An Ecological Investigation

by Roy Morrison

Overview

Sustainability Sutra addresses the pursuit of sustainability as crucial in the transformation from an industrial to an ecological civilization, exploring in succinct detail how sustainability can be accomplished through an ecological global growth strategy that makes economic growth mean ecological improvement. It is a meditative journey of self-discovery. It is a path and record of a writer's and reader's heart way.  The book includes an Introduction that considers the dynamics of building an ecological future in market economies and examines how the price system can send clear signals for sustainability. Combining ecological consumption taxation, new market rules, fiscal, monetary and investment  can catalyze the trillions of dollars of productive investment in a sustainable future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590793879
Publisher:	SelectBooks
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Series:	Sustainability Now
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Roy Morrison is a writer and energy consultant with over 30 years of diverse experience. He has extensive experience in energy efficiency work, performing energy audits and technical assistance analysis for business, institutional, and government clients. He was the author of the first law in the nation for municipal aggregation for retail electric competition. He also founded the New Hampshire Consumers Utility Cooperative that was the first seller of competitive electricity in New Hampshire. He was a founding staff member of the University of New Hampshire Energy Office.

He is currently working on building solar farms in several states with a focus on using roof tops and marginal and contaminated land to be restored for productive energy use. He pursues a variety of sustainability initiatives, including  zero carbon planning and greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation planning for New England towns and cities.

He delivered a plenary address at the 2013 World Social Forum in Hangzhou which issued the Hangzhou declaration calling for global development of an ecological civilization. Chinese colleagues report he was the first globally to discuss an ecological civilization in his book Ecological Investigations. He recently edited Xinhua's 2014 China Ecological Report, and written an Op-Ed for the Beijing’s People’s Daily assessing China's ecological progress.

He was Founding Director of the Office for Sustainability at Southern New Hampshire University. He has worked on the development of renewable energy hedges; Advanced Energy Performance Contracting for market based mass retrofits of efficiency and renewables;  and  Super Grid development.  He was an organizer and safe energy activist with the Clamshell Alliance in the 1970s and 1980s, co-founder of the American Peace Test, and staff for the Nuclear Freeze Campaign in the 1980s. He helped organize and participated in many large and small non-violent direct actions and risked arrest many times in support of safe energy and nuclear disarmament, and in opposition to nuclear power and nuclear weapons testing.

He is the author of numerous books including Mondragon: A Cooperative Social System; Ecological Democracy, Ecological Investigations; Ecological Civilization 2140; and the poetry book The Loggers of Warner.

Table of Contents

Foreword Michael Charles Tobias xi

Preface xv

Introduction 1

The Sutra as Oracle and Art 34

1 Louisiana Before and After 37

Sun Rising Sutra 44

2 Climate Change and U.S. Politics 49

The Breath of Fife Sutra 56

3 Freedom and Community in the 21st Century 59

Sustainability and Gaea Sutra 61

4 Failures of Market Fundamentalism and Climate Change 63

Sustainability is Life's Way Sutra 68

5 The Ecological Model and a Circular Economy 71

A Self-Conscious Symbiont Sutra 75

6 The Venus Project: A Perfectly Ordered State Without Markets 77

Nexus of Sustainability and Social Practice Sutra 79

7 The Nexus of Freedom and Community: John Rawls or John Stewart Mill? 81

A Moral Ecology Sutra 84

8 California Leads 85

9 Solar Energy Threatens Profits of Utilities, Not the Poor 95

Sustainability As Social Force Sutra 98

10 Greenhouse Gases: What's Sustainable and Who's Responsible? 101

Sustainability As Enchantment, Not Reduction, Sutra 106

11 What Can Happen 109

Sustainability and Time's One Way Arrow Sutra 111

12 Paths to a Sustainable Future 117

An Ecological Market Sutra 120

13 A Chinese Ecological Path 121

14 China's Ecological Pivot: A Report from the World Cultural Forum 125

The Path Sutra 135

15 A BEE and a BIG 137

Convergence of Biological and Social Evolution Sutra 139

16 A BEE 141

Economic Growth As Ecological Improvement Sutra 156

17 A BIG 159

Sustainability Rising Sutra 165

18 Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid 169

Life and Mind Are Coextensive Sutra 172

19 A Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution 175

20 Solar Lights for South African Youth 177

Sustainability Speaks Sutra 182

21 Ecological Tax Transformation 185

22 Assessments on Pollution, Depletion, and Ecological Damage 189

Sustainability's Zero Discount Rate Sutra 194

23 China and Potential for Ecological Value-Added Taxes 195

Sustainability and the Biosphere's System State Sutra 198

24 India: The Renewable Energy Imperative 201

25 Bangladesh: Problems and Opportunities 203

Sustainability as an Emergent Property of the Ecosphere Sutra 208

26 Bangladesh and Louisiana: A Cautionary Tale 211

The Garden of Life Sutra 213

27 Global Tour: Places Working to Get It Right 219

Sustainability in the 21st Century Sutra 226

Notes 231

References 257

Index 273

About the Author 283

What People are Saying About This

Zhihe Wang

Roy Morrison’s Sustainability Sutra: An Ecological Investigation should be regarded as a valuable effort to creating an ecological civilization. It is also an expression of humanity’s desire to live in the face of unfolding global self-destruction. This book is full of insights and several very important observations. It is a timely must-read for anyone seeking a prosperous, sustainable future of our planet.



Zhihe Wang, PhD.

Director of Institute for Postmodern Development of China

From the Publisher

Roy Morrison’s Sustainability Sutra: An Ecological Investigation should be regarded as a valuable effort to creating an ecological civilization. It is also an expression of humanity’s desire to live in the face of unfolding global self-destruction. This book is full of insights and several very important observations. It is a timely must-read for anyone seeking a prosperous, sustainable future of our planet.



Zhihe Wang, PhD.

Director of Institute for Postmodern Development of China

Editorial Reviews

"The Planet’s fever is rising. Many major human activities rapidly destroy the livelihoods of humankind. As a result of global warming as well as air, water and soil pollution and increasing weather extremes, millions of animal and plant species are becoming extinct. Accelerated by terrorism and war, the lives of human beings are put into question. How to combat global warming? Sustainability in the ecological, social and economic spheres is crucial. To achieve sustainable economy, cultural and religious behaviour must change, to save the humanity. Peace, social justice, democracy and ecological economy are the key points. The book by Roy Morrison, Sustainability Sutra elaborates on solutions in economy and society. Sustainable economy comes with zero emission technologies and carbon sinking agriculture. The target must be global cooling, instead of accepting global warming. This stimulates an end of live-endangering toxic emissions from fossil fuels, nuclear energy and chemistry, from toxic pesticide agriculture on the one hand. On the other hand, it enables millions of new jobs and fighting against poverty and hunger, which are the source of conflicts and terrorism. Sustainability Sutra is a great contribution to a discussion on how to stop and reduce the planet’s fever." — Hans-Josef Fell, Member of the German parliament (1998-2013) President of the Energy Watch Group Author of Global Cooling

From the Publisher

The Planet’s fever is rising. Many major human activities rapidly destroy the livelihoods of humankind. As a result of global warming as well as air, water and soil pollution and increasing weather extremes, millions of animal and plant species are becoming extinct. Accelerated by terrorism and war, the lives of human beings are put into question.



How to combat global warming?



Sustainability in the ecological, social and economic spheres is crucial. To achieve sustainable economy, cultural and religious behaviour must change, to save the humanity. Peace, social justice, democracy and ecological economy are the key points.



The book by Roy Morrison, Sustainability Sutra elaborates on solutions in economy and society.



Sustainable economy comes with zero emission technologies and carbon sinking agriculture. The target must be global cooling, instead of accepting global warming. This stimulates an end of live-endangering toxic emissions from fossil fuels, nuclear energy and chemistry, from toxic pesticide agriculture on the one hand. On the other hand, it enables millions of new jobs and fighting against poverty and hunger, which are the source of conflicts and terrorism.



Sustainability Sutra is a great contribution to a discussion on how to stop and reduce the planet’s fever.



Hans-Josef Fell

Member of the German parliament (1998 -2013)

President of the Energy Watch Group

Author of Global Cooling

Hans-Josef Fell