March 30, 2006  

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Ramapo College Hosts A Public Debate: Creating A Sustainable World

(Mahwah) - A public debate to discuss the central themes in Creating A Sustainable World: Past Experience/Future Struggle, a book co-edited by Dr. Trent Schroyer, a professor of sociology-philosophy at Ramapo College of New Jersey, will be held Wednesday, April 26 from 5 to 9:30 p.m. in the York Room, located in the Birch Mansion on the College campus.

Schroyer explains, “When we use the phrase ‘world sustainability,’ we are concerned not only with getting our metabolism with nature right, but also with maintaining a public ethos of evidence and truthfulness, accountability and transparency in which legitimate democratic discourse and political action can change rules and include stakeholders.”  This part of the program documents how an ideology of sustainable development was created at the Earth Summit in 1992 and further clarified at the Rio + 10 Summit in Johannesburg in 2002.

A panel, chaired by Tom Golidik, also a co-editor of the book, will address “Strategies for World Sustainability.”  “World sustainability means identifying the forms and capacities that people need to sustain their own socioeconomic existence,” says Schroyer.  “When local and regional peoples have the capacity to deal with their food, water, energy, health, housing, etc., they can act effectively in their own interests and move toward sustainability.”

Creating a Sustainable World is a collection of essays that reconstructs the original Earth Summit events from 1992 and its follow-up 10 years later, and critiques the dominant model of sustainable development as an ideology.  The book includes many case studies of the diverse and concrete experiences now underway, as well as self-reflections written by those working in the field of sustainability.  Schroyer authored six essays in the book, published by The Apex Press, while other Ramapo College professors contributed three essays.

For more information about the public debate, contact Dr. Trent Schroyer, 201.684.7740.

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