Sustainable Development: the Upcoming Civilizational Revolution?

In this work the concept of sustainable development is presented as the currently most important revolutionary project in our civilisation, which should rapidly change the way people think and act globally. The aim of this revolution should be the distancing from, or the overcoming of difficulties which beset the modern world, resulting from the growing disharmony and ecological imbalance between the global community and our planet’s entire natural environment.

The basis for the analysis is Artur Pawłowski’s book entitled Sustainable Development as a Civilizational Revolution. A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Challenges of the 21^st Century. The author presents multilateral arguments for the necessity of such a global revolution related to civilisation. This idea is discussed and compared with other views on the world’s future and the possibility of realising within it the concept of sustainable development in terms of business, economic, political, social and awareness activities.

Pawłowski’s view has been categorised as a form of hypothetical rationalism and realism, and continues the Polish traditional way of thinking in this field. In modern analysis, the author’s view on the possibility of realising sustainable development can be placed between Klaus Bosselmann’s optimism and Christian de Duve’s pessimism.