ABSTRACT
This chapter will briefly review the history of that emergence before turning to efforts that have been made since 1987 to turn the emerging consciousness into global agreements for action. The chapter focuses on: achievements and limitations of global action; the prospects for building a new global movement for sustainability; and efforts to build on principles articulated in the 1987 Brundtland Report in order to develop a more comprehensive set of sustainability principles. The startling colour images of Planet Earth that were sent back from early spaceships showed that our planet is unlike any other in our solar system and gave people a new sense of the vulnerability of the conditions that have made life possible on our particular floating planet. The 1972 UN conference in Stockholm not only set in chain the process that led to the establishment of the Brundtland Commission and its influential report of 1987, it also set in chain plans for follow-up global gatherings.
