NON-SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SUSTAINABLE OR NON-SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?

The personal opinions and beliefs, and therefore decisions about whether mankind activities are sustainable or non-sustainable depend both on one's knowledge and irrational arguments. In this series, my contributions aimed at offering some rough insights into processes vital to man's future. Many recent publications deal with sustainability in great detail. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as well as the book entitled ,The Revenge of Gaia" by J. Lovelock are briefly introduced. Contrary to these pessimistic reviews, readers are also directed to the extremely optimistic assessment of the recent development of human societies presented in the book ,,The Pessimistic Environmentalist" by B. Lomborg. The author is grateful for the possibility to publish this series of contributions. His thanks are due to the Editorial Board and especially Dr. V Psota. Dr. D. W. Lawlor (Rothamsted Experimental Station) kindly corrected the English of most of the abstracts.