The book provides a critical history of the concept of sustainability and the various institutional measures taken to promote, implement and enforce sustainable development. It asks the question whether our overarching concept of thinking on world development today should continue to be global sustainability which implies that we still have enough time to make adjustments in our future policies and action. Or should the main paradigm of our thinking shift to global survivability, a concept that stresses the absolute necessity of immediate and drastic change both in institutions and policies? UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon established a High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability in August 2010. The Panel's task is to formulate a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity by the end of 2011. Global sustainability and sustainable development are very timely issues as we have a major climate change conference in South Africa in November-December 2011 and the Rio plus 20 Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 in Brazil. All of them are threshold events which might determine whether mankind and the globe can achieve a truly sustainable future. Global survivability is a new concept that captures this danger: planetary boundaries and the globe's carrying capacity are seriously threatened. Mankind is approaching a point of no-return. Or, worse yet, we may have already passed this threshold in some respects. Many environmentalists, green politicians and think tanks are speaking today more loudly than ever about the necessity for a major policy and paradigm change.