Abstract Our first aim in this paper is to synthesize the reasons why the scientific community maintains the assumption that we are immersed in a situation of planetary emergency at which we must and can react to make possible a sustainable future. Henceforth, we shall refer to a set of linked problems wich influence each other, such as an a very diverse pollution without borders, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion and destruction of natural resources or the extreme poverty of millions of human beings. We analyze next the causes of such situation, related to a socio-economic growth guided by particular interests in the short term which has ignored and exceeded the limits of the planet. It is within the framework of the steps which can be adopted to end the degradation process that we shall intend to elicit and discuss the obstacles impeding citizens and political leaders to get seriously involved in the essential task of making possible a sustainable future: to believe, for instance, that the nowadays degradation processes are natural and have nothing to do with human actions or that such processes are lineal and, therefore, slow and controllable, allowing then our adaptation. Finally, we shall refer to the necessity of a [r]evolution for sustainability unifying the concepts of revolution and evolution: revolution to indicate the necessity of deep changes in our ways of life and social organization; evolution to point out the fact that we cannot expect such changes as a result of a particular action, more or less limited in time, and thus being necessary a universal trend of citizens' implication in the construction of a sustainable future which all forms of education must encourage.