This consists of a research about narratives of sustainable development and end of the world based on Rio+20, an event held in June 2012 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Considering Rio+20 as a group of rituals, its main sources are: ICSU Forum, hosted by PUC-Rio, the People s Summit in Aterro do Flamengo Humanidade 2012 in Forte de Copacabana, and the UNCSD in Riocentro. To better situate the analysis of narratives, the work offers a historical and theoretical summary about discussed themes testifying negotiations and conflicts over them for the last forty years. The study offers a descriptive ethnographic mapping of visited places, enabling the visualization of such spaces as socially specific situations. Using comparative interpretation of selected narratives this thesis seeks to identify what characterizes different perspectives on sustainable development, pointing at internal and external disputes in science and social movements which are better interpreted by the idea of englobing. It calls attention to the contemporary paradox between planetary challenges and national governability. The study describes some dichotomies on the field between science and traditional knowledge, economic growth and wellbeing/buen vivir and happiness, Conference and Summit, conflict and cooperation, holism and individualism, theory and practice. Amongst the diversity of the field it identifies the concepts of totality, interdependence, cooperation, coherence, deindustrialization, localization and movement as common denominator when dealing with sustainable development. Inspired in the humanist vision of revolution of love , the study inquires if significant changes to guarantee future for humanity and the planet should necessarily be built upon bonds of affection.