Nikola Tesla : the father of sustainable development

Nikola Tesla : the father of sustainable development

Much before World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the Brundtland Commission’s, The Centre for Our Common Future and Rio Declaration on Environment and Development – before 1900, Nikola Tesla revolutionarily saw that definitions of sustainable development required that we observe the world as a system that connects space and as a system that connects time. Tesla fought for development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.


Over more, in his amazing article The Problem of Increasing Human energy » published in Century Illustrated Magazine in June 1900, Tesla opens a new chapter in humankind: the Energy (http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm).

Originality and prophetic role of Tesla could also be analyzed through the concept of the article “The Power of the Future” written around 1920 :

Those who are concerned about the future had stopped long time ago to see energy only as a means of ensuring personal comfort and security; they attach to it a national, international and humanitarian significance. Not only that, the idea that our resources belong to the generations that will come is slowly born, and thoughts of engineers and inventors turn to better methods, which will not have to do with the barbaric use of energy like at the moment and which will eventually lead to the depletion of our stocks. This is why various kind of sensational announcements about new energy sources cause such a hysterical interest and readily grasp. But only one among a thousand, even among the professionals, may separate the wheat from the chaff.”

Aleksandar Protic