Is the Prince of Wales Green?
by Matthew Sparkes, London, UK on 06.28.07
I really can't decide. According to an annual review, the Prince of Wales’ ‘personal expenditure’ in the last year rose to over $5 million, but yet his carbon footprint actually reduced. The review claims that the prince’s household is actually carbon neutral, but also shows that in 2006-7 its footprint was a staggering 3,425 tonnes. Presumably this means that the Prince offsets his emissions in some way.
The review also claims that emissions have been reduced by 9%. The reduction apparently down to taking fewer plane and helicopter journeys, introducing green energy sources and switching to bio-diesel.
However, the prince still used nearly $3 million of taxpayer’s money on air and rail travel in the last year, which is far from green. Sir Michael Peat, the prince's principal private secretary, said, "He is very busy and gets increasingly so. He does work very hard to try to make a difference." Peat also went on to explain that 130 people work for the prince, but that they were still understaffed.
It seems to me that whilst the prince is a keen green advocate, he still leads a life that is far from green. Carbon neutral or not, it is not sustainable for a man to maintain several, enormous households, travel an enormous amount each year and have 130 staff. I remember one case, several years ago, when the prince sent an air force jet across the country to retrieve his favourite cufflinks. Since then though, he has taken the green cause to heart, and done a lot of good work for the environment and various other good causes.
However, if he was serious about living a green lifestyle, then he could sell off a few houses, get a Prius and drive it himself. That would cut his footprint dramatically, and would have the added benefit of removing the burden of funding his lifestyle from the UK taxpayers.
He does a lot of good, but I can't help but feel that there's a discrepancy between his words and his actions. Having said that, if I could command the RAF to go and collect things for me, then I may well be tempted too... ::The Guardian
See also ::The Green Apprentice: An Organic Gardener for Prince Charles ::Prince Charles Costs the Earth
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Hes the bloody prince, for god's sake. Royalty. The British keep them around so the PM doesn't have to do all the f@#%ed up stuff the our president does. If you add up the Prince and Blair's carbon last year, you think it would be much higher than Bush alone?
Also, lumping a person's staff in with them for carbon footprints is bull$&*!. So those 130 people are dehumanized, living only as a part of their master?
Different people are born into different classes. Just as the prince is much higher than the average reader of TH, the average reader is much higher than much of the world, having the electricity necessary to run a computer.
Whow boy! I never thought i'd defend the British royalty, but "get himself a Prius & drive it himself"? Did the author even stop to think that one through? Due to his high profile, among other practical reasons, it would probably not be safe to do so. So this essay just comes off as whiny & incredulously idiotic. My opinion of it anyway.
All this nitpicking & whining about such nonesense doesn't really promote the green movement, it makes all Greenies, including the earnest & sincere, look pretentious, kooky and well, nitpicky.
I'm no Anglophile, but I can't help buti still admire the bonnie old prince for being an organics advocate, years before it was a fashionable thing , and for being dedicately Green, in word and in practice.
Some advice to the author and to my beloved treehugger for reprinting this drivel: save the ozone layer and lay off the hot air.
god save the Green.
Came here full or indignation at the idiocy of some who take self righteous exception to every effort by those of power and influence. I probably wouldn't like the Prince, and am not impressed at all by historic position, however, anyone who does use a position to better the conditions of everyone should be thanked and not excoriated.
Knee jerk criticism says more about the critic than the object of his scorn. What a fool!