I’m not usually a fan of HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales. I guess I take royalty with pinch of salt. I’ll be honest – I sometimes groan when I see something in the news about what he has said or done.
Except his Richard Dimbleby lecture makes some incredibly valuable points.
Consider this from the BBC reporting of his lecture
He said the maintenance of the world’s eco-systems was directly linked to the economic well-being of nations.
“We are standing at a moment of substantial transition where we face the dual challenges of a world view and an economic system that seem to have enormous shortcomings, together with an environmental crisis – including that of climate change – which threatens to engulf us all.”
He added: “We must remember that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature’s capital.
Ok, so he’s said this sort of thing before. While his understanding of the world comes from a particularly elite background that I don’t share he is undeniably making important sense when he says that all economic capital is Nature’s capital. By capital he means hard capital, not the soft capital of markets of course. Pehaps the source of soft capital is Human greed. And therein lie the dual challenges he refers to, a worldview based on greed and an economic system based on a willingness to bankrupt the source of the hard capital that supports it.
There is indeed a “substantial transition” taking place. Economic and financial systems are no longer sustainable and nor is much of our lifestyle; and it all comes down to a worldview – what do we think the future holds and should we respond in any way when we see it? Are we looking at environmental catastrophe? Should we prepare for a global meltdown both financially and despite the best efforts of G8 to prevent global warming increasing above 2 degrees C by 2050? There is a lot to consider.
The ideas behind the Gaia Theory are an interesting set to bring to the mix here too. I’m sure HRH is familiar with them too. Steven Lovelock’s book The Revenge of Gaia is a chilling component in the debate, whilst James Martin’s contribution is perhaps more hopeful.
So Royalty (at least one of them) is making sense – and perhaps I’ll listen more willingly in the future. What we need to realise is that it is sense and ideas we need to think about now, act on now and talk about in a manner that does not label us cranky (like I labeled HRH in the past).
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