Prince Charles delivered this years Dimbleby Lecture last night, titled “Facing the Future”.
Speaking on a wide range of topics, the overriding theme was sustainability, with the actions needed to avert environmental collapse.
Referring to an earlier speech in March, when he said there were "less than 100 months to act" to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change, he said there are now onely "96 months left".
He called for a new Age of Sustainability rather than our current "Age of Convenience" and a step change in our view of money and development.
Drawing similarities with the current financial crisis "Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts... so Nature's life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts we have built up there too," he said. "If we don't face up to this, then Nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust. And no amount of quantitative easing will revive it."
Combining practical measures with philosophical insights “So much, it seems to me, depends on how you define both “growth” and “prosperity.” Most would agree, I think, that the main result of progress should be less misery and more happiness. But in our modern situation these “ends” have become dangerously confused with the “means,” to the point where, now, wealth, innovation and growth have become the final goals.
They have become the destination, when they were only ever at best a vehicle for getting there.”
“It seems that through a drift of ethics, the direction of our economic system has ended up being an end in itself – an entity that must be grown,rather than directed and honed to reflect the aspirations of communities, human well-being and the limits of ecology.”
Prince Charles has been a long time advocate of sustainability, and the speech was well received by most in the media.
See a full copy of the speech here and for the next 7 days you can watch the lecture here.
Speaking on a wide range of topics, the overriding theme was sustainability, with the actions needed to avert environmental collapse.
Referring to an earlier speech in March, when he said there were "less than 100 months to act" to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change, he said there are now onely "96 months left".
He called for a new Age of Sustainability rather than our current "Age of Convenience" and a step change in our view of money and development.
Drawing similarities with the current financial crisis "Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts... so Nature's life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts we have built up there too," he said. "If we don't face up to this, then Nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust. And no amount of quantitative easing will revive it."
Combining practical measures with philosophical insights “So much, it seems to me, depends on how you define both “growth” and “prosperity.” Most would agree, I think, that the main result of progress should be less misery and more happiness. But in our modern situation these “ends” have become dangerously confused with the “means,” to the point where, now, wealth, innovation and growth have become the final goals.
They have become the destination, when they were only ever at best a vehicle for getting there.”
“It seems that through a drift of ethics, the direction of our economic system has ended up being an end in itself – an entity that must be grown,rather than directed and honed to reflect the aspirations of communities, human well-being and the limits of ecology.”
Prince Charles has been a long time advocate of sustainability, and the speech was well received by most in the media.
See a full copy of the speech here and for the next 7 days you can watch the lecture here.
