But Charles’s environmental views are complex: He is both a classic environmentalist who loves nature, trees and wildlife, and a traditionalist who has fought against wind power on his estate, flown around the world in private jet and once criticized population growth in the developing world. He represents some of the paradoxes of a world grappling with climate change: a man of extraordinary wealth and a significant carbon footprint speaking out against global warming. a political figure with very little real political influence. The air conditioning has a climate problem. New technology could help. Many of Charles’ ideas about the natural world harken back to the classic environmentalism of the 1960s and 1970s—the era in which he came of age. In Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, a 2010 book by the then Prince of Wales, Charles criticizes what he calls the “mechanistic thinking” of factory farming, industrialization and even the Enlightenment, arguing that the effort humanity’s separation from nature has created more problems than it has solved. He is lyrical in his opposition to gross domestic product, or GDP, as a way of measuring the success of nations. And—at odder moments—he praises a “sacred geometry” that in his mind unites the architecture of Spanish mosques and planetary orbits. The new king has also implemented his ideas in many of his estates. A house he bought in Scotland has been turned into a sort of environmental classroom, where children learn about soil health. His country home boasts an organic farm that Charles started in 1985. And in an impressive detail that has been repeated many times in the media, Charles has apparently retrofitted his Aston Martin to run with wine and the leftover cheese. But there is a more controversial side to the king’s green views. Charles – like his father, Prince Philip, before him – has at times been mired in the sticky quagmire of population growth. In a speech given at Oxford University’s Sheldonian Theater in 2010, the then Prince Charles noted: “When I was born in 1948 a city like Lagos in Nigeria had a population of just 300,000. today, a little more than 60 years later, it hosts 20 million”. With populations growing rapidly in Mumbai, Cairo, Mexico City and cities in other developing countries around the world, Charles said the Earth cannot “support us all when the pressures on its bounty are so big”. In “Harmony,” he echoes the same concern, arguing that population growth—long considered too hot to handle—must be addressed. Concerns about overpopulation are not new and have been echoed from time to time by other members of the royal family and famous Britons. Philip once called for “voluntary family restrictions.” David Attenborough, Britain’s most famous broadcaster, has similarly said that “population growth must stop”. There might seem to be a simple logic in placing the blame for climate change on the world’s population, which is now approaching 8 billion. But there is a long and fraught history of thinkers in developed countries criticizing population growth in developing countries. Betsy Hartman, professor emeritus of development studies at Hampshire College, has said, “In this ideology of ‘too many people,’ it is always some people who are ‘too many.’ And developing countries, where population growth is the highest, also have the smallest carbon footprint from each additional person. In Nigeria, for example, each person accounts for an average of 0.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. In the United States, that number is 13.7 metric tons. Developed countries, meanwhile, have birth rates that are either declining or relatively stable. The king’s enthusiasm for clean energy also has some asterisks. He installed solar panels on his London mansion and country house, but according to Britain’s Sunday Times, he also refused to install wind turbines on the Duchy of Cornwall, a vast tract of land covering almost more than 200 square miles. (According to the Guardian, Charles once called wind turbines a “terrible blot on the landscape.”) In some ways, Charles is emblematic of how old-school environmental values can clash with the needs and demands of a charred world. Being a traditional environmentalist—one who loves trees, nature, and animals—doesn’t mean you support the changes necessary to combat climate change. In some cases, organic farming can be more carbon and resource intensive than conventional farming. Zero carbon emissions will require a huge amount of land for solar, wind and geothermal energy. It will also require advanced technologies – better batteries, machines that absorb carbon dioxide from the sky – which Charles has historically criticized as forms of “mechanistic thinking”. There is, of course, another paradox in the idea of Charles as “climate king”. The royal family owns wealth that is almost unimaginable to the rest of the world. As a prince, Charles traveled widely around the world by private jet. As king, he’s likely to take even more high-carbon flights, easily placing his personal carbon emissions in the top zero-something percent of all people on the planet. And while the carbon footprint is a blunt instrument for measuring environmental impact, the world’s richest people, including the royal family, live in ways that are hard to match with a rapidly warming planet. (According to one study, the richest 1 percent of the world’s population produces double the carbon emissions of the poorest 50 percent.) Sign up for the latest news on climate change, energy and the environment, delivered every Thursday The question is whether now, as king, Charles will continue to be a voice for climate and the environment. He has said that in his new position, he won’t be able to be a public defender like he used to. “It will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energy to charities and issues that I care so deeply about,” he said in a televised address last week. And as king, he will have very little input into the running of the British government. (Queen Elizabeth II has also, for the most part, refused to intervene in politics.) But the new king’s environmental record could still sway the British public, even if he has no direct policy-making power. A study published in the journal Nature Energy last year argued that people of high socio-economic status – which Charles certainly is – are both highly responsible for global warming and may have disproportionate power battle the problem. They can do this through their investments, influencing politicians and other powerful people, or generally redefining what the “good life” should look like. In Britain, the Conservative Party is more likely to approve of the monarchy and reject pro-environmental policies. It is possible that Charles’ example could motivate some members to think more carefully about the environment, climate change and the nature that he loves so much.
