Acting on Your Best Behaviour, Don’t Turn Your Back on Mother Nature, Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Happy Friday Friends!
Whether you’re a royalist or a republican you will not be able to avoid the first coronation for 70 years in England this weekend. A lot of people don’t like him or the monarchy but I do. He couldn’t choose what he was born into any more than I could.
So all the naysayers and haters can have a day off, as Tears for Fears sang in 1985, Everybody Wants to Rule the World and whether you admit or not, given the chance we all wouldn’t mind swapping places just for a day.
When I grew up, the satirical puppet show Spitting Image would brutally take the mickey out of him every Sunday evening. It would show him with massive ears walking around his greenhouse talking to plants. Previous monarchs would have had them be-headed.
But hang on a minute lovely readers, this isn’t a sales pitch for loving the monarchy. The whole raison d’etre behind me starting this blog was to show the pathways of practical environmentalism and champion the benefits of sustainability. Or, in simpler words, just how easy it is for all of us to make small everyday changes that can make a real difference to the environment.
When King Charles the third is crowned at Westminster Abbey on Saturday May 6th he will. immediately become the greenest monarch ever to reign. He has always cared deeply about the planet, the environment and the natural world and it’s species, and he hasn’t been afraid to act upon it. Up until recently, he was always ridiculed, criticised and made fun of. But finally, in his later years he has been recognised as being way ahead of his time. Here’s 5 important ways that he has been a positive force for good.
- Climate Change : Charles has been vocal about the effects of climate change since the early 1980’s. He has constantly spoke out on the dangers long before it has been accepted and became known about on a mainstream level.
- Sustainable Living: He has promoted sustainable living a long time before it became a trendy thing for all to do. He had his beloved Aston Martins converted to biofuel and electric and has been fuelling the Royal Train with biofuel for years. He has championed conserving water resources, reducing waste and the use of renewable energy and practiced what he preached.
- Conservation: Charles has worked tirelessly to protect the biodiversity in the natural world of species and habitats. He has publicly spoken out against practices that have threatened and endangered the environment, even when it has upset politicians and business leaders.
- Sustainable Agriculture: Charles has been at the forefront of sustainable agriculture since he first changed the garden at Highgrove to be completely organic. Since then the Duchy of Cornwall estate has been a world leader in the way it is managed using sustainable farming and breeding.
- Urban Planning: Charles famously upset the Qatari backed re-development of the Chelsea Barracks site in one of the wealthiest parts of central London by scuppering the planning permission. He has been influential in in urban planning talking publicly at events like COP26 about the importance of designing towns and cities that place green spaces, thoughtful transportation and communities at the heart of the planning process.
So good on you King Charles III, hopefully you will go down in history as ultimately someone that cared deeply. That’s a legacy I’d certainly be proud of.
Thanks for reading, have a beautiful Bank Holiday Coronation weekend.
Mike
Mike O’lone, Environment and Sustainability Lead for Syntech Biofuel
First published, 5th May 2023
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