The Prince, 71, who has been passionate about the environment ever since he was a teenager, told this week how his warnings about climate change and harm to nature led to him being labelled “dotty”. 

In fact, he first warned about pollution, single-use plastic, car emissions and the threat of climate change in a speech 50 years ago when he was just 21 – long before Extinction Rebellion protesters, campaigners like teenager Greta Thunberg and the idolisation of Sir David Attenborough.

Despite being ridiculed by critics, they are topics he has frequently returned to. 

This week, during an interview for the Sustainable Markets Council, he recalled:

“I remember years ago in the 60s, when I was a teenager minding so much about all the things that were going on, the destruction of everything, the uprooting of trees and hedgerows and draining of wet places and all the destruction of all the interesting habitats. 

“There was the destruction of so much of the centre of our towns and cities, the white heat of progress and technology, to the exclusion of nature and our surroundings. 

“I was considered rather dotty, to say the least, for even suggesting these things. 

“Rather like when I set up a reed-bed sewage treatment system at Highgrove all those years ago, that was considered completely mad.” 

The Prince, who met Greta Thunberg in Davos last month, has resisted the urge to tell the world “I told you so”, but here are some examples of how he told us so decades ago… and what experts now say.

ON RAINFORESTS 

PRINCE IN 1990: “I suspect there is also a growing realisation we are literally the last generation which can save the rainforest from total destruction. If we don’t act now there won’t be much rainforest for our children to be concerned about, and unless we are remarkably insensitive, most of us, I think, do care a great deal about the kind of world that we bequeath to our children.” 

Rainforest Lecture for Friends of the Earth, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, February 1990

ANTÓNIO GUTERRES, UN GENERAL SECRETARY, AUG 22, 2019: “In the midst of the global climate crisis we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected.” 

ON OCEANS 

PRINCE IN 1987: “As an island, perhaps the United Kingdom has depended more than most nations on the sea for food, for transport and for its defence. 

“But over the past century we have made it into a rubbish dump. The effluents we pour heedlessly into its waters are a threat to its delicate ecological balance. 

“If science has taught us anything, it is that the environment is full of uncertainty. 

“It makes no sense to test it to destruction. While we wait for the doctor’s diagnosis, the patient may easily die.” 

Speech to the North Sea Conference, November 1987 

MICHAEL GOVE, JULY 2017: “There is more we can do to protect our oceans, so we will explore new methods of reducing the amount of plastic – in particular plastic bottles – entering our seas, improve incentives for reducing waste and litter, and review the penalties to deal with polluters.” 

ON WATER CONSERVATION 

PRINCE IN 1990: “The aim of sustainable development is much discussed in many quarters these days and, like many over-used phrases, has come to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people – but all too often closely approximating to what they would each like it to mean. Perhaps a more useful, more specific, aim is ‘the sustainable use of natural resources’, and of our natural resources none is more vital than water. I believe the aim of stewardship should be to pass on to future generations water resources that will allow them no less a range of uses and benefits that we currently enjoy.” 

Speech to Institute of Water and Environmental Management, December 1990

ENVIRONMENT MINISTER THERESE COFFEY, JULY 19, 2019: “We take our supply of clean water for granted and to keep doing that, given the growing population and impact of climate change, we need to challenge ourselves more on how much water we actually need to use. While water companies must lead the way in reducing leakage, using water efficiently will help ensure we all have enough water for our homes, to produce food, products and services, and to protect our valuable natural environment for the next generation.” 

ON THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS 

PRINCE IN 1992: “The ozone hole is a fact. The best biologists in the world agree that the world’s biological riches – biodiversity, to use today’s phrase – are being eroded at an unprecedented and alarming rate. Misuse of land is threatening local climate, water flow and ecological stability over large areas and wasting irreplaceable assets of soil. We are undoubtedly in the midst of an ecological crisis.” 

Speech to The World Commission on Environment and Development, April 1992 

THERESA MAY, THEN PRIME MINISTER, JANUARY 11, 2018: “The environment is personal to each of us, but also something we collectively hold in trust for the next generation.” 

ON THE NEED TO ACT 

PRINCE IN 1987: “Problems will not be solved in a year. To have any success whole communities must become involved in the improvement of their environment. First, it will presumably help make the environment a major element of both national and international policy making at a political level. Secondly, and more immediately, it will, I hope, enthuse the business and industrial community who are increasingly recognising that a good environment makes economic as well as visual good sense.” 

Launch of the European Year of the Environment, March 1987 

GRETA THUNBERG, APRIL 21, 2019 : “Humanity is now standing at a crossroads. We must now decide which path we want to take. How do we want the future living conditions for all living species to be like?” 

ON BIODIVERSITY 

PRINCE IN 1995: “The interplay of a whole kaleidoscope of species provides our life support system, our food, our medicines and a large part of the beauty that inspires most of us. The problem is that almost all of the actions of our society affect the biodiversity that sustains us. I do not want to be accused by my grandchildren of sitting idly by and doing nothing while the biodiversity that my generation inherited was being destroyed by short-term short-sightedness and insensitivity. History is full of such cases, so let’s break the mould. It’ll be the last chance we’ve got.” 

Speech to International Biodiversity Seminar Dinner, December 1995

PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON, AUGUST 2019: “The planet faces two immense threats: climate change and biodiversity loss. These are two sides of the same coin – it is impossible to solve one challenge without fixing the other.” 

ON SUSTAINABILITY 

PRINCE IN 1995: “The ancient idea that mankind has a responsibility for the stewardship of the natural world, and hence of the countryside, may not be particularly fashionable, but I believe that it lies at the heart of the concept of sustainability, which has currently received so much attention. We will only achieve sustainability by looking carefully at all the long-term consequences of our actions, recognising that natural systems have finite limits, and then acting with appropriate restraint and caution.” 

National Trust Magazine, October 1995

HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL, FOOD CAMPAIGNER, JANUARY 2020: “Every one of us – from scientist to shopper, big business, farmers and, of course, government – has a part to play in building a system that can feed everyone healthily, and protect our planet.” 

DEFORESTATION 

PRINCE IN 1994: “Sometimes I have to confess to feeling an overwhelming sense of despair when confronted by the starkly terrifying statistics of forest loss throughout the world. 

“I know all the reasons for it – all the perfectly understandable excuses given for the apparently unstoppable destruction. The statistics seem so remote from our lives – a veritable case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. 

“But what concerns me most is how on earth are we going to explain what has happened – and the precious things we have lost from this unique world – to our children and our grandchildren?” 

Speech to WWF, March 1994

ZAC GOLDSMITH, INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT MINISTER, FEB 13, 2020: “The illegal timber trade robs the Earth of trees, which not only help stop climate change but play a critically important role in maintaining the world’s threatened biodiversity.”

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