How hypocritical can you get, he has billions invested, if he gave up all his properties and investments, and got a real job, I might listen to him.
It is not capitalism thats harming our world, but poverty in the third world, and western powers are determined that it should stay that way by denying them cheap energy.
Actually this was a meeting set up by business leaders, not liberals, greenies, or 'AGW cultists', to start to examine 'inclusive capitalism'. There is a growing gap between rich and poor, even within wealthy nations. Companies continue to post larger profits, but society is receiving less benefit. So, the people at the top get wealthy, the people at the bottom (employees for example) do not. This leads to growing resentment and instability. And instability is not the friend of the market.
So, this group met to try to discuss ways of adjusting capitalism so more than shareholders and CEOs benefit from business success. We now have a situation where the 85 richest people in the world hold more wealth than 3.5 billion of the poorest. In some way, this was a pre-emptive meeting. Governments around the globe are looking at competition laws, tax rates, plugging tax loopholes, etc so the truth is there will be a more 'inclusive' capitalism. The business leaders are just trying to come up with something before regulation hits them.
The Prince of Wales was simply one of the speakers at that. His focus was on green issues. Other speakers' weren't discussing those but other issues. But he's right. You cannot grow an economy indefinitely with a model in which the fuel you use becomes more, not less, expensive with time. That's why capitalism must be modified.
I'm not very comfortable with these "compound questions"..that is, ones which are actually asking two or more questions all at the same time.
1. There is no particular AGW problem..merely slight climage changes from time to time, as it has ALWAYS BEEN...and particularly related to sunspot activity.
2. If there WERE a climate problem, a shift away from Corporate Capitalism (a real villain today), it might make a difference, yes. This change could well mean a much better level of existence of many millions around the world...and for the Average, working American. We have been getting the Royal Shaft from the corporations, banks and Wall Street (and from the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex) for centuries, and espcially for the last twelve years. RESIST!!!
This is the same call as the Reagan Administration made in the U.S. in the 1980s. It is the fiscal conservative preference of bringing economic externalities into business decisions rather than enacting regulations.
George Schultz, Reagan's Secretary of State, recently made the same proposal in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal: to put a price on carbon in a way the captures the externality without pulling cash from the private sector into the public sector.
The only thing changing capitalism will do for global warming is alter its name.
The only thing that will fix it is an ac and a great jacket.
Because its a common thing that occurs. The fact that no one wants to talk about how the earth made it last time is only making it an issue.
Me getting more money is an issue. Global warming is not because its not actually a part of any issue anyone can handle. Like what are you. A rain dancer who's gonna fix everything? Go **** your self. Is not gonna happen. Dont be a blaming republican and take responsibility for things you actually can.
No, what is basically needed is for people to stop denying the science and admit that something needs to be done. If they'd do that, change could be accomplished with relatively minor impacts.
Believing that change can only be accomplished through a radical change in economic structure is an idea of the alarmist deniers.
EDIT: James, I am not surprised it seems like religion to you--primitive peoples always ascribe to the gods that which they cannot understand.
There is no "saving" the planet from global warming. Significant global warming has already begun and been massively documented by scientists all around the world for decades. The Prince, though well-meaning, is not a scientist and is misinformed about the nature of the climate change problem, and the newpaper columnist hypes the exaggerations uncritically (even if they are not cherry-picked out of context to boot). That doesn't mean that a century of massive science is therefore all some Marxist-Greenie-Al Gore-cult conspiracy. Capitalism per se is not the reason for the global warming problem, but capitalist economies overly reliant to fossil fuels, and a political system unable to deal effectively with the externalities (a concept any freshman econ student would understand, e.g. beyond the grasp of most anti-science posters here) of that over-reliance, are significant elements.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/615....
http://www.economist.com/node/18741749
U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2010:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record...
“Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.”
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpine...
“Choices made now about carbon dioxide emissions reductions will affect climate change impacts experienced not just over the next few decades but also in coming centuries and millennia…Because CO2 in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe.”
http://www.physics.fsu.edu/awards/NAS/
“The Academy membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research; election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_...
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/...
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timel...
NASA released a report earlier this year that essentially said that if we don't ditch capitalism, our civilization will collapse within the century. We also need to stop fighting amongst ourselves, and start coordinating the entire human race. Basically to save human civilization, we need to mature beyond capitalism, and form a world government.
Perhaps what is needed is a fundamental change to the monarchy. I wonder if the speaker has an opinion on the subject.
I this guy ever going to grow up. No wonder Diana left him.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html
