Source: UEA
URL: https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2014/June/prince-of-wales
Date: 30/06/2014
Event: Prince Charles: wisdom of sustainability "is our only hope and our most profound legacy"
Attribution: UEA, Prince Charles (HRH The Prince of Wales)
People:
[A speech by HRH The Prince of Wales for the 2014 Earth System Governance Project conference at the UEA in Norwich.]
Prince Charles: Ladies and Gentlemen, as patron of the University of East Anglia School of Environmental Sciences, it gives me enormous pleasure to address you all, at the outset of this conference on allocation and access in an anthropocene age, held under the umbrella of the Earth System Governance Research Programme.
Now, "anthropocene" is a heavy word, but contains a weighty meaning. As many of you may be aware, in one way or another, I have long been deeply concerned about what we humans are seemingly unstoppably hell-bent on doing to this precious planet, with its four-plus billion years of life - possibly, for all we know, unique in the cosmos.
I feel we, all too often, forget that we arrived rather late in the pathways of the creation of life on Earth. And, while our intelligence comes at the pinnacle of this utterly incredible evolutionary process, I sometimes wonder if it is capable of sustaining the whole thing into the future. One question, it seems to me that we need to ask, though, is whether we have sufficient wisdom to go with our intelligence. Wisdom lies in our consciences and souls. It moves us to share our remaining livability with justice and compassion, for those still to join our human family.
Now, I share the aims of this conference, not least in addressing the important and neglected matter of how better to sustain the vital life-support systems that support our economy and welfare, but which we so arrogantly take for granted, and hence so dangerously undervalue. Unless people, alive today and still to be born, can find better ways to husband the shrinking living space left by us and our predecessors, surely we cannot pass on the wisdom of sustainability that is our only hope and our most profound legacy.
Life on Earth is surely far more than just a clinical, chemical and mechanical process. Nature herself, of which we are an integral part, is in essence a vast living organic system, that can only be sustained - and thus in turn sustain us - if we give back to it in equal measure to what we take out. We cannot exceed planetary boundaries in all directions and expect to continue with business as usual.
The exciting new sustainable development initiative called Future Earth, that is being promoted by this conference, offers an opportunity to combine science and ethics, and thereby improved ways of governing ourselves in a manner for which our grandchildren might thank us. Therefore I can only support this vision whole-heartedly and wish this important conference all possible success.