A Warming Valentine to the World (and vegan vogue)

A friend of mine told me about the speech Prince Charles made at this year’s Davos World Economic Forum who say, in their Mission Statement:

We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

The theme for January 2020 was Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World; highlight speakers on the How to Save the Planet theme were Greta Thunberg (obviously), Jennifer Morgan (Greenpeace), Mark Carney (Governor, Bank of England, until March), Al Gore (remember him?), Jane Goodall, Nicholas Stern, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Frans Timmermans, VP, European Green New Deal.

And Prince Charles, ‘urging us back from the brink’. I was surprised to discover he’d been speaking about climate change but I shouldn’t have been, he’s been doing it since 2005, see here. And, on the Economic Forum’s 2020 highlights page, I found this:

Who said this, Charles or Greta?

‘Global warming, climate change and the devastating loss of biodiversity are the greatest threats humanity has ever faced … We simply cannot waste anymore time … the time to act is now.’

‘The transition isn’t going to be easy. It will be hard. And unless we start facing this now together, with all cards on the table, we won’t be able to solve this in time … . No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world.’

Answers here, and here.

Image

  They both sent Warming Valentines to the World.

Part of Prince Charles’s speech at Davos:

Throughout the year … I will be convening a broad range of industry and issue roundtables including, but not limited to: aviation; water; carbon capture and storage; shipping; forestry; plastics; financing; digital technology; the bioeconomy; nature-based solutions; renewable energy; batteries, storage and electric vehicles; fisheries; integrated healthcare; cement; steel; traceability and labelling; and agriculture – at the end of which I shall probably be dead.

The last phrase made me laugh. The full speech is here: it echoes Greta Thunberg’s urgency (in its last phrase below, word for word). His last words were:

Everything I have tried to do, and urge, over the past fifty years has been done with our children and grandchildren in mind, because I did not want to be accused by them of doing nothing except prevaricate and deny the problem. Now of course, they are accusing us of exactly that. Put yourselves in their position, Ladies and Gentlemen. We simply cannot waste any more time – the only limit is our willingness to act, and the time to act is now.

Bravo!

And as if that’s not enough greening, my One Green Thing this month: did you know you can buy vegan make-up and skin care things? I didn’t, but I do now. The thing to look out for on products is the Vegan Trademark Sign:

About Angela

I write fiction about the difficulty we have when we try to say what's in our hearts.
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