Prince George ‘confused and annoyed’ at state of planet as William shares fears for the future
Prince George is “a bit confused and annoyed” by the state of the planet, his dad Prince William once revealed.
The Prince of Wales said his then eight-year-old son’s experience litter picking with his school in Battersea three years ago made him environmentally aware. William has previously spoken about the impact his young family have had on his environmental campaigning.
The young royal once told his father he wanted to switch off Sir David Attenborough’s nature documentary because he was so horrified about animal extinction. William fears his son’s generation could still be talking about climate change in 30 years’ time, when it “will be too late”.
As part of a BBC podcast in 2021, William said: “So George at school recently has been doing litter picking and I didn’t realise but talking to him the other day he was already showing that he was getting a bit confused and a bit sort of annoyed by the fact they went out litter picking one day and then the very next day they did the same route, same time and pretty much all the same litter they picked up back again.
William says George was left shocked during a little pick in 2021 ( Image: Getty Images)
“And I think that for him he was trying to understand how and where it all came from. He couldn’t understand, he’s like, ‘well, we cleaned this. Why has it not gone away?” The future king told the podcast in 2021 that he was concerned that George and his generation might still be talking about climate change in decades to come.
He added: “But it shouldn’t be that there’s a third generation now coming along having to ramp it up even more. “And you know, for me, it would be an absolute disaster if George is sat here talking to you or your successor, you know in like 30 years’ time, whatever, still saying the same thing, because by then we will be too late.”
Speaking in 2021, King Charles says hey has concerns for his grandchildren. During five decade-long commitment to the environmental cause, he said he quickly realised as a young adult humanity was putting too much pressure on the planet.
Addressing viewers of COP26: In Your Hands, he said: “I am old enough to have a grandson. Like you, he is learning how climate change is causing the big storms, and floods, droughts, fires and food shortages we have seen around the world.”
“When I was his age, people had no idea about the damage we were doing. But by the time I was a teenager, I started to see that if we didn’t stop polluting our planet, we would face a very dangerous future indeed. This is why I’ve spent so much of my life trying to warn that we have to operate in ways which can make nature thrive, not suffer.
“We have forgotten that we have to put back into nature as much as we take out – and you have an important part to play in this.” William also slammed billionaire space tourists such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for pursuing space travel instead of helping to solve the climate crisis. In an impassioned plea to two of the world’s richest men, he said: “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.
“If we’re not careful we’re robbing from our children’s future through what we do now. And I think that’s not fair. I want to use my little bit of influence / profile to highlight incredible people doing incredible things and will genuinely help fix some of these problems.”
