Posted on 10/30/2005 8:06:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LONDON - Prince Charles says he believes the pace of climate change is terrifying and people are becoming too dependent on technology.
In a rare TV interview ahead of his official tour of the United States next week, Charles expressed concern that economic progress is "upsetting the whole balance of nature."
"You know, if you look at the latest figures on climate change and global warming ... they're terrifying, terrifying," Charles told CBS' "60 Minutes" in the interview aired Sunday.
The prince is a keen environmentalist, but his office declined to say whether Charles will raise the issue of climate change when he dines with President Bush at the White House this week. Clarence House, the prince's office, said it would not be appropriate to comment on a private dinner.
In the past, Bush has questioned the existence of global warming. The United States has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, saying it would harm the economy.
Charles, who will be visiting with his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, also said he was worried about the importance of technology in modern life.
"If you make everything over efficient, you suck out, it seems to me, every last drop of what, up to now, has been known as culture," Charles said in the interview, which was recorded last month in Poundbury, England.
"We are not the technology. It should be our ... slave, the technology. But it's rapidly becoming our master in many areas, I think," he said.
Charles will travel to the United States on Tuesday for his first official tour of the country since 1994, although he has made a number of private visits since then. He last visited the United States on June 11, 2004, for the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan.
During the tour, Charles and Camilla will inaugurate a new memorial garden in New York for the British victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. They will also travel to Washington for their lunch and dinner with President Bush and Mrs. Bush. During the final leg of the tour, Charles and Camilla will meet homeless people in San Francisco.
In previously released excerpts of the CBS interview, Charles said he was concerned about being seen as irrelevant.
"The most important thing is to be relevant ... It isn't easy, as you can imagine ... because if you say anything, people will say, 'It's all right for you to say that.' It's very easy to just dismiss anything I say. ... It's difficult," the heir to the British throne said.
Charles says his duty is "worrying about this country and its inhabitants."
He adds: "I find myself born into this particular position. I am determined to make the most of it."
Charles has won respect for the time he devotes to The Prince's Trust, which has helped more than 35,000 disadvantaged young people start their own businesses and provided job training to thousands more each year.
He hopes efforts like these are valued, telling interviewer Steve Kroft lightheartedly: "I only hope that when I'm dead and gone, they might appreciate it a little bit more."
Prince Charles of Great Britain, talks to '60 Minutes' Correspondent Steve Kroft, left, in his first interview given to an American network in over a decade. The interview, which took place last month in Poundbury, England, a village the Prince developed as a symbol of social and ecological harmony. The interview will be broadcast, Sunday Oct. 30 on CBS. (AP Photo/CBS News, Paul Mottram)
No, Prince Charles is terrifying!
What a putz.
He's such a girlie man.
Looking at his wife is terrifying!
he ought to buy an umbrella
Charles reminds me so much of the financially-shielded minds of Hollywood -- they desperately need something to do with their brains that is meaningful...
Not the best of royalty, often disgraceful.
Thanks for ridding of us of the likes of these people.
It appears he will never make it to the throne.
He probably posses enough wealth (for what reason, exactly?) to escape any potential terror that creeps into his life.
-DAH
Maybe he should get off his butt and mow that grass!
Amen.
As Charles should know. Global warming can cause you to marry a horse.
What a Wuss!
and yet we still make fun of people from Kentucky as being inbred... (JK! Kentuckians)
Anybody got a chicken little graphic handy?
This garbage and his support of Islam are just two more nails in the coffin of the Monarchy.AWB
What? Four seasons is terrifying? Charles talking with enviro-weenies such as Algore is terrifying.
DAMN NORM I did watch 60 minutes interview
Is me or what but does Camilla look like a HORSE????
It' hard to believe that he and Dubya are related, isn't it?
Well, then he's being punished sufficiently.
Pound sand, Charlie. I like environmental change;
When summer turns to fall and the deer begin to rut,
When fall turns to winter and the fire warms my butt.
When winter turns to spring and the sap begins to rise,
And Spring turns to summer and bikinis catch your eyes.
Environmental change is good.
You don't understand, what would be really terrifying to us, would be for him to become King and then his picture might be on some of our coins--to me that is really TERRIFYING!
Man... this CLOWN has some of the BEST pre-publicity of anyone.
Does an interview with CBS, tell Americans we are being too intolerant of muslims and should be more knowledgeable of the benefits of Islam, and now that all the evil 'civilizied' nations are destroying the world with our progress and dirty improvements of our standard of living.
What WORLD is this CLOWN living in?
And having a Queen and Royalty and Elton John as a Knight is certainly not "over efficient."
Who opened the door and let him in the house?
It's all right for you to say that. (whatever that means)
As these super-wealthy, super-pampered people wring their hands about global warming, why don't they just come right out and say that the answer is for everyone but them to lower their standard of living? It seems that's what they want, or at least would be the result of their anti-global-warming policies, but they won't say it. They should just admit that while they might deserve to live well, our fragile earth simply can't support a decent standard of living for the masses.
That was supposed to be funny?
Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, attend a service at St Paul's Cathedral in London, 23 October. In an interview to be aired on the eve of his first official visit abroad since marrying Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles laments that it's not always easy to be a prince, according to excerpts of the interview(AFP/POOL/File/Matt Dunham)
Prince Charles is terrified? Well that explains why his ears are standing on end.
The EUroweenies have killed their economies and cannot compete, therefore, the environment and treaties to limit power of their rivals is of the most message the elite (whatever inbreeding does to make EUropeans elite) can deliver. Having lived in EUroland over four of the past six years, I can tell you that socialist has done more to kill their "environment" than pollution.
Putz boy should know when to quit. This is just a hair below his stunt involving his encouragement to Bush in "accepting" Islam.
Drop a few pictures of Camilla into a hurricane, if you want to break it up quickly;)
![](http://re2.mm-b1.yimg.com/image/930268470")
It is, but man has nothing to do with it.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said he urged Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, pictured 25 October 2005, not to visit in November or risk becoming embroiled in a possible federal election(AFP/POOL/File/Matt Dunham)
I begin to feel for President Bush. This dinner does not sound as if it will be pleasant.
Translation: We are not the technology ( I can't make my computer work, IPOD won't play tunes, and the clock is still blinking on the VCR and don't know what the DVD is for). It should be our slave ( it should work, it should do what I want it to do without me having to figure it out) But it's rapidly becoming our master ( people who can work the technology are smarter than I am, and they can influence things and dump Dan Rather and maybe ME, ME, ME...)
You sound like my wife!!!
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