Prince Charles, keepin’ it real for mother earth

worried about the evils of the world?
I know! Lets blame science and science driven consumerism…

or Galileo, he started it you know…

Prince Charles speaking at the Oxford Centre for Islamic studies a few days ago, seems to know all about the evils of science and capitalism. The profit imperative for scientific research and science exploiting and ‘damaging’ the natural world – all driven by nasty consumers and scientists. And he says we have objectified mother earth with science, by you know trying to learn more about her, maybe we are robbing her of her mystique – and she is pissed…

While, HRH Prince of Wales seems to have forgotten that capitalism is why he still has a job (I think he really wants to go back to the good old days of medieval times presumably so he might get a little more respect or perhaps mistresses that could be easily covered up), in the wise prince’s view, science as an evil force in the world goes back to Galileo.

If it wasn’t for Galileo making his assertions about motion and quantity, then we would be ok today and live back in the good old days with horse manure everywhere in cities, poor sanitation and a life expectancy of ooh 45 years (if you were rich) that was great.

We all want to blame someone, just like with BP and this horrific oil spill and environmental disaster. But can we really blame science at large?

And as Kevin Cosnter puts it (I can’t believe I am quoting Kevin Costner, but he is after all trying to do something) “We’re all at fault here it is just too easy to blame BP.”

I am not quite sure what Mr. Costner means by this specifically, but the point is good. Blaming science (and consumerism) for what ails us is easy to do but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and it actually doesn’t really help anything. Any time anyone wants to blame someone – it means that something is wrong and it needs to be fixed!

But who is going to fix this?

Science and technology.
How else are we going to stop the oil spill? Mother Earth doesn’t seem to be doing much ..

On a broader scope, science and technology are also the answers to a ‘greener’ future, not just cleaning up the oil spill. Perhaps science ’caused’ these problems in the first place, but science has also helped solve many societal problems throughout history. We no longer die of the bubonic plague – I think that’s kind of cool myself.

Of course maybe this is the Prince’s point – if all of the common folk died of the bubonic plague while he was out hunting in the country during plague season, that would take care of the nasty population problem he is worried about too, hoorah!

I guess Prince Charles forgot about his expensive organic food for consumers – well at least it isn’t science driven, and mother earth ‘she’ must be pleased.