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From The Sunday Times

May 11, 2008

'Eco-warrior' Prince Philip attacks big families

Dipesh Gadher, Media Correspondent

He has championed youth achievement and the conservation of wildlife. Now the Duke of Edinburgh has turned his thoughts to solving the global food crisis.

Prince Philip emerges in a television interview this week as the model royal “eco-warrior” who believes overpopulation has contributed to the pressures on the world and that anyone who believes in God should go green.

The duke hints that curbing family sizes may be the best means of keeping the soaring cost of staple food products, such as bread and rice, in check.

“Food prices are going up,” he tells his interviewer, Sir Trevor McDonald. “Everyone thinks it’s to do with not enough food, but it’s really that demand is too great – too many people. Basically, it’s a little embarrassing for everybody. No one quite knows how to handle it. Nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by the government.”

Whether Philip, who has four children with the Queen and eight grandchildren, is contemplating a Chinese-style one-child policy for Britain or other, more radical ideas, remains unknown.

McDonald, who interviewed the duke for a two-part television documentary, has pointed out: “If he launches into a flow, it is not proper to interrupt.”

However, some of the duke’s previous observations have landed him in hot water. During a royal tour of China in 1986, he managed to insult his hosts by telling a group of British students not to stay in the country for too long in case they developed “slitty eyes”.

His latest comments will be broadcast tomorrow and on Tuesday on ITV1. The documentary shows that Philip, 86, became involved in green initiatives long before his eldest son. He explains how he enlisted religious leaders, including Pope John Paul II, to the environmental cause. “It seemed to me that most religions attributed the world to some special creation and I said, ‘Well, look, if you believe God created the world, you ought to take an interest in its wellbeing’.”

The duke’s eco-credentials go back to the 1970s when he fitted solar panels to a private cottage on the Sandringham estate. Although he was well ahead of the times, he confesses that the panels saved him only about 10% on fuel bills.

Despite taking the newscaster on a tour of the Sandringham estate in a gas-guzzling Land Rover, the duke uses a black cab run on liquefied petroleum gas to get around London.

The use of such transport can have unintended consequences. Hugo Vickers, a royal historian, said: “On at least one occasion someone has seen a taxi, gone up and tapped on the window and asked the so-called taxi driver the way to somewhere else, and has been seen wandering off scratching his head and wondering if he really has just seen the Duke of Edinburgh.”

Philip, international president emeritus of the World Wide Fund for Nature, has been passionate about conservation work for many years. He is at pains, however, to point out the difference between conserving species and the “huge emphasis” placed on animal welfare today.

The distinction provides him with a defence for more bloody country pursuits, such as pheasant shooting and fox hunting. “People don’t realise it is the species that matter – not the individual – from the conservation point of view,” he says.

“You’ve got to be fairly hard-hearted about it. Conservation is not a romantic business. It’s a very practical business, trying to ensure as many different species of wildlife can exist, and which means in some cases controlling some so the others can have a better chance.”

The ITV documentary has been cleared by Buckingham Palace and the first part will be screened on the same day that Peter Fincham arrives at the broadcaster as its new director of television.

Fincham resigned as controller of BBC1 last year after wrongly edited footage of the Queen was used in a trailer. The film was edited to make it appear as if the monarch had stormed out of a shoot with Annie Leibovitz, the photographer.

The row over audience deception reappeared last week as ITV was fined a record £5.7m by Ofcom, the media regulator, for rigging competitions on a series of shows, while the BBC admitted that it had kept more than £100,000 from phone-ins that should have gone to charity.

Last night Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat culture spokesman, called on the Serious Fraud Office and the police to investigate the scandals.

I seriosly disagree with Prince Philip. On the contrary we ought to have LARGE families. It is only the dead and dying society that seeks to murder the unborn. The Scripture says that Children are blessings, gifts, and rewards. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Melody Seppi, Pixley, United States

Maybe we should start by reducing the size of the royal family who probably use more resources than anyone of us and definately more than anyone in a developing country. Just think of the amount of energy which must go into heating Buckingham palace.

Michaela, London,

One child per family wouldn't really work. Look what has happened this week in China, all those one parent familes have lost their children, who is to keep them in their old age? You shouldn't mess with nature.

Stone, Enger, Germany

He's right. The more people, the more demand for food, fuel, water, minerals, land etc. You can use technology and ingenuity sometimes to mitigate the problem but a smaller population would always mitigate it more. Population is the direct multiplier of the human impact on Earth.

Steve, Swansea, UK

Reducing the overpopulation is often offered as a solution for every problem. But : why do most of us live in towns? There must be a reason. It is because of the advantage we enjoy: a surplus of productivity through sharing of labour.
Hunger occurs in countries with a low population dencity too.

Armin Ulrich, Berlin, Germany

Common Sense triumphs once again. You know, people think I'm crazy when I say that there's too many people. But it's the truth. More people means a greater demand for basic necessities, which in turn puts more pressure on our resources. They deplete faster. A consumerist lifestyle doesn't help.

Sergio, Phoenix, USA

Is that why Prince Philip has four children and eight grandchildren?

Mario, Bickley, UK

The National Socialists of Germany were also big proponents of eugenics!
Food prices are only going up because the parasite bankers at the Federal Reserve, ECB and Bank of England are inflating or debasing the money we use to purchase goods like food.

Mario, Bickley, UK

Earth has surpassed it's maximum capacity of humans a long time ago and we haven't done anything yet. Now we are living in a disfunctional world where the the shallow desires of indevidulas are more important than the future of the specie and the ecosystem on which our existing depends.

Mohamed, elAlouani, Tetouan, Morocco

Earth has surpassed it's maximum capacity of humans a long time ago and we haven't done anything yet. Now we are living in a dysfunctional world where the the shallow desires of individuals are more important than the future of the specie and the ecosystem on which our existing depends.

Mohamed, elAlouani, Tetouan, Morocco

People should be responsible for children they breed. If quantity comes before quality, then do we really need these people? No.

Luke, Bialystok, Poland

Many here claim there's a food shortage, but there are 800 million undernourished in the world, 1500 million are overweight, the Brits throw away 30% of what they buy, and the CAP destroys a percentage of produce to ensure a minimum market price. Global food shortage? No. Bad politics? Definitely.

Robert, Slough,

Increasing food production only ensures more starvation in the future, as more people have enough nourishment to breed and raise children. Start cutting down on foreign aid, localize our food production, and discourage breeding in third world countries, and we can fix this problem.

Pat, Hershey,

Governments/societies who rely on producing over-population and subsequently dispose human matter into other societies can be passively stopped in their practice. No more money and support from western societies for those who create unnecessary human matter.

Individuals rank below civilization.

Xrist, Hvismaar, Germany_corrupt

He has acknowledged one of the symptoms of the wider problem of overpopulation, or 'overshoot': demand for food outstripping supply. Other symptoms include massive bio diversity loss, alarming deforestation rates, global warming and oil depletion. Funny how they're all connected. http://corrupt.org

David, Melbourne, Australia

The world has been over-crowded for long, a thing predicted long ago by economists and science fiction novelists.
The question is what are we going to do about it? It is very good that prince philip comes forth with these ideas, such as a one chilp per family plan, but that's only half the job done

Ben, Haifa, Israel

Quite clearly, if we care even a little for our world, the number of people needs to be reduced, and it needs to be reduced NOW. The longer it takes for this to happen, the more work our posterity will be left with; and everyone knows the faults in leaving the job for the next man to come along...

Mr. Meyer, Vancouver, Canada

Well its long over due that someone has the guts to stand up and say we must reduce our breeding rate. indeed, whats the point of having kids if only to see them die young;which will happen if we have food and energy wars in future.people must remember that kids cause environmental damage.

adrian bourne, worcester, england

Eugenics would be an effective solution to the obvious problem of overpopulation, and would not necessarily have to entail "inhumane" actions.

R., Halifax, Canada

Sadly enough,
people won't check their breeding anytime soon (especially those of lesser intelligence) and we will all suffer the consequences of their wrecklessness/ unalienable rights.

Gordon Bryant, Scottsville, Kentucky, USA

It's about time someone goes public about this. We're overcrowding this planet and we're surprised to see prices break the roof. As a lot of people say, it's the the absence of food making raising prices, it's the demand on it. The more mouth we have to feed the more expensive it will get!

Eric Syre, Sainte-Thecle,

Oh puh-leeze. First off, the entire world's population can fit into Texas--without overcrowding.

Starvation has to do not with the number of people, but with DISTRIBUTION.

Overpopulation? Average birth rate: 1.7. Needed to break even: 2.2.

Alexandra, Wooster, Ohio

We must limit population. We must make organic life instead of institutional. this cant last for long. more conflicts and enviromental crises are imminent.

Ilija, Cuprija,

HRH is right - left to its own devices our species will consume until there is nothing left. We should not have a choice!

James, Chester, UK

I'm impressed by the sheer innumeracy of the Duke's critics. "We need to keep producing children to support us when we're old". So population will increase for ever? And the royal family's lifestyle and number of children is utterly irrelevant. When were leaders ever expected to be average?

Tom Welsh, Basingstoke,

James Cope: you wrote
Kieran says: "if we were all vegetarian the world could happily support 40 billion people"... Perhaps it could feed that many, though I doubt it (where will all the manure come from with no farm animals?)

People create manure too :)

Jenny, Cambridge,

Perhaps Prince Philip and his inbred clan will personally volunteer to give away their vast illegal fortune while at the same time having themselves all sterilized? Action speaks louder than words!

"Commoner", London, England

We in England most certainly suffer from an excess of elitist, over-privileged and under-productive parasites.

Peter, Walsall, England

Kieran says: "if we were all vegetarian the world could happily support 40 billion people"... Perhaps it could feed that many, though I doubt it (where will all the manure come from with no farm animals?) but people demand rather more of the world than merely food. And happily? Not me!

James Cope, Blairgowrie, Scotland

You should all read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. He can say it much better than I.

Lindsay, Calgary, Canada

Unfortunately he is quite correct.We are exceeding the carrying capacity of this planet.

George, Junction, USA

>>The most natural & beautiful thing in the world,

So it may be. But unfortunately our planet can barely support the 6 billion people it already has. You don't understand this, because you live in London and don't experience poverty or environmental degradation.

John Ainsworth, Prague, Czech Republic

The people of the west have already cut back on children. it is in areas of the east where people are not cutting back on how many children they have as though they were still living in agrarian times. That is where the over population problem exists, and they need to start being accountable for it.

Marie, Boston, MA, US

Philip is right about this, there are beginning to be many more like him. He has the courage to think, to take on new knowledge that modifies what he might have believed before, to act and to speak. Thank you.

helen, Norwich,

This is insane!!
Can't believe how many of you agree with laws to limit child bearing! The most natural & beautiful thing in the world, & u want the government to stick it's nose into that part of our lives too? Why not limit how much toilet paper u use when u go to the toilet as well?
Wake up folks

D, London,

Prince Philip is a eugenics advocate who has spoken of his desire to return as a "deadly virus" to thin the human population on many occasions. His supposed environmentalism is merely a veil for his deeply disturbing and inhumane views on population control.

Paul Watson, Sheffield, UK

Spot on Steve Tea - I'll be impressed if all those urging the rest of us to be more eco-aware actually walked the walk rather than just talking the talk; it's very easy to pontificate and sound good, less easy to actually live by the grand words.

Ruth , Glasgow, Scotland

If it does get REALLY bad, I'm sure our governments will concoct a good plot for India and China, the two most populous countries in the world, to wage war on each other.

Between them they share 50% of the world's population - eliminate them, eliminate the problem.

Jeff, Manchester,

I agree with the Duke of Edinburgh. Having more than one child is detrimental in light of our limited world resources. The problem is exacerbated when a family's children depend on taxpayer money to pay their way. Not that anyone Prince Philip knows fits in that category.

Scott, Kansas, USA

"Four children with The Queen", and.................................?

Bill Peter, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Congratulations, Sir. Only the precious few are saying the truth. All of our ecological problems and their subsequent lowering of life quality come from overpopulation. That is the ultimate problem.

Eugene, heidelberg, germany

There are countries around the world where due to high infant mortality is was wise to have as many kids as you could, Infant mortality is now falling in many less developed countries due to better medical care etc, but cultural practices lag behind hence huge population rises in those countries.

Steve, Street, UK

Sure Mr. Prince. And what do you have to say to certain groups who'd not stop breeding and would rapidly expand at the expense of other groups?

No, we need at least a replacement population among the majority ethnic group here, thank you.

Leon Wolfeson, Oxford, UK

The Duke is correct. Just too many people on the planet. His efforts will draw attention to the need of the planet. Birth control will I feel soon become the big issue as it should be. The church also needs to follow the lead of the Duke.

Jim Wils, Brisbane, Australia

Relentless breeding is incredibly selfish and egotistical. There should be moderation in all things including this. HRH is quite correct.

Watts Taylor, Cincinnati, OH, USA

I will feel happier about his concerns now if I knew how much carbon emmissions, waste, etc. that he has been responsible for in his lifetime.

Ian cheese, london, uk

How many properties and how big is his family? Are we going to see Sandringham turned into apartments for the poor and the land made into an allotment?

steve tea, manchester, cheshire

Prince Philip is right.
I have vented over this issue for years.
More and more humans the quicker natural resources will
be gobbled up - and then?
I don't like to think about it.

Jerry Scroggin, Phoenix, Arizona/USA

As usual, Prince Philip has hit the nail on the head - even though he has left it very late, no doubt hoping that governments would take action before he had to speak out. Unfortunately democratic governments are at their weakest when trying to make voters do anything they don't want to.

Tom Welsh, Basingstoke,

Not bad for a prone individual from an endangered species....

Mike L, Chippenham, Wilts

This is pure rubbish, the food shortages are to do with economics in the west, lack of infastructure, changing weather patterns and wars.
Food shortage has nothing at all to do with population. Indeed, if we were all vegetarian the world could happily support 40billion people.

Kieran, St Andrews,

Over-population? Shame about the four kids. There he goes again, pontificating to others when he does something different himself, just like his eldest son. If he were truly responsible he and his wife would have reproduced just twice, replacing himself and The Queen - and live in one house.

Julia Larsen, Reigate, UK

What a twat. He can say what he wants, him and his family sponging of taxpayers and having a cushy life whilst everyone else works hard. He should keep his mouth shut and get back to lounging around in his massive palace.

Steve, London, UK

Thalia, u say two children per household but the duke has four kids with the queen.

Bit hypocritcal.

Anyhow, just to throw this debate wide open, the current ratio for aging population is: of (20-64) to 55+ is 4:1, by 2030 estimated to be 2.5:1. We cant afford to have less children.

Sujeewa, London,

The aging ratio shows, there wont be enough children to support the elderly by 2030. The duke is quite wrong in his judgements. Food price are going up, not just us havin more children. Bad weather is one reason, no crops.In fact statistics show that people are having less children.

Ignorant duk

Sujeewa, London,

Why is this man being applauded for his comments? He has fathered several children; his family make all sorts of excuses for their bloodlust in pursuing blood sports; their extravagant lifestyles do nothing to alleviate poverty or global-warming. So why is he seen as some sort of eco-expert?

Terry Bedding, Bath, UK

Prince Phillip is both right and wrong. The global food crisis is undoubtedly due to the manhy hungry int he developing workd. Equally, our huge appetities int he west, - and our demand for 'quality' which sees huge amounts of food wasted eac h day - are also to blame.

Chris MacDonald, Sydney, Australa

He's absolutely right.
No more than two kids per family. As not everyone wants kids the population would gradually reduce.

Thalia, London,

Finally - millions will hear what they don't want to - curb your child bearing! Over population will be the downfall of this particular species! and I am not just talking about certain countries I am talking about every human on earth.
Think of the consequences 7 generations ahead if you can.

Annette, Edinburgh, Scotland

Being green has nothing to do with being superstitious, but I agree with the Duke that over population is the main problem in the world today. It's a no-brainer: the fewer people there are, the fewer resources are needed & the less pollution there will be. No family should have more than two kids.

David, Cheshire,

Finally... someone who understands the environment. Keep speaking out Prince Philip... someone has to.

Al, Victoria, Australia

Congratulations!. I wish H.R.H's work on animal conservation had been given more prominance such as the Caspian horse. Prince Philip had suggested, in 1971, that some be sent to England to preserve this ancient breed,.Thankfully a core stock was exported prior to the revolution. Well done H.R.H

Paul, Albury, Australia

I totally agree with Shirley.

Ella, London,

I always thought Prince Philip was great and it's a pity he wasn't given the same leeway as Prince Albert. He doesn't pussyfoot about, and the press often vilified him for it. In his very demanding role, he has remained loyal to the Queen. I'm not a royalist, but Happy Anniversary to both!!

Shirley Bowen, Blackpool, UK

Spot on with this issue [as with many others, Sir

andrew, london,