UK-based advocacy group Population Matters, awards the ex-royals an award for their eco-friendly actions.
By Rick Whitbeck
July 15, 2021
For a couple who claims to shun the media spotlight, ex-Royal Family members Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sure find themselves in the headlines a lot. Since their high-profile Brexit for the plush hills of Montecito, the duo has lived large, basking in the glow of fawning attention from the mainstream media.
In 2019, their public announcement that they were limiting their offspring to a maximum of two children was met with scoff from public figures and scientists alike.
Not so from the fringe UK-based advocacy group Population Matters, who awarded the ex-royals an award for their eco-friendly actions. You see, Population Matters, whose web site states, “all our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people,” defined the awardees – ten people in all – as “promoting reproductive rights, defending the environment, and enlightening the public about the challenges we face and the solutions that are available.”
The award? £500 ($695 in American value) to forward to a charity of the recipients’ choosing.
“When probably the most famous couple in the world say they choose to stop at two, they help to popularise and normalise that choice,” noted their website.
Population Matters’ representatives told the UK’s Insider: “We didn’t, of course, give the Sussexes an award for having two children – which is far from unique – but for the context in which they’ve done it.”
Offspring to a maximum of two?
So, now that the couple has won such a prestigious award, many wonder if they’ll start walking their talk in other areas of their lives? After all, in his documentary on mental health, The Me You Can’t See, which was released in May, Harry described climate change as one of the two “most pressing issues” the world is facing.
“With kids growing up in today’s world, [it’s] pretty depressing right, depending on where you live, your home country is either on fire, it’s either underwater, houses or forests are being flattened,” he said.
Well-known Brit Piers Morgan hit the nail on the head, when he Tweeted, “Is this the same Harry who uses helicopters to go from London to Birmingham & whose wife uses celebrity mates’ private jets to cross the Atlantic?”
A story last year noted that Harry and Meghan’s carbon footprint just on international flights was 26 times the size of the average British individual’s overall footprint. With a 24,500 square foot mansion in Los Angeles, their preference for Cadillac Escalades while driving and private jets, even for intra-UK flights, their overall carbon footprint is spectacular.
Are Children Pollution?
Population Matters, whose web site states, “all our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people,”
But Harry and Meghan aren’t the only eco-warriors with questionable decision-making when it comes to matching words with actions.
Current International ‘Climate Czar’, John Kerry, a father of five, regularly flies private (or maskless), owns multiple homes and a yacht.
Bernie Sanders’ standing with Population Matters would never lead to an award, since he and his wife have four children. Sanders flies private, owns multiple homes and certainly doesn’t match his Democratic Socialist-driven beliefs on income redistribution to his estimated $2 million net worth.
Even Democratic Socialist Millennial standard-bearer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who made headlines in 2019 with her question on whether it was moral to bring children into the world, now has backtracked, and talked about becoming a parent.
Rashida Tlaib is the oldest of 14 children. Joe Biden fathered four children. So did Al Gore, even with his extreme eco tendencies. Nancy Pelosi brought five kids into the world. Ilhan Omar has three kids. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has three. Canadian Catherine McKenna was appointed as the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, but even with her radical environmental views, she has three children as well.
God bless every one of them. Children are life’s greatest blessing, and a source of unending joy. But to have (or not) to have kids is a deeply personal choice that belongs nowhere near the arena of a public policy debate about climate change.
If Harry and Meghan want to have more children, that should be their decision. But their eco-left allies have become so hyperbolic and over-the-top that now offspring are associated with carbon. That’s wrong and would be funny if the stakes were not so high and the direction of this debate were not so ominous.
Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at rick@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @PTFAlaska.
