Posted on 06/27/2007 5:26:29 AM PDT by Colquhoun
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press WriterTue Jun 26, 11:29 AM ET
Fewer chartered planes, more train trips and a royal Jaguar that runs on cooking oil have helped Prince Charles achieve a carbon-neutral household, an annual review of the prince's accounts said Tuesday.
The annual review by the prince's Clarence House office said Charles cut his annual carbon emissions by 9 percent, to 3,775 tons, between April 1, 2006 and March 31 of this year. The prince offset those emissions by investing in an agency that promotes tree planting and sustainable energy projects.
The review said the prince's households — the Highgrove estate in western England, where he farms organically, as well as Clarence House in London and Birkhall in Scotland — and the activities of Charles and his wife Camilla were now carbon neutral.
The report — printed on recycled paper in vegetable-based ink — said the prince had reduced the number of plane and helicopter journeys he takes, introduced green electricity at Highgrove, and converted his Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles to run on biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil.
Plans also are being discussed to convert the royal train to biodiesel fuel, said the prince's principal private secretary, Sir Michael Peat.
Charles was criticized earlier this year for flying to New York to accept an environmental award — one of 86 overseas trips the prince took in the past year. But Peat said the prince used carbon offsetting — funding the planting of trees or other activities that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — to balance the effects of his air travel.
The total cost of offsetting the prince's carbon emissions for one year was about $60,000, the review said.
"We continue to look at the most effective, appropriate way in which to offset," Peat said. "I'm sure we'll develop and revise the way we offset as we go on. But we're doing it the best way we can at the moment."
Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the carbon-cutting prince.
"The fact that he reduced his carbon emissions by 9 percent in the last year alone highlights the potential for making rapid cuts in the nation's contribution to climate change," director Tony Juniper said.
The Queen: “Well, at least he has something to keep him busy.”
Liberalism is truly a mental illness. A Jag that runs on cooking oil, simply too much!!
I'd rather not think of the "activities" of those two. ....especially right before breakfast.
The royal train.....he is in lala land.
God Save The Queen!
Prince Charles also reduced his carbon footprint by riding a horse. The name of the horse is Camilla.
That guy is a first rate wimp.
That dolt should just become carbon and let his son succeed the Queen.
That dolt should just become carbon and let his son succeed the Queen.
He doesn’t fart?
Sounds like he died or something.
Is he still breathing? He would have to assume room temperature in order to become truly carbon neutral.
That's not "carbon neutral". Cooking oil is made up of long chain aliphatic and olefinic fatty acids. When combusted, they still produce CO2 and H2O (or CO, if your engine is not working right) as products of the combustion reaction. Burning cooking oil in an engine, while perhaps helping to wean you off of foreign oil, isn't going to significantly reduce your carbon tireprint.
Sounds like a great euphemism for death, as in . . . “Yes, honey, uncle Joe is (sniff) carbon neutral now.”
Do they heat their little shack with cooking oil, too?
He pays a peasant to not fart, thus having a methane offset.
This should be satire........but it isn't. Monty Python couldn't have done it any better.
So this is what the House of Windsor has been reduced to. Chasing carbon atoms. A fitting metaphor for the insanity which is totally consuming Britain. As the country pushes ahead with cloning, human/animal chimeras, and exportation of abortion and anti-life culture in all its forms, the future British head of state frets about cooking oil and gasoline.
"Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make crazy".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.