Prince pens Ladybird eco book
Charles’s cover inspired by dramatic flood video
PRINCE Charles has taken the extraordinary step of writing a Ladybird book warning of the threat of global warming.
The outspoken heir to the Throne, who has made no secret of his views on climate change, is co-author – along with two prominent environmental campaigners – of the 52-page guide.
Details of its content have not been revealed but The Mail on Sunday understands that the slim, hardback volume claims there is overwhelming scientific evidence that largely man-made global warming causes catastrophic events, including the recent flooding in parts of Britain and rising global temperatures.
It is not known if the opinions of experts who take a less alarmist view are reflected in the book, which is aimed at adults.
The publisher, better known for its children’s classics of the 1960s and 1970s, says the book offers a ‘bite-sized understanding’ of a ‘challenging subject’, and is written by ‘leading lights’ in their fields, providing ‘informed expert opinion’.
It added that it had been extensively peer-reviewed by scientists, including the Royal Meteorological Society – a first for Ladybird.
Last night critics said the Prince risked being too partisan on the controversial issue when there was still disagreement among experts. Former Government Minister Peter Lilley said: ‘Prince Charles is sadly reflecting the view fostered by organisations like the BBC and others that anyone who exercises their critical faculties on global warming is beyond the pale.’
But Sir Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP for Mid Sussex, said: ‘Climate change is a very complex and difficult subject, and it’s brilliant the way he has distilled the arguments into this book. I commend him for writing it.’
Former Business Secretary Vince Cable added: ‘I think it’s only a few people now who do not believe that climate change is happening, so Prince Charles is right to write about it.
‘Also, he is writing about science, and so there is no problem with that. Prince Charles has written widely on social matters over the years, and I commend him for that.’
Prince Charles penned the introduction and co-wrote the 5,000-word book with former Green Party Parliamentary candidate Tony Juniper and polar scientist Emily Shuckburgh. It is the first of a new series from Ladybird aimed at explaining complicated subjects to a mass audience.
The book is expected to stress that the scientific evidence for global warming is overwhelming. It is understood to discuss the series of floods that have hit different areas of Britain over recent years, from Somerset to Cumbria, and cite experts who say that climate change has made such events much more likely.
The cover is illustrated in the iconic style of the classic books, but sets the tone by picturing a scene from the devastating 2000 floods in East Sussex under the title Climate Change.
Based on actual video footage, it shows members of the emergency services navigating the torrent down Uckfield high street in an inflatable dinghy.
Ladybird has used artistic licence to include members of the public stranded on a roof – no such people appear in the film.
The town was one of the worst-hit areas during the floods that devastated large parts of England and Wales. The River Uck burst its banks after six inches of rain fell overnight and the Coastguard had to rescue a jeweller who was swept more than a mile by the raging water. Dozens of shops were flooded and cars were swept away while lifeboats had to rescue desperate residents from flats above shops and supermarkets on the high street.
The following month, Prince Charles blamed the floods on ‘mankind’s arrogant disregard of the delicate balance of nature’.
A study by Oxford University a year later said global warming had made the floods between two and three times more likely to happen because warm air holds more moisture, making outbreaks of heavy rainfall more frequent.
But residents of Uckfield said the more important factor for their town was the fact that it was built on a flood plain, suggesting the floods might have had nothing to do with global warming.
Retired Uckfield policeman and chairman of the local community radio station, Mike Skinner, said the town had been hit by floods on numerous occasions, dating back to the mid-19th Century. He added: ‘We haven’t had anything again in the last 16 years, and you might have expected that with temperatures still rising.’
Mr Juniper, a former director of Friends of the Earth and an adviser to the Prince, said: ‘Telling the story of climate change in 50,000 words would be hard enough, but doing it in 5,000 is, we discovered, a far more challenging job.’
He added: ‘His Royal Highness, Emily and I had to work very hard to make sure that each word did its job, while at the same time working with the pictures to deliver the points we needed to make. I hope we’ve managed to paint a vivid picture, and like those iconic titles from the 60s and 70s, created a title
‘Sadly reflecting the BBC view’ ‘We haven’t had any floods for 16 years’
that will stand the test of time.’ Oxford-educated Dr Shuckburgh, a climate scientist and mathematician at the British Antarctic Survey, which studies the polar ice caps, is deputy head of the polar oceans team.
While the book is only a brief resume of the topic, it may attract fresh criticism that the Prince should avoid ‘meddling’ in sensitive issues, particularly when he is gradually taking on more duties from the Queen.
The Prince – whose handwritten memos, in which he expresses his views to Government Ministers in a scrawling hand, are dreaded across Whitehall – has a long history of issuing dire warnings about the environment.
He said in 2012 that mankind was ‘committing suicide on a grand scale’ if urgent action was not taken on green issues. He also provoked a row a year ago by claiming that terrorism and war in Syria had been fuelled by droughts exacerbated by global warming that had driven people off the land.
The Prince, who has lambasted sceptics as ‘headless chickens’ who espouse ‘pseudo-science’, made one of his strongest speeches on climate change last month, telling business leaders in the Middle East that the world faced its ‘greatest challenge’.
The new ‘expert’ range from Ladybird, part of Penguin Books, deals with topics from Quantum Mechanics to Evolution.
Other titles on subjects such as the Battle of Britain and the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album will follow.
They follow the huge success of the humorous series, The Ladybird Books for Grown-ups – which were aimed at the adult market and which have sold more than 3 million copies – and will be published in hardback on January 26 for £7.99 each.