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Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
61 quotes
“A new criterion has been added, the conservation of the environment so that in the long run life, including human life, can continue. This new consideration must be taken into account at all levels and in all departments of government and in the boardrooms of every industrial enterprise. It is no longer sufficient simply to quantify the elements of existence as in old-fashioned material economics; conservation means taking notice of the quality of existence as well... The problem is of course to give some value to that quality and perhaps the only way to do this is to try and work out the cost in terms of loss of amenities, loss of holiday and recreation facilities, loss of property values, loss of contact with nature, loss of health standards and loss of food resources, if proper conservation methods are not used. Looked at in that light it may well turn out that money spent on proper pollution control, urban and rural planning and the control of exploitation of wild stocks of plants or animals on land and in the sea, is the less expensive alternative in the long run... The conservation of nature, the proper care for the human environment and a general concern for the long-term future of the whole of our planet are absolutely vital if future generations are to have a chance to enjoy their existence on this earth.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Australian Conservation Foundation, Canberra (April 1970).
“If the world pollution situation is not critical at the moment, it is as certain as anything can be that the situation will become increasingly intolerable within a very short time. The situation can be controlled, and even reversed; but it demands cooperation on a scale and intensity beyond anything achieved so far. I realize that there are vital causes to be fought for, and I sympathize with people who work up a passionate concern about the all too many examples of inhumanity, injustice, and unfairness; but behind all this hangs a deadly cloud. Still largely unnoticed and unrecognized, the process of destroying our natural environment is gathering speed and momentum. If we fail to cope with the challenge, the other problems will pale into insignificance.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fairfield Osborne Lecture, New York (1 October 1980).
“Q: What do you consider the leading threat to the environment? A: Human population growth is probably the single most serious long-term threat to survival. We're in for a major disaster if it isn't curbed--not just for the natural world, but for the human world. The more people there are, the more resources they'll consume, the more pollution they'll create, the more fighting they will do. We have no option. If it isn't controlled voluntarily, it will be controlled involuntarily by an increase in disease, starvation and war. Q: Is birth control part of the solution? A: Yes, but you can't legislate these problems away. You've got to get people to understand the need for it: the more important people, the ones who have responsibilities have got to do it because they're at the receiving end. They've got to accept the measures.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in "Vanishing Breeds Worry Prince Philip, But Not as Much as Overpopulation" People magazine (21 December 1981).
“It is curious how many philosophers from Plato to Keynes' time have believed in and advocated the control of society by "philosopher kings". According to Plato, "its kings must be those who have shown the greatest ability in philosophy", but--realistically--he added, "and the greatest aptitude for war". Such people may exist in the imagination and occasionally someone with the necessary qualities may briefly dominate the stage of history, but it is a naive appreciation of human nature to imagine that such processed paragons can be invested with the necessary powers and not be tempted to take advantage of their situation.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Question of Balance, Michael Russel (Publishing) Ltd. (1982).
“As long ago as 1798, Malthus explained what happens when the factors limiting the increase in any population are removed. One of the factors noticed by Darwin was that all species are capable of producing vastly greater populations than can be sustained by existing resources; populations did not increase at the rate at which they are capable was the basis for his theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. The relevance to natural selection of this capacity for overproduction is that as each individual is slightly different to all the others it is probable that under natural conditions those individuals which happen to be best adapted to the prevailing circumstances have a better chance of survival. Well, so what? Well, take a look at the figures for the human population of this world. One hundred fifty years ago it stood at about 1,000 million or in common parlance today, 1 billion. It then took about a 100 years to double to 2 billion. It took 30 years to add the third billion and 15 years to reach today's total of 4.4 billion. With a present world average rate of growth of 1.8%, the total population by the year 2000 will have increased to an estimated 6 billion and in that and in subsequent years 100 million people will be added to the world population each year. In fact it could be as much as 16 billion by 2045. As a consequence the demand on resources of land alone will mean a third less farm land available and the destruction of half of the present area of productive tropical forest. Bearing in mind the constant reduction of non-renewable resources, there is a strong possibility of growing scarcity and reduction of standards. More people consume more resources. It is as simple as that; and transferring resources and standards from the richer to the poorer countries can only have a marginal effect in the face of this massive increase in the world population. The object of the WWF is to "conserve" the system as a whole; not to prevent the killing of individual animals. Those who are concerned about their conservation of nature accept that all species are prey to some other species. They accept that most species produce a surplus that is capable of being culled without in any way threatening the survival of the species as a whole.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Chancellor's Lecture, Salford University (4 June 1982).
“For example, the World Health Organization Project, designed to eradicate malaria from Sri Lanka in the postwar years, achieved its purpose. But the problem today is that Sri Lanka must feed three times as many mouths, find three times as many jobs, provide three times the housing, energy, schools, hospitals and land for settlement in order to maintain the same standards. Little wonder the natural environment and wildlife in Sri Lanka has suffered. The fact [is] ... that the best-intentioned aid programs are at least partially responsible for the problems. The industrial revolution sparked the scientific revolution and brought in its wake better public hygiene, better medical care and yet more efficient agriculture. The consequence was a population explosion which still continues today. The sad fact is that, instead of the same number of people being very much better off, more than twice as many people are just as badly off as they were before. Unfortunately all this well-intentioned development has resulted in an ecological disaster of immense proportions.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address on Receiving Honorary Degree from the University of Western Ontario, Canada (1 July 1983).
“So long as they [birth control methods] ... remained taboo subjects the chances of making any impression on the human population explosion were that much more remote. In the introduction to the IUCN Red Data Books which list all animals and plants under threat of extinction, it says that virtually everywhere the major threat to a wild species is loss of habitat to a rapidly increasing human population requiring more space in order to build villages and cities and grow more food. But starvation and poverty cannot be eradicated solely by increased food and resources at the expense of what remains of the natural world. Any increase in the provision of food and resources must be accompanied by a drastic reduction in the rate of increase in the human population.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Margaret Pyke Memorial Trust Dinner in London (14 December 1983).
“As its name implies, World Wildlife Fund is in the business of raising money for the conservation of nature and to that end Fleur Cowles — a long time and dedicated supporter of the Fund — has offered a proportion of the royalities from the sale of this book to WWF. It is easy enough to feel an affinity to a particular species of animal, but I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers that it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings towards the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist and by sheer indifference had destroyed any chance of it finding a mate and producing a family? There are not just a few such species, there are a great many and the list is getting longer every day. When I look at the shelf with all the volumes of the Red Data Books listing endangered species I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus, but that is perhaps going too far. I would much rather see the human species voluntarily restrict its numbers out of consideration for the rest of the living world with which it still has a chance of sharing this planet.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to If I Were an Animal (1986) by Fleur Cowles; United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd.
“I do believe ... that human population pressure--the sheer number of people on this planet--is the single most important cause of the degradation of the natural environment, of the progressive extinction of wild species of plants and animals, and of the destabilization of the world's climatic and atmospheric systems. The simple fact is that the human population of the world is consuming natural renewable resources faster than it can regenerate, and the process of exploitation is causing even further damage. If this is already happening with a population of 4 billion, I ask you to imagine what things will be like when the population reaches six and then 10 billion.... All this has been made possible by the industrial revolution and the scientific explosion and it is spread around the world by the new economic religion of development.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Joint Meeting of the All-Party Group on Population and Development and the All-Party Conservation Committee in London (11 March 1987).
“I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history, but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in the number of game animals and the need to adjust the "cull" to the size of the surplus population. It took about three and a half billion years for life on earth to reach the state of complexity and diversity that our ancestors knew as recently as 200 years ago. It has only taken industrial and scientific man those 200 years to put at risk the whole of the world's natural system. It has been estimated that by the year 2000, some 300,000 species of plants and animals will have become extinct, and that the natural economy, upon which all life depends, will have been seriously disrupted. The paradox is that this will have been achieved with the best possible intentions. The human population must be properly fed, human life must be preserved and human existence must be made safer and more comfortable. All these things are obviously highly desirable, but if their achievement means putting the survival of future generations at risk, then there is a pressing obligation on present generations to apply some measure of self-restraint. What has been described as the «balance of nature» is simply nature's system of self-limitation. Fertility and breeding success create the surpluses after allowing for the replacement of the losses. Predation, climatic variation, disease, starvation--and in the case of the inappropriately named Homo sapiens, wars and terrorism--are the principal means by which population numbers are kept under some sort of control. Viewed dispassionately, it must be obvious that the world's human population has grown to such a size that it is threatening its own habitat; and it has already succeeded in causing the extinction of large numbers of wild plant and animal species. Some have simply been killed off. Others have quietly disappeared, as their habitats have been taken over or disturbed by human activities.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to "The Population Factor" section of Down to Earth (1988).
“The food prices are going up – everyone thinks it’s to do with not enough food but it's really that demand is too great, [there are] too many people. It’s embarrassing and no one knows how to handle it because nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by Government... overpopulation is to blame for many of the problems afflicting millions of people around the world... 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... People don’t realise it is the species that matter – not the individual – from the conservation point of view. 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.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Television interview with Sir Trevor McDonald for the ITV documentary The Duke: A Portrait of Prince Philip (2008)