Prince William has “written” an Earthshot book, y’all. We heard about this months ago, because Prince Harry’s memoir was a bestseller and Kensington Palace had to compete with it somehow, so we’re getting The Earthshot Prize: A Handbook For Dreamers And Thinkers: Solutions To Repair Our Planet. Also known as This Is Not How Colons Work: This Is Also Not How They Work: Colons Are Not the Solution To All of Your Problems. Once again, that rusty peg has a real problem with branding. As for the actual book, he only wrote the introduction, and I’m not going to give him a hard time for trying to create an environmental book which carries digestible information about eco-solutions. In fact, I would imagine that the book is probably representative of William’s limited environmental scholarship. He could have called Earthshot: Keen About The Environment: How Colons Can Save the Planet.
The Prince of Wales has told young readers ‘we must think big and dream bigger’ if we are to protect the earth, in a foreword to a children’s Earthshot Prize book. In his introduction, Prince William, 41, writes that when he was a child some people ‘refused’ to believe climate change was happening.
‘But while denying it was happening then was scary’, giving up hope that environmental problems can be fixed now, was ‘an even scarier thought’, he said.
The new children’s book, The Earthshot Prize: A Handbook For Dreamers And Thinkers: Solutions To Repair Our Planet, is co-authored by Jonnie Hughes and Colin Butfield, and aims to inspire young people to develop their own ideas to help the Earth. Published on October 12, the book contains practical things young readers can do or make to help save the planet, as well as big ideas and contributions from around the world, including from broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
Speaking about the Earth, William says in his foreword: ‘She is the only home we have and we must think big and dream bigger if we are to protect her….We now live in a world where seaweed can replace plastic and whole countries team together to protect rainforests, and our goal with The Earthshot Prize Handbook For Dreamers And Thinkers is simple: to encourage you to think about how you can become one of these amazing people contributing to the mission to repair our planet.
‘From pulling carbon dioxide from the air and locking it away in rocks, to making leather from flowers instead of animals, and from sustainable concrete to bubble barriers that remove plastic from our rivers, the Earthshots you’ll read about in these pages are the stories of possibility and potential, and it is my hope that they will leave you feeling inspired and optimistic. Because if we put our minds to it, the urgency we need, with the optimism we must hold on to, will equal the action we need to repair our planet.’
As I said, it’s fine to create a “handbook” with digestible information about environmentalism and what the average person/kid can do. It’s also fine that William basically commissioned other people to write the book as part of his Earthshot keenery. Now, will anyone actually care? Are kids going to run out and buy this book? No. They won’t. He won’t even be able to give this sh-t away.
PS… In 2020, William made an “I am a keen environmentalist” documentary and he had a colon problem in the title! I just remembered it! The doc was called Prince William: A Planet For Us All. Again, can someone explain colons to Peg?
Introducing the @EarthshotPrize children’s book
The Earthshot Prize: A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers
Inspiring young people to become the changemakers of the future and develop solutions to the world’s biggest environmental challenges ????
???? https://t.co/0nkHHbYIYT pic.twitter.com/i7nesmAD4h
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) October 8, 2023
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
