The Prince of Wales yesterday said he found the views of climate change sceptics “extraordinary”.
He also made an impassioned plea for the country to adopt greener ways as he gave a breakfast television interview.
He warned that living on the planet would be “no fun at all” for future generations unless people took action to combat climate change.
Prince Charles has spent the week touring eco-projects across the country and emphasised how some local people were taking up the challenge of adopting more sustainable lives.
The heir to the throne’s comments were made in a pre-recorded interview with Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, the hosts of ITV’s new breakfast show Daybreak.
The royal chatted to the presenters in the garden of his London home Clarence House yesterday evening and even showed them his small vegetable garden with its neat rows of lettuces and leeks.
Speaking about his travels around the country to promote his START initiative – which aims to encourage the public to move towards a more sustainable lifestyle – Prince Charles said: “What I’ve been trying to highlight is the fact that so much can be done by communities – it’s a grassroots thing.
“Frequently people have taken it onto themselves to try and do all these things because they get frustrated I think, and they also realise there is a huge challenge that we’re facing.
“And you know (we’re) putting nature’s systems under huge strain and we can’t go on like that if we want to hand over something reasonably worthwhile to our children and grandchildren.”
Asked by Ms Bleakley what he thought of climate change doubters, the Prince responded: “I find it quite extraordinary, because to me it seems only sensible to take a precautionary approach. There is something going very wrong.
“And I would say to all these sceptics – alright it may be very convenient to believe that somehow all these greenhouse gases we’re pouring into the atmosphere just disappear through holes conveniently into space, it doesn’t work like that.”