Prince William’s Cheery Environmental Message to Kids: ‘Shoot for the EARTH’
Ahead of next month’s Earthshot Prize Awards in Singapore, Prince William is pulling a JFK and telling the next generation that it’s time to dream big as we try to care for Planet Earth. Here’s his message to the little ones, in the forward to a new children’s book called The Earthshot Prize: A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers, out this week from Hachette.
“When I was the age many of you reading this are now, a lot of people didn’t believe that the changes they were seeing in our planet’s climate were anything to worry about—and some refused to even believe those changes were happening at all.
But while denying it was happening then was scary; feeling defeated and giving up hope to fix these problems now is an even scarier thought.
The world we live in today can feel overwhelming but the biggest challenge we face will be making sure we support and celebrate the wins for our planet, large or small, that can make a difference for everyone’s future. We call these wins, Earthshots...
In the 1960s, the world looked to the skies as the great unknown, and the American President John F. Kennedy set a Moonshot challenge....encouraging people to ‘shoot for the moon’ to begin exploring this final frontier.
Well, I believe right now it’s time we shoot for the EARTH. She is the only home we have, and we must think big and dream bigger if we are to protect her.
Prince William Praises ‘Optimism’ of America as He Touches Down in NYC
In my life, I’ve had the opportunity to meet dreamers and thinkers from all around the world. They are devoting their lives to a cause bigger than themselves, coming up with new ways to solve old problems. 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.”
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