Paddy Harverson, The Royals & Their Fight To Save The Rainforests

What do the Dalai Lama, Harrison Ford, Robin Williams, Pele and Princes Charles, William and Harry have in common?

They all want to save the world's rainforests via YouTube.


Headshaver, Paddy Harverson

has been making the rounds stateside, on morning news shows this week on behalf of Prince Charles and his online public awareness campaign to save Rainforests. Patrick (Paddy) Harverson is the Communications Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales. Over the past 18 months Prince Charles has stepped up his campaign against deforestation as a way of combating climate change and he hopes the new project will improve public understanding of the issues.

The focal point of the campaign is a 90-second public awareness film in which His Royal Highness appears alongside his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, an array of well-known figures including Harrison Ford, the Dalai Lama, Daniel Craig, Robin Williams and children from around the world. Each individual appears alongside an animated frog. The frog, created by Framestore, the Oscar-winning computer generated imagery (CGI) experts behind the film The Golden Compass, serves as a symbol of the rainforest.



The film was shown for the first time Tuesday on a variety of websites, including the social networking site MySpace. In order to make the campaign truly interactive, a digital application enables supporters to create their very own “mash-up” version of the film in which they can appear alongside the frog and well-known figures.

In his webcast, broadcast online before the showing of the film, The Prince of Wales said: “Our aim, with your help, is to build an online community to call, from the bottom up, for urgent action to protect the Rainforests, without which we will most certainly lose the battle against catastrophic climate change.

“One of the internet’s strengths is that it can enable diverse communities to come together to ensure that everybody’s views and actions can really be made to count. It provides the potential to create global determination for change on a vitally important issue.”

Princess Diana would be very pleased with this cause and the involvement of her two sons in this video. That "frog" and prince connection is a hoot. I meant, ribbit!

This campaign was very big on campus this week.
The real stars in that video are not all those celebrities. It's Harry & Wils.
Word has it that Paddy Harverson was initially hired to keep Harry from getting in trouble.

Austin wrote:Word has it that Paddy Harverson was initially hired to keep Harry from getting in trouble.

Harverson was hired just after Harry's infamous party outfit.

Austin wrote: Paddy Harverson was initially hired to keep Harry from getting in trouble.

True, since Harverson's been in charge, wild Harry has gone tame. Both boys have become perfect gentlemen.

The sad thing about the "Save the Rainforest" movement is that no one ever does the math and the numbers are so freaking easy to find.

I wrote up a report on this but I don't have the actual numbers immediately at hand but if you take the numbers specified for the deforestation rate of, say, the Amazon rainforest and apply it to the number of years we've been scared by it the forest should have disappeared long ago. Unfortunately (or fortunately) only about 15% has been destroyed and some of that land is fallow (in the process of regeneration)

Then I thought that maybe these decades of actions to save the forest have been working and the deforestation rate has plummeted. Wrong! I checked around on the web and not only are the alarmists continuing to cite massive deforestation rates many actually claim that things are getting WORSE! (First rule of environmentalism is to scare people. The second rule is to never admit progress.)

The truth about the "Save the Rainforest" campaign is that it's nothing more than a means for the rich and famous of the world to shame the rest of us into stroking ther egos (and getting some free publicity for their commercial products in the process). Unfortunately since we live in a pop-culture, instant gratification society no one bothers to even check to see if this movement is honest.

The Rainforest Foundation was founded by Sting and his wife Trudie Styler, after they saw first-hand the destruction of the Amazon rainforests. The foundation tackles deforestation locally and globally. Locally it helps forest communities to gain land rights, challenge logging companies and manage forests for their own wellbeing and protection of their environment. Globally it campaigns to influence national and international laws to protect rainforests and their inhabitants.

Since it was founded in 1989 the Rainforest Foundation has helped indigenous and local communities to protect more than 100,000 square kilometers of rainforest.

Brandon wrote:

Austin wrote: Paddy Harverson was initially hired to keep Harry from getting in trouble.

True, since Harverson's been in charge, wild Harry has gone tame. Both boys have become perfect gentlemen.

The royal snooze fest is over. The local tabloids are all over Lady Kate. A royal announcement is scheduled for sometime in June.

Wils' hair is being "air brushed" by the press.

Wills and Kate just announced their engagement.