Prince William's Earthshot Prize to publish book on 'urgency of the environmental challenges facing our world'
Earthshot will be published in Canada on Oct. 5, 2021
Prince William's environmental prize, the Earthshot Prize, is publishing a book designed to inspire action to protect the environment and combat climate change.
Earthshot "will be the authoritative book of The Earthshot Prize, highlighting the urgency of the environmental challenges facing our world while also providing readers with inspirational case studies of the incredible solutions happening globally to repair our planet," the book's publisher, John Murray, said in a press release.
The book is subtitled "how to save our planet" and was written by Colin Butfield and Jonnie Hughes. Buttfield is the executive producer for the Our Planet Project at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) while Hughes is a science writer and filmmaker.
Prince William wrote the introduction.
The prize and the book are focused on five different goals for environmental change: protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world and fix our climate.
The book will also feature contributions from singer and philanthropist Shakira Mebarak, activist Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, and broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough.
These contributors all act as advisers to the Earthshot Prize.
Earthshot will be published in Canada on Oct. 5, 2021.
A prize to save the planet
The Earthshot Prize will award five prizes worth $1.7 million Cdn each year for the next 10 years, from 2021 to 2030, under the same categories of protecting and restoring nature, cleaner air, reviving oceans, waste-reduction and climate change.
"The Earth is at a tipping point and we face a stark choice: Either we continue as we are and irreparably damage our plane, or we remember our unique power as human beings and our continual ability to lead, innovate and problem solve," the Duke of Cambridge said when he announced the prize in 2019.
Introducing The Earthshot Prize, the most prestigious global environment prize in history.<br><br>This new global prize for the environment will incentivise change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years – a critical decade for the Earth. <a href="https://t.co/biAZecHuml">pic.twitter.com/biAZecHuml</a>
—@EarthshotPrizeWilliam has recruited a dozen global celebrities to join the Earthshot Prize Council to decide the winners.
They include Brazilian footballer Alves and Chinese entrepreneur Ma, Queen Rania of Jordan, Australian actor Cate Blanchett, Colombian singer Shakira and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.
"By 2030 we really hope to have made huge strides in fixing some of the biggest problems the Earth faces," William said when announcing the prize.
"I think that urgency with optimism really creates action. And so the Earthshot Prize is really about harnessing that optimism and that urgency to find solutions to some of the world's greatest environmental problems."
The prize is supported by several international organizations, including the WWF, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Economic Forum, the National Geographic Society and Greenpeace.
The first prize winners will be announced on Oct. 17, 2021.
More royals publishing books
Earthshot is the second book with a royal connection to be announced this week. On Tuesday, July 20, Prince Harry announced he will be publishing a memoir in late 2022.
The book, which is not yet titled, will be "the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses, and life lessons that have helped shape him," according to the Canadian publisher, Random House Canada.
Harry's wife, Meghan, also recently became an author. She published her first book, the picture book The Bench, in spring 2021. The book, which was illustrated by American artist Christian Robinson, was a celebration of fathers and sons. It was inspired by Harry's relationship with the couple's first child, Archie.
The Bench is the second book Meghan has worked on.
In 2018, she worked on and wrote the foreword to Together, a cookbook compiling recipes from survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire in London. In the aftermath of the fire, several women came together at the Hubb Community Kitchen to share recipes, find community and restore hope. Meghan became involved in the group, and the cookbook serves as a fundraiser for the kitchen.
With files from Reuters
