“Penny wise and pound foolish” and “Do as I say do, not as I do” are adages that come to mind with the latest spate of media fawning over England’s King-in-Waiting Charles of Windsor and his crusade to save us from ourselves through organic farming, alternative energy, and more thrifty lifestyles.

This is the same Prince Charles who was skewered a while back by the snarky British press for chartering a luxury Airbus aircraft that could seat 156 passengers to take him, his wife, and 10 personal staff on a five-day 2,200-mile European jaunt. Prior to that, he used another giant Airbus for 14 people to tour South America, so he could advocate against global warming (both trips generating a huge carbon footprint), and is reported to have spent almost $5,000 to fly into London to just to see a movie.

Well, gee, nobody expects a king-to-be to travel steerage, and when one has millions of dollars at one’s disposal, why not enjoy all the perks of royaldom?

For his recent trip to the U.S. to deliver the keynote address at the Future of Food Conference at Georgetown University, he is reported to have downsized, traveling on the private jet of an American financier. Cost unknown.

"In some cases,” Charles said at the conference, “We are pushing nature’s life support systems so far they are struggling to cope with what we ask of them, and the entire system is at the mercy of an increasingly fluctuating price of oil. One study I have seen estimates that a person today on a typical western diet is, in effect, consuming nearly a gallon of diesel every day.”

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