“YouTuber Becomes King of England” may sound like the plot to a Disney Channel series, but Woody Harrelson says it might just be our best hope at preventing the apocalypse.
Last month, the coronation of King Charles III came and went with surprisingly little fanfare as the world outside of England, exhausted from the unending news cycle of the monarchy and its expats, decided that we don’t care which genealogically chosen figurehead gets to sit on a big gold chair halfway across the world. As the United Kingdom’s head of state, His Majesty has little to do with the actual policy-making duties of the constitutional monarchy atop which he is now perched — but he’s hoping to change that.
In 2020, Charles launched RE:TV, a media organization designed to highlight the innovations in sustainability and efforts of climate researchers around the world to combat ecological catastrophe. Yesterday, the RE:TV YouTube channel published a project from The King, who did the next best thing to tackling climate change — he got a bunch of celebrities to talk about it.
Among the A-listers featured in the video, Idris Elba, Olivia Colman, Woody Harrelson and Glenn Close all took turns reciting lines from various speeches Charles has made during his long career as a rich guy who talks to people. Charles has, apparently, been devoted to environmentalism throughout his life as Prince, and with the monarchy’s highest title finally his, he hopes to amplify his message of conservation and innovation on the largest platform.
Sadly, that platform doesn’t seem to be YouTube — The King’s Speech 2 has fewer than 5,000 views at the time of writing. Though it’s fun to poke fun at the pomp and circumstance of the archaic hierarchical institutions of the world, Charles’ message is obviously an important one, and with the U.K. under a Conservative government, having an outspoken advocate for climate action is clearly a positive development for the position of King.
Hopefully, Charles’ many words and the many actors who spoke them will inspire decisive action on the pressing matter. Maybe even from their many rich friends.