Prince Charles will be visiting the U.S. next week, a tour of sort, and he seems to have a lot to say to us.

Now I know the U.S. and England are allies for the most part, but looking at some of his reasons for touring the U.S., led me to do some research; curious while he seems to be here to help us “fix” our problems, and adjust our “attitudes” on a few things, I wondered what was the state in HIS nation on these same issues and find some descrepencies in his logic.

One item he would like to discuss is how he finds the climate change terrifying. Now I realize that scientists disagree if there actually IS global warming, but generally those who DO, often mention pollution as its cause. So, I decided to look up items on England about its own pollution.

I found a 2003 article on England, and according to this article, England is suffering from dramatic pollution. More than 90% of England is now affected by some form of pollution, a study has found.

Rapidly expanding road networks and a sharp rise in flights have led to a dramatic jump in air, noise and light pollution in the past decade.

London and the South East are the worst hit areas with Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield also badly contaminated.

Planned road developments are expected to exacerbate the problem over the next few years by generating even more noise and fumes across large swathes of the country.

The number of people affected by unacceptable levels of noise from air traffic is also predicted to double by 2030 as passenger numbers soar.

Only one tenth of the country now experiences a truly dark night after light pollution rose by a quarter between 1993 and 2000.

Even on the clearest nights, less than half of homes in England can now see the Milky Way.

Experts blame it on an increase in street lamps, floodlights at sports venues and security lights fitted on private homes.

Another reason for his visit, is to inaugurate a new memorial garden in New York for the British victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. At the same time, he will plead Islam’s cause to Bush, it’s merits. He feels United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11. I really disagree. I think we have bent over backwards to distinguish them from Terrorists. One would have to live here to know. Perhaps he could also take his case to Brazil?

The phrase “merits of Islam” is an interesting one. I recently participated in a study of Islam, there were many parts I found it lacking in merit. Our study wasn’t without former Islamic people there confirming our studies. But it could be interesting to see what ol’ Chuck has to say about it. Prince Charles, wants Americans - including Mr Bush - to share his fondness for Islam. I am sorry, I don’t want a fondness for it. Based on news stories about how Christians are treated in their countries -they don’t want a fondness for Christianity either! How many churches are built in Islamic nations compared to how many mosques are here? As of one recent count we have 1209 mosques here in the United States. They have an amazing rate of growth as well. From 1994 to 2000 there was a 300% increase. While this goes on here, Saudi Arabia Blocks Christian Websites, the government of Saudi Arabia has prohibited its citizens from viewing these pages. The results show that the nation filters sites about religion, politics, women, health, pop culture, and more. With the cooperation of the Saudi government, Harvard researchers attempted to access 64,000 Web addresses and compiled a list of 2,038 restricted sites.

Virginia Sherry, associate director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, told Christianity Today that the blocked pages on the Harvard list are “only the tip of the iceberg.” Last year, a Saudi official quoted by the Associated Press placed the number of banned sites at 400,000. As well as blocked web addresses,

Christians don’t get the benefit as muslims have here, to have their own churches. They have to meet secretly in homes, and once found, they are promptly arrested -children too.

So Chuck wants to talk to WHO about TOLERANCE? I am sorry, I just can’t BUY what he is SELLING.

During the final leg of the tour, Charles and Camilla will meet homeless people in San Francisco. I wondered. Doesn’t the UK have homeless people? If so, wouldn’t THEY like to be talked to by their own prince?

Once again, I went to my research, yes, they do have homeless people. It wasn’t easy to find exact numbers, they claim to have a hard time defining homeless in the UK. Well gee, they seem to know who are homeless here, but don’t know their own.

Here is what I found:

In 2000 in England, there were 172,760 households accepted as homeless. Of these;
110,790 were classified as unintentionally homeless and in priority need;
8,140 intentionally homeless and in priority need and;
52,830 homeless and not in priority need.
In 1999 30% lost their home because friends or relatives could no longer accommodate them, 23% because of relationship breakdown, and 3% because of mortgage arrears.
It is estimated that the 172,760 households represents over 415,000 people.

ukThere are no comprehensive or reliable figures for single homelessness nationally due to the complexities of the situation and any figure would have to include single people in hostels and B&Bs, rough sleepers, squatters, etc.
28,353 households accepted by local authorities as homeless in 1996/97 had a single occupant (see above).
A report by the London Research Centre in 1996 estimated there to be over 100,000 single homeless people in London.

The government has recently produced the first official national estimate of the extent of rough sleeping in England. This was based on local authority counts and estimates, but many authorities did not provide any statistics. There are no definitive and robust figures to rely on, due to the transient nature of the population.
In October 2000, the DETR estimated there to be 1180 people sleeping rough on any given night in England.
A report by Shelter in 1997 gave an estimate that in England outside London 2,000 sleep rough each night and 10,000 people who drift in and out of rough sleeping over the course of a year.
An estimate by the Housing Services Agency in 1998 gave a figure of 400 on any given night in London and 2,400 throughout the year.
In Scotland it is estimated that 11,000 people sleep rough on at least one occasion in any one year.

Figures on the number of people squatting are very difficult to estimate. However:
9,600 people were estimated as squatting in England in 1995.
80% of squatting is thought to happen in London.

Youth homelessness includes young people living on the streets and those sleeping in hostels or on friends’ or relatives’ floor. Care leavers are particularly vulnerable to homelessness - between a fifth and a half of all young homeless people have been in care.
32,100 people between the ages of 16 and 21 were estimated to be homeless in 1995 by the London Research Centre.
A report by CHAR (now NHA) gave an estimate of 246,000 homeless people between the ages of 16 and 25 in 1995.
20% of homeless young people in London in 1999 had attempted suicide at least once in the past year.
Homeless young people are twice as likely to have been physically or mentally abused.

What can I say? I guess I am not a fan.