Can we just stop oil? How?

In many countries around the world, including the UK, fossil fuels currently support our lifestyles, providing us with things like lighting, heating, and life-saving technologies such as those used in hospitals. If we accept the need to decarbonise our energy, humanists should then interrogate the question: how best can we move away from fossil fuels, while attempting to minimise harm to people's wellbeing?

In the Holyoake Lecture 2023, Zion Lights will give her views on the solutions we can implement now, which countries are managing the transition well and the time this has taken, and how we can do it all without leaving the poorest and most marginalised communities behind.

About Zion Lights

Zion Lights is a science communicator who is known for her environmental advocacy work. She is the founder of the evidence-based climate activism group Emergency Reactor and author of The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting. Zion is also a leading speaker on clean energy, specifically nuclear energy, and also lectures on effective science communication, tackling misinformation, and climate action. She is the former editor of The Hourglass, Extinction Rebellion’s print newspaper, and was previously the group’s spokesperson for two years.

About the Holyoake Lecture series

The Holyoake Lecture explores an aspect of politics or contemporary social or political issues, especially as it relates to secularist and humanist issues, including liberalism, democracy, social justice, feminism, anti-racism, LGBT rights, or equality.

The lecture and medal are named after the nineteenth century humanist George Jacob Holyoake, who among many other achievements coined the word ‘secularism’ and was a lifelong progressive political activist.

Humanist Climate Action

Humanist Climate Action is a volunteer-led network of Humanists UK members and supporters committed to redefining lifestyles and campaigning for policies that promote low-carbon, ethical, and sustainable living in the light of the degeneration of the Earth’s climate and biodiversity. It brings humanists together to facilitate individual and collective action on these issues.

Humanist Climate Action’s policy calls for accelerating growth in renewable energy and for ‘more progress to be made’ on decarbonisation ‘to avoid catastrophic climate change’.