Reading Time: 14 minutes As recently noted, OnlySky has entered into partnership with American Atheists. Some of us are taking a pause during the transition, but I’ll be right here with the team as we explore what comes next. (And I’m looking forward, alongside all of you, to seeing what that entails, so thank you to everyone who raised […]
environment
Posted inDeep Dive
2022: The year in global review, Part I
Reading Time: 8 minutes All end-of-year lists are suspect. One must embrace futility when trying to summarize what happened on a planet of eight billion for one spin around the sun. So why do we do write them? At best, to break up our routines of knee-jerk outrage at the latest inane news item, and to think more systematically […]
Posted inEnvironment
COP15’s grand—and questionable—promise for biodiversity conservation
Reading Time: 4 minutes There are a few ways to read the major concluding deal from this year’s UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), held in Montreal from December 7 to 19. Over 190 countries ultimately signed on to what is being called a historic deal, the “30×30” pledge to establish 30 percent of the Earth’s natural ecosystems (on land and […]
Posted inEnvironment
COP27 Climate Conference: The change we need vs. the change we’ll get
Reading Time: 4 minutes Last November, government ministers at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) agreed to The Glasgow Climate Pact. It was both ambitious, in setting key targets for emissions reductions by 2030, and also heavily criticized, including by the Scientist Rebellion, for not going far enough. Critics noted that nations needed to […]
Posted inEnvironment
Patagonia company owner gives it away to Planet Earth in perpetuity
Reading Time: 3 minutes The owner of outdoor clothing and equipment company Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, is giving the entire company away to support the environment and fight climate change devastation, something that many in the humanist community interested in helping our planet, will laud. Yvon Chouinard, a self-described “existential dirtbag” who dislikes the label “businessman” he accidentally acquired, drives […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
Pakistan flooding isn’t just a natural calamity: It’s also our failure to adapt
Reading Time: 2 minutes This weekend, Pakistan flooding caused skyrocketing death and displacement tolls, where rains 190 percent higher than a 30-year average have yielded catastrophic flooding, and a national emergency in need of immediate international redress. To date, over 1,000 people have been killed, including hundreds of children, since flooding began in mid-June. On Sunday, the National Disaster […]
Posted inEnvironment
Water crisis: Now may be the perfect time to install stingy faucets
Reading Time: 2 minutes For years, I hated the fact that whenever I tried to get hot water from a faucet, I had to wait seemingly forever for it to arrive—as cold water poured pointlessly into the sink, wasted, in the process. It was a double-negative whammy: annoying inconvenience as well as waste of a precious natural resource—a resource […]
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual
A region born secular: Nature, spirituality, and secularity in the Pacific Northwest
Reading Time: 7 minutes “I’m Jeremy. I’m 30. I have a little business here. I do, like web development and stuff, and lots of different work. And I’d also be under the kind of irreligious banner.” Born in 1988 and currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Jeremy does not typically mention his irreligious identity when interacting with others in […]
Posted inSexuality
Take the Earth as your lover: Exploring ecosexuality
Reading Time: 4 minutes I moved to the Pacific Northwest in large part because of a spiritual connection with the land around me that I first experienced when traversing through the hills of Ireland. Little did I know that I was beginning my exploration of what life partners and collaborators Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens call “ecosexuality.” For those […]
Posted inEnvironment
Green democracy rising: Latin America and the new environmentalism
Reading Time: 5 minutes On July 26, Colombia’s senate ratified the Escazú Accord, a pan-Latin American and Caribbean agreement that takes a distinctly democratic approach to environmental reform. If the next vote goes as planned, President-elect Gustavo Petro is expected to sign the document after he takes office on August 7. At that point, Colombia will fulfill a commitment […]