In 2015 global warming happened just as predicted. There have been more extreme weather events; in December, for instance we’ve had floods in Britain, Missouri and Argentina, forest fires in California, Australia and the Basque country and we‘ve even had snow in Mexico. Carbon dioxide continued to accumulate in the atmosphere and global temperatures reached one degree higher than pre-industrial levels.

What is strange is that there is no sign of any global public reaction. Green campaigners continue to try to spread the word, but there is no urgent public demand for those in command of the economy to change tack and adopt green energy policies.  A two degree rise by 2050 is now almost inevitable. We will see ,for example, the continued decline in Arctic pack ice and the demise of the polar bear, water shortages in Peru as the last glaciers in the Andes disappear and  the acidification of the oceans and its disastrous effects on the Great Barrier Reef.  There will be greater and more frequent floods, fires and droughts with consequent food shortages.

This we will have to cope with. The challenge now  is to avoid temperature rises of 3, 4, 5 and 6 degrees. If you read Mark Lynas’ book Six degrees you will get an idea of what further horrors await. This is why it is urgent to create a popular movement to change the way we live. We need to establish a new moral imperative  to save the environment. We spend billions sending scientists into space. We subsidise the exploitation of fossil fuels. Why can’t we invest instead in our children’s future and save the planet?

The second principle of behaviour of Eco-humanity is:

 Respect other humans; co-operate, and support them in advancing the lot of mankind as a whole.

It differs subtly from the normal ideal of humanist interaction which is often expressed as the ‘Golden Rule’ http://www.thinkhumanism.com/the-golden-rule.html as :

People should aim to treat each other as they would like to be treated themselves – with tolerance, consideration and compassion.

The web-site goes on to say:

Trying to live according to the Golden Rule means trying to empathise with other people, including those who may be very different from us. Empathy is at the root of kindness, compassion, understanding and respect – qualities that we all appreciate being shown, whoever we are, whatever we think and wherever we come from. And although it isn’t possible to know what it really feels like to be a different person or live in different circumstances and have different life experiences, it isn’t difficult for most of us to imagine what would cause us suffering and to try to avoid causing suffering to others. For this reason many people find the Golden Rule’s corollary – “do not treat people in a way you would not wish to be treated yourself” – more pragmatic.

All this is important for Eco-humanists. However there is an additional injunction to co-operate with others for the good of the universe as a whole. Whilst all people are respected, the community of those battling for the good of the planet need to be encouraged and supported. Here the important concept is community. This is something that has been lost in our modern materialistic world with its individually centred aspirations. If Eco–humanity is to work, appropriate ecological behaviour has to be developed and encouraged through peer pressure in a community. We will need to learn from and help each other if we are to save the planet for our children.

Tim Flannery, the chief commissioner on the Australian Climate Change Commission, has just written a book misleadingly called The Atmosphere Of Hope.

Despite its title, it offers a bleak view of future life on this planet. I quote from his Guardian article: Seaweed, coffee and cement could save the planet (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/20/climate-crisis-future-brighter-tim-flannery):

Enough atmospheric greenhouse gas now exists to push global average temperatures to 1.5C (2.7F) above the preindustrial average, even if all emissions stopped today. At 1.5C of warming, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will be dead, many coastal areas will be covered by the rising sea, and the impacts on extreme weather will go from serious to devastating.

He goes on to say that whatever is agreed in the forthcoming climate change conference in Paris, it is all but impossible for humanity to avoid breaching the 2 ^oC barrier, which is the level which threatens ‘global civilisation’. His hope seems to be limited to keeping the rise in global temperatures to 3 ^oC by 2100.

His optimism is based on developing natural carbon capture technologies in the period after 2050. He mentions seaweed cultivation and using coffee grounds or cement to absorb CO₂ amongst many other technologies. None of the technologies has yet proven  practical.

Scientists have done all they can to warn us of the effects of climate change. Tim Flannery is muddying the picture by using the word hope in this context. The technologies to avoid climate change are practical but expensive and often have environmental downsides. Hard choices have to be made which will affect living standards. People have to be enthused to act in an ecological way that may be against their immediate interests, but, will eventually save the planet for their children. Evolutionary competition is the force that is preventing people and states from cooperating to save the planet. We need to frustrate the natural forces of evolution. The only way of halting climate change is if people in general commit to a green philosophy of life and implement it with a religious fervour.

On Thursday 5^th November the Guardian published a story about integrated schooling in Oldham, where there were serious race  riots in 2001 (http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/05/integrated-school-waterford-academy-oldham). Breeze Hill School (almost totally Asian) and Counthill School (dominantly white) were both closed and combined in the new Whitehead academy in 2010. Integration was handled with caution. Care was taken to account for community sensibilities and  the full start was delayed  until 2012.

The results of this real-time social experiment have been monitored by Miles Hewstone, Professor of Social Psychology at Oxford. It is widely accepted that it is very easy to generate social antagonism between 2 groups which have a separate identity. In Oldham residential, school and religious separation between white British and Asian groups was some of the most extreme in England. But would integrating schooling help?

Miles Hewstone has a theory that positive contact will improve respect and cooperation between  groups. The results after 3 years are modest. It has not been helped by the fact the school itself has to cope with severely disadvantaged children and has routinely failed Ofsted inspections.  The two ethnic groups still socialise in separate spheres. However, measures of inter-community trust have improved and there have been no instances of racial violence between the pupils. Hewstone believes there has been a permanent boost to tolerance and understanding between the two groups.

In July, the prime minister made a speech on extremism that ended with a call for action to tackle ethnic segregation: “It cannot be right … that people can grow up and go to school and hardly ever come into meaningful contact with people from other backgrounds and faiths.” He mentioned two cities where segregation was particularly marked. The first was Bradford, the second was Oldham. Cameron was careful not to lay the blame on any one community. Housing was an issue, he said, as was education.

This from a government that has sponsored the development of faith based schools. It is clear that religion is a major issue in creating a divided society and by supporting faith based schools the government is fuelling community antagonism based on religion and culture.  If Hewstone is right positive efforts have to be made to integrate communities, not divide them. We need only look at Northern Ireland to see the damage that can be done by continuing to educate communities in separate religious establishments.

I listened to George Monbiot promoting his new book Feral which advocates the re-wilding of Britain. It was an inspiring talk for all those interested in promoting nature in all its diversity.

Monbiot explained that , far from being a natural environment, Britain’s National  Parks and most of the countryside are  controlled to be largely treeless  with very little biodiversity. This is achieved by sheep and deer grazing supported by the EU’s Common Agricultural policy. According to Monbiot, sheep rearing is not economic without the EU grant to keep land available for agricultural use. Much of the land is not owned by farmers but rich investors.

Left to its own devices the land would revert to woodland as in pre-Neolithic times. There would be a rich variety of plant and animal life, which would be further enhanced by the reintroduction of some predators like the lynx and the wolverine. Targeted re-wilding in British National Parks and wildlife conservation areas would provide some redress for the deforestation occurring in the rest of the world and save a little more of nature’s natural wonder for our children.

Religious leaders gained a rare victory this week in the House of Commons; they managed to persuade MPs to reject Rob Marris’ private members bill about assisted dying. This would have allowed people with six months to live to take a lethal medication. A similar measure passed in the Lords last year before running out of Parliamentary time.

The religious leaders were clever they didn’t base their arguments on the ‘so called’ sanctity of human life. Nor did they make the mistake of trying to impose religious beliefs on the non-religious majority. The crucial argument appears to be the supposed vulnerability of ill patients  being pressured into committing suicide by relatives who don’t have their interests at heart.

The BHA has issued a splendid document showing the misinformation propagated by religious groups at the time of the Lords bill http://humanism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/BHA-Report-In-Bad-Faith.pdf. In this they state:

‘Being elderly does not make you stupid, automatically vulnerable, or unable to speak for yourself. It is           patronising to assume that elderly people will easily be persuaded to die. Such attitudes expressed by religious groups demonstrate a   profound lack of respect for elderly people.’

We surely have the right to determine our own fate. MPs are still relatively young and do not know the fear of the process of physical deterioration of both mind and  body leading to death.  Feelings of pity and protection to the elderly have been misapplied. We all die but we all want to die with dignity.

Why has human evolution been so different to other mammal species?  Have you ever asked yourselves this question?

In the old days the answer was obvious. We all knew, because the Bible told us, that man was created by God to rule over the animal kingdom: ‘to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth’. However, since Darwin and the discovery of DNA we now know differently; we are just another species formed by evolution.

But how did we come to be so successful so quickly in geological time?

We’ve only been around: 0 .004% of the time since the Earth was formed 0,.02% of the time since the first multi-cellular bodies and 1% of the time since the first apes. And yet we now dominate the planet so much that we have changed its very nature. We live in a new geological era the Anthropecene.

People think that evolution is only to do with physical development caused by genetic mutation over time. However, the development of behaviour is just as important.  Insect behaviours are instinctive, solely determined by their genes. But for larger animals, behaviours can also be passed on by imitation. These concern how and where they gather food  and how they interact with each other.  Think of the hunting behaviours of lions or monkeys grooming each other.

The word meme was invented by Richard Dawkins to describe the ideas that animals are able to transmit between themselves in order to imitate behaviour. Through the miracle of evolution it is possible for one animal to reproduce the same behaviour as another animal. These instructions in their brains are memes.  Memes behave just like genes in evolution: they can reproduce; they mutate over time to produce different behaviours; and  they confer an evolutionary advantage.

The reason humans are so successful is that they are able transmit these memes in ways not available to other animals. Sometime during the 200,000 years of man’s existence, humans developed the ability to speak. This transformed the ability to pass on memes. New ideas, skills and behaviours were transmitted between hunter gatherers. Homo sapiens became the first species to populate all five continents because of the flexible way he was able to adapt to the environment. Later humans learnt to write, educate and eventually transmit information at incredible speeds and volumes all round the world. Human evolution, memetic evolution, is still accelerating. We are rapidly changing the face of the planet and testing the limits of the Earth’s resources.

Humanism is defined in the Oxford dictionary as a ‘rationalist outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters’. This falls short of being a philosophy of life. The denial of supernatural forces does not provide a positive statement of what humanists stand for.

The British Humanist Association goes further by defining two ‘wants’

• A world where everyone lives cooperatively on the basis of shared human values, respect for human rights, and concern for future generations.
• To help non-religious people who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity

A philosophy of life is a view of the nature and purpose of life and the way it should be lived. Defining a vision of an ideal world goes someway to defining how life should be lived but does not constitute a purpose for existence.

I believe it is time for humanists to make a much more positive statement about why we are here. The theory of evolution has been in existence for a century and a half. It is over fifty years since DNA was discovered, surely we can acknowledge that the human purpose in life is to pass on our genes to future generations. If we allow global warming to happen this objective will be compromised. We need to preserve the Earth’s ecology for future generations.

Humanism is just a system of rational thought denying the existence of God. If it is to be more effective is has to have a more positive agenda. Eco-humanity provides one such approach; it is a full philosophy of life whose purpose is saving the planet for our children.

The problem of desperate refugees from wars, brutal regimes and failing states is one of the most intractable problems facing governments of rich nations. Europe has seen a regular stream of people fleeing Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Eritrea and other states which are failing to provide a secure livelihood to their citizens.

Humanitarian instincts drive us to help people in need and distress. This is reinforced by the UN declaration of rights for refugees ‘everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution’.

Moderate levels of immigration are usually good for the economy of a country. Immigrants are by and large hard-working and eager for self-improvement. However there is a problem if the volumes become too large. Rich countries have become successful due to their memes; they have successfully developed a secular capitalist political culture which allows their population to maintain a lifestyle unimaginable in past times.  Refugees bring with them the political cultures of failed countries. If these cultures are allowed to develop in ghettos, this can threaten the fabric of a rich society.

There is also an issue with population levels. There so many humans on the planet that they are threatening its future. Population growth rates in rich countries have been slowing down.  On the other hand population growth rates in Africa have been exploding. The UN forecasts the population of Africa will grow from 1 billion to 4 billion this century. Population levels in the troubled Islamic countries in the Middle East are also set to increase substantially.  The problem of immigration can only increase further in decades to come as more governments of poor nations fail to meet the expectations of their citizens. Western nations will try to maintain fortress Europe but this will lead to increasing violence against desperate people.

We can only address the issue by uniting to address the root causes. We have to reach out and help countries in difficulty and show them the path to self-improvement. This is not just due the way a country is governed, it also means addressing the underlying conventions of a failed society. We need to unite behind and spread a new philosophy of life that can save the planet for mankind.