November 20, 2020

4: "Do you want a habitable planet for your children?" - Sentientist Conversations - Zion Lights

1 hour 16 minutes

Zion Lights is an author & activist known for her environmental work & science communication. She is UK director of Environmental Progress. She has been a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion (XR) UK on TV and radio, and founded & edited XR’s Hourglass newspaper. She has written for The Huffington Post, authored the evidence-based nonfiction book The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting, and given a TEDx talk.

To watch instead of listen, here's our conversation on YouTube.

We talk about:

Front line activism (before & during XR)

Why environmentalists should commit to evidence & reason, even when it’s uncomfortable (e.g. nuclear)

The risks of cause commitment leading to dogma & the ignoring/warping of evidence

How a lack of evidence risks undermining movement credibility (particularly when being interviewed by Andrew Neill)

Individual change vs. systemic change – making it easier for people to do the right thing

How XR have helped bring env. concerns into the public consciousness

Energy Justice, finding sustainable ways to get energy to people that most need it

Understanding the reality of life in less-developed countries & acting with compassion as we pursue solutions

Avoiding the developed country trope of: “We burned fossil fuels to get rich & happy – but you developing countries can’t, because we’ve destroyed the environment”

Embedding compassion (for human & non-sentient beings) in our environmentalism

Growing up in England with Punjabi parents, one Christian & one Sikh

Exploring religions but being “baffled” by them

How other dogmas (e.g. anti-vaxx, anti-masking) relate to religious dogmas

The good (compassion) & bad (e.g. caste discrimination) of religious ethics

Fatalism, karma & crossing the road in Indian cities!

Fatalism & prayer as ways of coping with a difficult life, but ones that trap people

Avoiding romanticism about living “simple” lives. These lives are often short, risky & full of suffering

Superstitions as another set of un-founded & potentially dangerous beliefs

The sense of freedom from letting go of superstition & religion & adopting a scientific worldview

Marrying a doctor for safety/health as well as status reasons!

Risking family & social connections to take a different path

The value & constraints/dangers of community obligations

The importance of freedom & autonomy

The image of animal products as high status, aspirational or a “treat”, going back to hunter/gatherer times

Veganism, animal farming, clean meat, wild animal suffering, eco-fascism, paganism

A Star Trek/Kaku/Deutschian/Sagan future!

There’s more about Zion here: http://www.zionlights.co.uk/ & you can follow her on Twitter here @ziontree. Here she is on our Celebrity “wall”.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at sentientism.info.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community. Our main group is here on FaceBook.

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By Jamie Woodhouse

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