---
title: "Talking to the future: New Humanist spring 2022 is out now"
date: "2022-02-17T09:00:00+00:00"
modified: "2022-02-17T09:00:00+00:00"
url: "https://newhumanist.org.uk/2022/02/17/talking-to-the-future-new-humanist-spring-2022-is-out-now/"
post_id: 7271
categories: ["Uncategorised"]
---

# Talking to the future: New Humanist spring 2022 is out now

***![cover](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/2202-01-Cover.jpg)***

***The spring 2022 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! [Subscribe here](/subscribe) for as little as £27 a year.***

**Talking to the future**
=========================

**Meet me in the metaverse**

As our lives become ever more digital, **Jay Owens** explores how we untangle “real” experiences from virtual ones – and whether we even should.

> As metaverse discussions washed backwards and forwards last year – at a time when I, living alone, went days without face-to-face social interaction – I started to wonder whether I was not already living in a virtual world.

**Reclaiming the future**

Spanning the globe and amplifying young and Indigenous voices, two new books reviewed by **Will McCallum** ask us to rethink the climate crisis.

> Over the last 15 years as an environmental campaigner, I’ve seen the different ways we’ve tried, and often failed, to convey the magnitude of the problem. We’ve taken turns focusing on economic cost, lives lost, or worsening man-festations like the recent floods and droughts. We tried sneaking climate more indirectly into communications around issues like fuel poverty and air pollution.

**Here be dragons**

As this future-thinking essay by **Kit Chapman** explains, the longevity of our planet may depend on whether we can speak to people 10,000 years from now.

> Nuclear waste remains radioactive for at least 10,000 years. And because we can’t simply banish it from this earth by blasting it into space, where it might contaminate the atmosphere, we have to store it somewhere, to be left undisturbed. That raises the question of how we tell people, ten millennia from now, where we’ve put it.

**Q&A**

Francis Wade speaks with **Sir Geoffrey Nice QC**, who recently headed the Uyghur Tribunal in the UK.

> Even though it’s far away, the public effectively interacts with China from the moment they buy a T-shirt or com-puter. If unbelievable horrors were reported as happening in our nearest neighbouring countries, would it be proper for that information to be made available to British citizens so they can make informed decisions? The answer is that of course you need to make it public.

***The spring 2022 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! [Subscribe here](/subscribe) for as little as £10 a year.***

**![Imperial War Museum picture hanging](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/iwm_site_lam_008627.jpg)**

**Also in this issue:**

- **Samira Ahmed** on broken promises in Bradford
- **Andrew Copson** on Steven Pinker’s argument for rationality
- **Jem Bartholomew** on the UK’s asylum seeker hotel scheme
- Do we care enough about child malnutrition, asks **Emily Mayhew**?
- **Emma Park** on the dangers of faith schools in England and Wales
- **Kasia Tomasiewicz** explores a new take on the Second World War
- Is panpsychism worthy of our enquiry, asks **Keith Frankish**?
- **Nicola Cutcher** on Bruce Parry’s biggest challenge
- **Wes Brown** on the deification of footballers and managers
- The “family saga” continues to enthral TV viewers, writes **Caroline Crampton**
- PLUS: Columns from **Michael Rosen**, **Laurie Taylor** and **Marcus Chown**, book reviews, the latest developments in biology, chemistry and physics; cryptic crossword and **Chris Maslanka**‘s quiz

*New Humanist is published four times a year by the Rationalist Association, a 136-year-old charity promoting reason and free enquiry. We’re a quarterly magazine of culture, ideas, science and philosophy. To make a deeper commitment to our work, why not [become a member](/subscribe/billing) of the Rationalist Association?*