On May 17-20, 2018 I attended the 77th annual conference of the American Humanist Association in Las Vegas. As conferences go it was exceptional. One of the motivators as a BCHA member and also Humanist Canada supporters, this was the first AHA meeting I had ever attended, and was the opportunity to celebrate along with our great Canadian scientist and television personality, Dr David Suzuki, as he received the lifetime achievement award. He gave an exceptional talk on our need to limit reliance on fossil fuel‘s and other chemicals used in industry that are polluting our world leading to irreversible global warming.
Marty Shoemaker with David Suzuki
Other highlights included hearing Ana Kasparian who received the humanist media award for her exceptional blog and online news site The Young Turks.
The most inspirational talk was on the final awards dinner on Saturday night when Ijeoma Oluo received the feminist humanist award. She is the author of a new book called So You Want To Talk About Race, which I purchased and so did many others.
This year the Humanist of the Year award went to Jennifer Ouelette, who is a nationally recognized science writer and author of a number of popular books including Me Myself and Why: Searching for the Science of Self.
For those of you who like meet and learn from Humanist and allied thought leaders, I highly recommend this conference as an option with its many outstanding speakers and exhibition contributors including new books, Secular Seminaries and exciting charitable projects Humanists are contributing time and financial support.
Marty Shoemaker with Andrew Bradley and Deven Green, creators of Betty Bowers, "America's Best Christian"