Empathy and environmental issues

By Henry Bale, Geneva

I believe my own empathy developed while I was in close contact with nature: walking in the countryside, testing some awareness exercises, or just being touched by the beauty of nature.

In a highly social environment, where the division of labour has been applied to almost all areas of human activity, it became possible to live without seeing an animal, a plant, without much natural light and drinking water from a tap or bottles. Nature becomes invisible to many eyes...

Scientifics are now warning us about the actual consequences of our “modern lifestyle”: scarcity of resources, pollution, extinction of species, climate change,...

Living in large towns for a decade already, I had also lost of my relationship to nature. I was forgetting where I come from.

To truly understand environmental issues it is important to see how the particular (individual actions) affects to the global, but also how the global (nature) truly matter for our lives (climate, food, energy, water,...).

Learning about global warming in abstract terms is not going to deeply change consciences. Our consciences are made of we what perceive as being part of our world and what it truly means something to us (positively or not). Most people know that global warming, scarcity of resources, diminution of biodiversity are a reality. But what does it mean concretely? How does it touch them in their being? To understand environmental issue we therefore need to feel how nature affects our being, our own limited world.      

Empathising our link to “mother nature”

Empathy is a powerful tool to enlarge our conscience of the world, not only in words but in all the dimensions of our being: experience, emotions, thoughts and sensations. Whoever wants to have a fair conscience of the world should work on her/his link to nature, the global ecosystem providing us with all we need to live: food, air, water, climate, light.

Exercise 1: the notion of ecosystem

Walking in nature, sitting in front of a park take a few minutes to observe all the life surrounding you: trees, insects, birds, grass,… Imagine all the microscopic life all around you. Get a feel of all the life near you.

Reflect then for a few minutes on the interdependency of all those creatures, their impact on one another. Be grateful for the plants providing us with oxygen, for this complex ecosystem providing us with a reasonable climate. Feel how much all creatures need water to survive.

Finally look again at the life surrounding you, and look for beauty. Beauty of the originality of creature. Beauty of the shapes, of the moves (Some people will find it easier to do this by taking pictures).

This simple exercise will help you grow real concern and respect for nature.

Exercise 2: respecting all forms of life  

The second exercise can help grow in conscience by giving us a feel of what other forms of life can experience. It is also excellent for developing empathetic skills though imagination and, and mobilization of all kinds of resources from one’s own experience.

Look for a nice tree of a nice plant, and sit comfortably in front of it. Look at its shape and the different textures: trunk, branches, leaves. Imagine that you are touching the bark, holding the trunk with a giant hand. Listen to the slightest noises, or to the silence.

Go deeper in the experience, and imagine that you become the tree. That your body is strong like the trunk, feel your roots deeply anchored in the ground, feel your leaves in the wind. You are immobile, breathing slowly. You are peaceful and stable.

You can do also do this experience with animals, with rocks, or larger entities like forests, mountains or meadows.

This experience does not aim at generating a mystical experience but to grow in conscience, by respecting other entities for what they are. In particular, it can help us grow respect for life, including our own life.

Empathising the consequence of our actions towards “mother nature”

Probably like many of you, it is not easy for me to modify my lifestyle to reflect my concern for the environmental issues. Empathy can help us generate proportionate motivation, which will not make as live changes as sacrifices, but as wished transformations.

Empathising with an action is trying to integrate all dimension of this action: its origins, its emotional component, and most importantly, its consequences. I may for example first consider that a cheap washing powder is a good choice, but looking at information on its composition on the internet, I will probably realise that it contains various substances which may damage the local ecosystem and pollute the water resources. Aware of my impact on the resources I need to live, I am more likely to change my habits and buy a slightly more expensive powder which respects the environment.

Empathy can also help us consider more concretely the remote consequences of my actions. Looking at the suffering of population in need of clean water, suffering more frequent cyclones, or soon forced to moved to other regions because of the rising of the sea level (this is the case of millions of Bangladeshi), I may reconsider more willingly some of my actions and, for example, reduce the use of my car and take public transportation. 

Exercise 3: know your ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measurement of the impact of our lifestyle on the planet. It is usually expressed in number of planets needed for our lifestyle to be generalised to the whole world population. A few websites offer personalised calculators, with interesting details on the most polluting of our behaviours, and advice to reduce one’s impact.

http://www.myfootprint.org/ (various languages)

http://www.footprintcalculator.org/  (US and Australia)

http://www.ecologicalfootprint.com/ (UK)

A summary

Empathy teaches us to respect the life of others being, as if it was our own life, by virtually experiencing what others feel, think and live. As such empathy can really participated to the promotion of social and environmental peace.  

I invite you to watch a speech by Jane Poynter, who was one of the scientists who took part to the "biosphere" experiment in the UK. Her words and concrete example illustrate perfectly how we impact on our environment and how we impact on it. 

Life in Biosphere 2:  http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_poynter_life_in_biosphere_2.html   

Practical advice to reduce one’s impact on the environment:

http://www.goodplanet.org/en/  (in English and French)

http://www.nicefuture.com/index.php?IDcat=67&IDcat67visible=1&langue=F  (in French)

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