Mike DiGirolamo (narration): Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. I’m your co host, Mike DiGirolamo. Bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation. Shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal land. Today on the Newscast, we speak with Lauren Lambert, a former PhD candidate at the Global Institute of Sustainability Innovation at Arizona State University. In this conversation, Lambert speaks with Rachel Donald about the concept of ecological empathy, which she defines as a cognitive and effective ability that can be applied to policy and be used to design environments to address human nature reconnection. These are practices that could be used to improve human infrastructure that take the needs of the more than human world into consideration and providing better outcomes for all these concepts have appeared in discussions we’ve had on the podcast before, such as how better road design might save the lives of millions of animals outlined by journalist, Ben Goldfarb. Or how ecological restoration begins with considering more than human species as design collaborators, described by Professor Laura Martin. Additionally, Rachel and I also discuss what it means to be empathetic in the first place, how the term can be misunderstood or misapplied, and the work one must do to be truly empathetic.

Rachel Donald: Lauren, welcome to Mongabay’s Podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you with us today.

Lauren Lambert: Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Rachel: Now I’m really excited to discuss your research with you. I think what it is that you’re, studying is hugely important. Increasingly so in this world today. So let’s dive straight in. What is ecological empathy?

Lauren: Yeah. Thanks for the question. So ecological empathy, as I define it and look at it is it’s essentially a framework of practice for how to use empathy as a guide to connect to the more than human world and integrate our interdependence and relationships with the more than human world in everyday thinking, everyday practice, and specifically in the places where we work.

Rachel: Now, I’m really interested in getting into this with you because I feel like empathy is one of those really fascinating things where, how do you speak about it if you don’t feel it? Or how do you speak about it to somebody that doesn’t feel it? And can we start there, like, how do we even define empathy or, and is there a way that we can provoke it? Essentially, in people that may not quite know where to begin with grasping it.

Lauren: Yeah. I think this is like one of the most interesting and also confusing aspects of the history of the term empathy, because it really emerged in like psychotherapeutic practice and also like cognitive therapy practice where there are, essentially therapists were looking at how to both cultivate empathy in their client practitioner relationships and then also how to cultivate empathy and the people that they’re working with. So it’s it’s one of these terms that’s been, it’s like, if you could imagine that it’s just, it’s been like taken and dribbled around the court of so many different academic fields and spaces. And so as a result, it’s there’s so much out there. But to be honest, like little deep work that’s done to really create like a coherent conceptual understanding of it. And that’s one of the things that I started noticing early on is that the, a lot of the measurements that people are still using for empathy are from the eighties and they come within this very specific way of thinking about the world that is rooted in like positivists, psychological understandings of psychological constructs. So empathy that’s, that in some ways is like about connection most of our understandings of it, like actually emerged through this very different practice, which is more in like a reductionist paradigm to isolate and understand it from, perspective. Does that make sense?

Rachel: Yeah. So if empathy is about connection, which is certainly my understanding of empathy then how is it that. I think what people sometimes struggle with empathy is that rather than understanding that it’s about connection, as you just explained, it’s boiled down to you feel what somebody else feels. And in a world in which we’re so deeply separated from one another, and we have what feels like very individual experiences, and we’re all swimming in different political identities it’s, and also that we arrive at an understanding of our emotions through our intellect, first of all. That can feel like quite a big ask. And then you add political polarization on top of it. So beyond just mirroring each other’s feelings, how is it that empathy allows us to connect in? And I think this is a really important question because then you add on to the more than human world. And obviously we’re not going to feel the same thing as trees or deer or whatever. So there must be a deeper level here.

Lauren: Yes. Thank you. I think that’s that’s precisely what I am trying to advocate for is to some extent, it’s like, It’s an it, is an in intentional cognitive act. I would say it’s like a very evolutionary one and pro-social one at this time, at this particular time of being alive on the planet. Because when you really get into, empathy, okay, the neurons for empathy, like the neurological basis of empathy is so much older than humans. So, much older than humans you can find it across like many different species. But if you look at the human version of empathy, part of what makes it really interesting and unique is that there’s both this effective and this cognitive aspect. The effective aspect is that I think the, aspect that often people try to draw on. And that’s. The more people think of it as like the automatic emotional response aspect of empathy. But then there’s another aspect that has to be co present with that. And that’s the cognitive aspect. That’s where you self other differentiate. It’s where you actually are able to take the perspective of a person that you’re engaging with. And then it’s through that combined ability to both feel and think in that relationship, but then you can behave and cooperate and act pro socially. So for most of the time, like It was fairly okay, I think, to have a smaller use of empathy, call it and to have that be primarily used in your familial bonds, right? Or in, in smaller tribal configurations. And, this is this isn’t where my research resides, and it would be very difficult research to, really get to the bottom of, empathy from, a hundred thousand years ago, for instance. But it’s just a relatively new experience that we have these larger groups. A and B, such wide divides of difference that we encounter on a regular basis. So I think for me, that’s the reason to, or I guess one of the reasons to, to really very, intentionally. not just rely on the emotional aspect of it because that is so socialized already in humans, right? So to the extent that we just accept our emotions without reflection, without thinking, without, any critical lens, like we, we can’t We can get overwhelmed. We can do all sorts of things that will disable our ability to bring that cognitive and effective aspect of empathy together and actually engage fully in empathy. I guess the main like piece that I think is important around like the, how do you, connect or like, why is it so difficult or what are the opportunities? For engaging empathy is that to the extent that we can actually engage in that effortful aspect of the cognitive dimension and, do the work is the extent that I think we can evolve at this point and get past our in group, small group, like basically a small version of empathy, which is like in group cooperation, small bands. You don’t need to cooperate across large groups. So, to some extent, like the question that underlies, I think like my approach to empathy is like, how do we get from in group cooperation to collaboration across diversity, but using empathy because empathy is such a smart part of our system, like our, bio psychological social system. Yeah.

Rachel: That’s interesting. I think in particular, what I love about what you just said is it opens up a pathway to discuss and understand the, seeming inability for different groups to meet one another in a way that doesn’t just make it a moral failure. That says, okay, this has been how we’ve lived in this part of the world. For quite a long time, and this has been the socialization and now, we need something else. And it’s not just to do with like morality and politics and innateness, like innate caring, innate compassion or whatever. There was a way to actually engage the systems that are within us and within other animals to do better in order to evolve, as you were saying, at this point of crisis on a planet that fundamentally needs collaboration from homo sapiens rather than increasing competition and extraction.

Lauren: Yeah. And I think this is why I, get so deeply into the construction of empathy in the article is because the way that we construct it then is the way that we. Tried to build it. And so to the extent that we’re, our imagination and the way of construction at constructing empathy is limited to these, between individuals and like groups is the extent, then that’s the kind of empathy that we build. And then the other piece here is and you see this a lot more in the environmental movements and in the sustainability space. And this is something that I just think about a lot is. The way that we utilize feelings. In order to short circuit caring behavior and like the, like feelings are important and they play a really significant role, but just relying on trying to get an emotional response in order to engage pro social behavior is I think a really weak version of empathy. And often in the research space, what is, these, various. interventions and they’ll look at pro social behavior as defined by people spending money immediately after an experience donating to a cause. That’ll be how altruism gets measured. And it gets, it’s, I, that, and then the other thing is the measurement itself will measure empathic concern, sympathy, things that co occur with empathy, but that aren’t the same as empathy. And I think that the missed opportunity or what you leave on the table when there is this short circuiting is that, ultimately people can’t engage for very long. They can’t develop real relationships over time. They can’t be fueled by their care. Or sustained by it, it’s like, it can lead to a different kind of a short circuited, like burnout, overwhelmed, disconnection, all these things that I think we see across the board, for the most part, people can’t engage in the environmental crises because it’s too overwhelming. And I think that’s one of the places where, maybe we’ve. accidentally failed a bit. And I’ve I’ve gotten to that understanding by learning from empathy, like learning from the brilliant design of this thing that’s emerged in really cooperative, caring social systems to see that, you have to have the attachment in order to have. The empathy energy. So if you’re afraid, if you’re so afraid of something, or it’s so painful, then often, people will shut off their empathy. They’ll shut off their connection, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t give five bucks to like, feel good and walk away. So it’s what kind of response do you want from people? And I think sometimes when people think about empathy or try to use empathy it’s being done without, like fully grasping what it could offer if it’s like this really deep version of it, which requires the cognitive as well as the emotional.

Mike (narration): Hey, listeners, thanks for tuning in. As always, if you’re joining us for the first time, we highly recommend you subscribe to us on the podcast platform of your choice so that you can stay up to date on our current episodes. And if you’re really enjoying the work we do here and you want to support our nonprofit newsroom or this podcast, go to Mongabay.com and click on the donate button in the upper right corner of the screen. That’s all for now. Back to the conversation with Lauren Lambert.

Rachel: That’s so interesting on so many different levels from a kind of bird’s eye perspective, it speaks to that very caricature divide on the political spectrum between the rational mind. on the right, which is not something that is true, but it’s how it’s characterized versus like the bleeding heart on the left. And it does speak to why, people in different camps, like they, they are trying to have different needs fulfilled. Biopolitics in a sense, or different processes fulfilled, which is why it’s very difficult to create pathways or bridges between them. And this suggests, provides a pathway perhaps to talk about, how is it that we combine these things and to have a more systemic understanding of what it is that we’re trying to achieve. And even the, emotional impetus to treat the when feeling emotionally overwhelmed. using feelings to short circuit caring behavior, as you put it. The kind of rush to treat the symptom in order to feel better rather than treat the cause, which does demand cognitive processes when we’re dealing with systems that are so wildly complex, not just our human systems, but also our earth systems. And then a final thing on that, compassion fatigue. The fact that when so many bad things are happening all the time, it does just feel too overwhelming. And do we want everybody to feel mired in the sadness of oneself and the sadness of each other? Because that doesn’t seem like a very sustainable thing. And it also isn’t appealing to people, right? There needs to be a kind of a ladder. up and out. And that ladder is built together, sure, by holding one another’s hands, if you will. But there needs to be a way forward whereby like feeling the thing will result in an opportunity, or even as you put it, a relationship rather than just In that very neoliberal way, being stuck in oneself and isolated in oneself and feeling all of the terrible things alone, which is too much for people.

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. And the reality is that none of these issues were created by one person or even within any of our lifetimes. And so to the extent that, and this is why I don’t know, sometimes I think about that maybe I’m on a mission for some version of, a psychology. A psychology of sustainability or something, right? Because we, have to be able to differentiate, we have, there, there are all of these, there are all of these processes, like psychological processes that to some extent we have to be able to do on an individual level and in relationship to the world right now in order to effectively Engage because otherwise the response is shut down. So if I think, if I think, I’ve been recycling and it didn’t, there are still these environmental problems. why isn’t my behavior mattering? What, why isn’t it impacting anything? It’s I’m, not appropriately understanding like the, cause and effect story throughout all of this and also my role and the limitation of my role in it. But back to the point and maybe more back to the empathy piece I think that ultimately, the theory of change here is that, that it’s through engaging these processes that we can actually energize our connections. It’s not that the connection itself, like empathy equals connection. It’s that through actively engaging in. In this instance, ecological empathy, we can be more fed by and more energized by our existence in a more than human world, right? and that piece for Western people, and maybe getting back to this. point about neoliberalism. For people in the, weird mindset.

Rachel: And by weird, sorry, just to cut in, we mean Western, educated, industrialized. What’s the R?

Lauren:  I think of like reductionist, but it might be different. Yeah.

Rachel: The acronym weird.

Lauren: Yeah. Developed. I think it’s. the last…

Rachel: …rich…

Lauren: Haha! Yeah, sorry, like getting to like academic philosophy on it. But like the point is to use empathy to overcome that. Overcome that gap because in, in one world view, you are going to many world views where anthropocentrism doesn’t dominate. You don’t have to go through this really difficult, I have to think about what are the, how do I make sure I’m engaging in these six subcomponents of empathy, ecological empathy in this infrastructure design project that I’m doing. If you were using say an indigenous worldview of almost any sort, you’re, you would be doing that pretty inherently. And so in some ways, this is just like a bit of a roadmap to say, okay, here’s this thing that you need in Western worldviews that you don’t have. You’ve systemically created a knowledge form that completely eliminates ecological knowledge. That’s really problematic because we live on a planet. And so using it, using empathy is this. guide, essentially, you can navigate your way back to having a relationship with, the place where you are and where you actually are interdependent. And I think that can be a really energizing and connecting process. And it doesn’t, sure, there might be some pain and there might be some grief, but it’s not it doesn’t have to be isolating.

Rachel: I think there’s a couple of things. First of all, I think it’s so important that people are producing knowledge in this way, in a way that speaks to the existing knowledge framework. And here are the steps because essentially, thrusting people in front of an Eastern even or indigenous framework of Empathy without having given them the, uneducation, essentially the de education, the de conditioning to get there is, a little bit too much. So I think it is really important actually that it’s framed in this kind of like Western rationalist way to begin with. And then the second thing is that, and this is what I was thinking about reading your paper in particular, was that there is something almost effortless. about ecological empathy when you’re out in nature. Like when you’re, for me in particular, standing either at the bottom or the top of a mountain, mountains really do it for me. And just that sense of smallness and, positionality, like at the center of a thing, but on the edge of other things. And, just being in the middle and the outside being everywhere all at once and nowhere at all. And what I was thinking about. reading your piece was that human relationships are really complicated and they’re messy and they’re difficult and a huge part of that is language, right? And it may be that because we’re living increasingly in the West, in these like solely human worlds, our capacity for empathy is perhaps as a byproduct, like being reduced because our relationships are either with machines. for a huge part of the day, or with, human beings who are also suffering living through this like highly industrialized and neoliberal model. And so maybe it was easier back in the day when there was this kind of how do I put it? When you can be in a relationship with things that don’t talk back with their own kind of, attitudes or political differences or whatever it is. And you can be in a forest and you can just be and almost that therefore raising ecological empathy, creating conditions for ecological empathy might then also raise our capacity for empathy with one another. Because the more that we learn to, feel into the reciprocity and the smallness and the interdependence and feel nourished by that ecologically, the more that we then might be able to see our human relationships as providing the same thing at their very core, but just polluted, if you will, by our model of industrialization.

Lauren: Yeah, I think that so to some extent that’s why, even though in the paper it looks like ecological empathy is standing alone, it In my head, it doesn’t stand alone, it stands in this pillar with futures empathy and social empathy. And I think of them as like a kaleidoscope to some extent, or like a where like depending on where you’re standing and what’s needed, you might be leaning more on one than the other. And in, in certain times they may be ideally, all coexist in. That would be like sustainability or like regenerative futures work, right? Would be when you have all of these in one place. And at the same time, in certain instances, you might be relying more on or engaging more in, thinking about from yourself to like another social group. That would be the social empathy, or you might be thinking more about how to relate across time and specifically to future generations. And to some extent that’s embedded in the ecological empathy construct through the, perspective taking of multiple different temporal realities as mimicked by, whatever ecological space you’re in. So they are, they point to each other. And yeah, I think like theoretically it’s helpful to know that it exists within this framework, at least in my head. And that’s the project that I’m engaged in buildings at the moment is getting that version out because right now I have these three pillars that are out to date. That’s one piece I think maybe two other points. One is, I think that when you’re describing that connection, I almost think of that as awe. and I do think of it as connection as well, and maybe that’s more on the side of the wholism and something that. If you can access in a deep way, you might not need to go through these somewhat arbitrary sub competencies that like I’ve outlined in this paper, because to a large extent that the concept of ecological empathy exists as a bridge between those two worlds. It’s the pathway. It’s, and in that sense, it’s very relational. It’s like relational turtles all the way down.

Mike (narration): If you’re not familiar with the phrase, turtles all the way down, it’s an expression that posits the earth is held up by a never ending stack of increasingly large turtles. And yes, this is also the same expression used in the title of the hit novel by John Green and its film.

Lauren: It’s not in the thing itself. I think that, if, you’re, in that moment, maybe or like complete sort of not oneness necessarily, but maybe just a complete sense of a sense of like complete being in connection to your, place on the planet. Like you might already be able to access some of these ways of thinking. But often when we’re sitting and, making policy decisions or designing processes for citizen engagement and public deliberations. Like there are so many things that we do where I think the outcome is intended to be, to make the world better in this particular regard, or to do something more sub sustainably. And I realize now in academic literature, people still say sustainability and sustainable transformations. And in California it’s like regenerative, only it’s the same thing even though people have moved on from the word, sustain, but. I think people are trying often and yet I think what I’ve experienced is even in those processes, things just get completely missed. Like it’s not integrated enough. It’s not the more than human world just actually isn’t present at the table. And there, there’s even a, you could make a neoliberal or you could make like a innovation argument for it and say, this is a, you could. You can use it, you can use it, the tool toward capitalism. If that’s your intention, it’s to some extent, it’s like, it’s just, I think if you did, you’d have a, you’d have a much better capitalism, right? Because you’d be designing something from a perspective of. Having multiple species in the room, like being allowed to, contribute to say, having a clean kitchen. So having multiple microbes instead of, I think the FDA is approved. I don’t know. They’re like seven or something like microbes that are allowed to exist in the industrial kitchen. And it’s they live in colonies of like hundreds of thousands, so you can never just have one.

Rachel: In Colombia, the environmental defenders there, across the board, ground their theories of change in Territoria, and Territoria is not just a direct translation of territory, it’s a different word because territory in English is quite proprietorial where Territoria, it speaks to the land itself and not just the land, but everything that depends on it, with it, in it, including stories and spirits and life herself, Gaia, and all the species and human beings. So it’s this, real complete entanglement. And they are very clear about the fact that all of their politics and visions and feeling, thoughts, is grounded in their territoria. And that doesn’t mean Colombia. That means where they are and what they depend on and what they depend with and what they are fighting to protect. And so, people’s territorias are different. And I think that being with those communities and Columbia recently has really been eye opening as to what we are maybe missing in the West and why all of this is so difficult. As you said, like decisions and strategies are being developed in rooms where it’s just human beings and their machines trying to envision or imagine maybe what might be better for the world. But there’s no kind of other stakeholders present and even beginning a dialogue in such a sterile environment is really quite a difficult thing to do. And so for me this process of ecological empathy is like adding a new perspective to try and reach Territoria again, like who is it that we are with? Who is it that we are in relation to everything else and what is everything else in relation to us? And how do we de center ourselves? And how is it that we really begin to feel into that web of life that supports and is there a process of doing that so that people in offices developing policies can arrive there? And hopefully this is exactly one of those strategies.

Lauren: Yeah, exactly. an important thing that I always try to remind myself. And an important thing to remember is that, these are intergenerational issues. it’s in, in some ways, I think that there, of course there’s an urgency. And again, this is, something that the sustainability movement has echoed. Very loudly. There’s urgency. We’re, we’ve exceeded our time to cut emissions, et cetera, et cetera, but the deeper, leverage points for transformation are they’re like deep in our psyches. And in that instance, it’s, not necessarily something that is going to change overnight. It will, I think it really will take work. And so I think the more. All right. Tools that are available that don’t just say, Oh, Hey, Western person, you just don’t get it. like you need to be like an indigenous person and they’re like, but I live in New York and I’ve never, had that experience and, grass is nature to me. Like they’re not going to know how to start thinking that way necessarily. And so to the extent that they’re then shamed for not doing it right. You also then don’t get, their energy on board. Not like their woo energy, but their motivation on board for, cooperating and or collaborating toward a different future. And so I think it’s super messy and Very, complicated, honestly, to have all of these worldviews, of course, like simultaneously existing, but to the extent that empathy can teach us to try to learn to bridge and, meet the other person and understand what it is that they have, that we don’t have, what we have that they don’t have and, not get to a point where we necessarily agree, but actually find a way to move forward, like inch by inch, maybe. Maybe we get to stay here. Maybe we get to, maybe we get to live on the planet,

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that’s an incredibly important message in, 2025. Thank you. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of time, but thank you so much for joining us today. This was really interesting and we’ll make sure to link the paper in the show notes. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren: Thanks, Rachel.

Mike: I’m really glad we had this conversation because this is something we’ve actually covered on Manga Bay a lot. Although we haven’t coined the phrase ecological empathy and it hasn’t been like described that way. There’s a ton of different. Examples where the building of human infrastructure takes into consideration the more than human world, and I really think it’s interesting and I also appreciate that she is very strict about phrasing it as the more than human world because. That’s that really expands upon and also specifies what it is we’re talking about here.

Rachel: Yeah, I completely agree. We were having lots of interesting conversations before we hit record about examples where people in the world haven’t had ecological empathy when designing the infrastructure. But I think, to be positive, a really good example of when they have is Barcelona and the recent redesign of Barcelona over the past 15 years in which they’re like opening up streets and planting vegetation and inviting species back in. Also, the knock on effect on the people of Barcelona, the residents, has been huge. So I think it’s that really beautiful equation of, being empathetic to others is always a reciprocal thing. you always get something back from that as well.

Mike: Right. And there’s, the thing is, it’s, not just a benefit for, more than human species. It benefits humans, too. And, I could, there’s so many conversations I could call back to right now that, That’s highlight this the one that really sticks out to me is a conversation. I had actually a couple years ago now with journalists and author Erica guys who wrote a book called water always wins and she discussed how the paving over of natural lands and wetlands like basically makes it makes them more flood prone and leave humans open to devastating consequences from flooding and actually Keeping wetlands and just greenery how it is or building around it or incorporating it into the design actually allows us to mitigate those flood effects and also benefit the local wildlife at the same time. That was one example where I was just like immediately thought about that. And there’s many countries. Cities where that has been shown to be the case

Rachel: It’s almost as if the design of the planet that happened over billions of years is superior to the, human infrastructure that we haphazardly threw up in a couple of hundred.

Mike: Very, solid argument could be made there. Rachel. I don’t disagree. Rhere is for the people out there who are probably like, yes, but we do need roads for X, Y, Z. I hear you. I hear you. There is an example in Montana, the Salish and Kootenai peoples designed 42. 42 wildlife crossings on this very giant and previously deadly highway where, it used to be known as like this super dangerous road where people were constantly getting to crashes with wildlife. And so they were like, enough of this, we’re building wildlife crossings, both to preserve, the safety of. People, but also the safety of wildlife and respect, , the relationship we have to that nature and, local government worked with them to do it. It was it to me in my eyes, like exactly what. Lauren was talking about here.

Rachel: Totally. There’s other nice examples of, not taking action as a form of empathy. So the government of Wales a couple of years ago decided to stick, sticking on the theme of roads. decided that they don’t need any more roads, that the country has enough roads, and we’re just going to have to use the roads that we have, rather than continue to expand all of the built infrastructure, which is obviously going to be really beneficial for, all of Wales’s ecology but also it’s going to have an interesting knock on effect whereby, because they’re not increasing the amount of, space available, they’re going to inhibit the growth of traffic as well, which is obviously important for other reasons such as emissions, etc. it’s definitely possible to design with multiple stakeholders in mind. We do it all the time when it comes to different human stakeholders. Although, of course, the people that tend to get more thought put into it tend to be at the top of, the human hierarchy, but still it is possible. And so it just demands a different kind of use of our cognitive abilities, as Lauren was arguing, to then think about, how do we ensure that this is preserving, and respecting the other species that were here before we came along and decided that we needed this piece of land for something else?

Mike: Totally. Totally. There is a bit of, I don’t know if the phrase a bit is fair to say, maybe there’s a lot. a lot of redesigning of cities like you just described, like in Barcelona, Paris is doing the same thing. They’ve taken out. Lanes of traffic and installed bike lanes. I don’t, I know that’s not like directly necessarily benefiting wildlife populations per se, although probably it is indirectly, but there’s plenty of other ways in which we’re taking into account, like you just said, multiple stakeholders. there’s a great book called Crossings by Ben Goldfarb, journalist Ben Goldfarb, who we spoke to on the podcast that talks about this in terms of roads. so that’s a good one for people to read if you haven’t read it.

Rachel: I think. If I can just riff on what you said about Paris, I think it’s really interesting to imagine, what, how a first step can lead to a second step, right? So for a city which has been dominated essentially by the need for transport and business and all this kind of stuff, If, a decade ago, the French city had said to Parisians, Oh, we’re going to, we’re going to stop you having access to your car. We’re going to stop this and we’re just going to turn lots of former roads into kind of like nature highways. There might have been a little bit of resistance to that, because it’s so You know, those stakeholders don’t feel included in that process, but switching to bike lanes is a first step that then allows for more greenery, because obviously green bikes lanes take up less space than roads and then you begin with that and then that kind of opens up the doorways to then take next steps that are less and less radical the further along you go until it just becomes a sort of very normal evolution of thought. okay, we did this to reduce emissions. it also looks like we have the space and it looks nicer. And oh, look, having more wildlife or birds at the very least is helping other things in the city. So why don’t we continue along that path? And I think this is probably a really important point because in a world where people all over the world feel left behind by politics. They also don’t want to live through an experience whereby because they are a human being, they are then put on the bottom of the pile in order to quote unquote, save the natural world. Like people also need to be included in this stakeholder process and to just haphazardly like turn that pyramid on its head in order to do something about the biodiversity crisis or the climate crisis. It might be a short term solution but you’re not inviting people into an idea of like governance can be different and how we design things can be different.

Mike: Yeah, totally. it’s including human beings and human wellness in the changes being made is clearly a very desirable thing and much more politically palatable, on the road to preserving the environment. I think the thing that. Sometimes, is a bit tricky when we talk about things about the environments, as we say, is a lot of people assume might assume we’re not talking about them. It’s no, you are a part of the environment too. We are all a part of it. But really fascinating topic. I hope that more people read it. Lauren’s work here and take a look at examples where what could fairly be described as ecological empathy have been, incorporated. And as Lauren said, she’s not She’s not the concept, and she’s not invented them. She’s just put a word to it. There’s plenty of examples out there.

Rachel: I’d also like to shout out the strategy behind what she’s done. The fact that as she said, this isn’t necessarily anything new. It might be a, , a different way to think about empathy, but these concepts exist in cultures all around the world. But I think it’s. It’s quite a thing to take something intuitive and innate and something that is, you’ve learned from elsewhere and try to figure out how it fits into the language from where you come from. So the fact that she’s writing it in this manner that can speak to policymakers and can be, worked into briefs and has step by step instructions that are quite, Rationalist and, Western, that’s been a very deliberate decision on her part to try and ensure that this information also, travels through this ecosystem of thought in the Western world and I think that’s, I think that’s a really special and clever thing to do. because it doesn’t put the impetus on people that come from wildly different cultures to just suddenly understand one another. It’s creating these bridges. So it’s translating information so that it’s accessible to everybody, and makes it less scary for, essentially people that are in bureaucratic positions that have boxes to tick. So I, I just want to share that because I thought that was very clever and cool.

Mike: Indeed. I think it’s a pretty novel approach, a novel accomplishment, what she’s done. And certainly, hope it, it serves a purpose. in terms of getting these things thought about by policymakers, hopefully in the

Rachel: Yeah. And Mike, I know that we normally only go for about 10 minutes, but I would like to ask you this, because it’s something that I’ve been left with before speaking with Lauren and then afterwards. how would you have described empathy before reading this paper?

Mike: Wow. That’s a big question. Empathy is something that’s really near and dear to me because it’s basically the bread and butter of what I was trained to do. Before I was a journalist, I was an actor. Literally, what I would do for my trade was to empathize with other people, I would look at a script. I would look at a character and go, what would it be like to be in their shoes? To me, that was empathy. And I really don’t see a gigantic difference in doing that between what she’s doing here. It’s taking into consideration the lived experience and the point of view of something other than yourself and thinking about that. To me, that is empathy. I don’t know if that answered your question.

Rachel: Oh, definitely, it does. But I think, part of the reason I was so looking forward to discussing this was empathy for me felt like quite an untethered concept. I knew, it’s about trying to feel what somebody else feels. but I also felt that the way it was thrown about in culture was as if that’s quite like an easy thing to do and also if you can’t do it very well then that you have some kind of moral fallibility and also didn’t really speak to like people’s lived experiences, which are sometimes different and it means that sometimes they do respond to things in different ways. And so it’s so obviously a really important thing to do. And yet I felt like we didn’t really live in a world where, talking about how to do it is almost allowed, if

Mike: That’s a really, this is a really good question, Rachel. I do agree with you that I think that the word empathy does get thrown around quite a bit, and some people may misunderstand what empathy is, or even, like, how difficult it can be to empathize. It is, it can be very difficult to empathize with other people who, for instance, may hold views that you find abhorrent. It can, that can be a harder thing to do to put yourself in the shoes of, of someone else. I think that there sometimes is a confusion between endorsing someone else’s opinions and empathy. that’s not necessarily what it is, just because I can empathize with Captain Hook in the play, Peter Pan, that does not mean I endorse what Captain Hook does, do you know what I’m saying

Rachel: Hahahaha. Sure. Yeah. Captain hook.

Mike: Exactly it’s like one of the, or that’s why I like when an actor does a really great job playing a character that other people like, that character is, that is inaccessible to me. People will go, wow, how did you do that? Through lots of like preparation and work and research and

Rachel: But

Mike: to really get into it.

Rachel: But that’s the thing. It’s work. It’s work. And it takes research because this is the thing I feel like, thank you for helping me figure this out. I felt like we lived in a culture whereby empathy is considered to be this thing that’s spontaneous. It’s innate.

you just feel it or you don’t. And what I love about what you just said, and what I love about what, how Lauren was laying it out, is no, there is a cognitive process. it has an evolutionary advantage. You can, train yourself into doing it. You get better at it the more that you do it. And as you just said, you need to know a thing in order to empathize. You need to get into the real, heart of the matter with people. And I think, what you said about trying to empathize with people that have, to you, abhorrent political views. You can’t empathize unless you really try to dig into the why. Like, why is it fellow human being, you think that? Because to me, that’s not what kind of defines humanity. And yet when you dig and you dig, 99 percent of the time you will come to. a reasonable explanation for an unreasonable behavior or opinion.

Mike: You might! I’m not saying, no, I’m not saying you won’t. I just think that… it’s I don’t want to make any, “this is how it works. And if you do these steps, it’s going to happen” because

Rachel: Yeah. Just

Mike: sometimes it doesn’t, you do the work, you do the prep, you look into a situation. I think that in terms of for the purpose of what we’re talking about here in this conversation, it reminds me of what. in our conversation a couple years ago, he said the most important thing and I’m totally paraphrasing him. So this is not an exact quote, but he said the most important thing you have as a journalist is time. If you don’t have time, you can’t really, tell that story properly. I, which I think he is. 100 percent completely right on in saying, you need time to look at something. you need to spend time with something in order to understand it. And even then, you may not, you won’t fully understand everything there is to know about it. That’s not possible, but you’ll know enough to be able to empathize. that’s what’s the important part here.

Rachel: When I was in Antioquia with the people of Vizion Soresti, one of their philosophies that drives their work of resistance and liberation is that to love a thing, you have to know it, which is why they’re taking the youth out into the mountain and teaching them about, the biosphere and the different ecosystems. And when they’re going out into the village and inviting people into these workshops to really learn. not just traditionally, but like scientifically, like these are all the riches that we have. This is the great web of life that we exist within here. And that’s really sat with me since the total importance of knowledge, especially in a sort of an era of anti intellectualism, and how to love a thing, you have to know it, and to empathize with something difficult. You have to try to know it. You have to spend time exactly as you’re saying. And these are all, breaks that can be used as well in a world that feels like it is speeding up, almost careening out of control. and at the end of the day, all points to the development of relationships and that’s what it’s all about, right? Relationships with the more than human world, with each other, to strengthen the web of life that is increasingly fragile.

Mike: Yeah. I think that is a, I think that’s a great place to end it. So thank you, Rachel.

Rachel: you to Mike. Thank you.

Mike: I’ll see you in the next one.

Rachel: See you on the next one.

Mike (narration): If you want to check out a few podcast discussions related to concepts discussed in this episode, I recommend starting with our conversation with Laura Martin on ecological restoration and also road ecology with journalist Ben Goldfarb. Both discussions are linked in the show notes. As always, if you’re enjoying the Mongabay newscast or any of our podcast content and you want to help us out, we encourage you to spread the word about the work we’re doing here and telling a friend, but also do leave a review on the podcast platform you’re tuning in on. Word of mouth is the best way to help expand our reach. But you can also support us directly by becoming a monthly sponsor via our Patreon page at patreon.com/Mongabay. Mongabay is a nonprofit news outlet, so even pledging a dollar per month Makes a very big difference and it helps us offset production costs. So if you’re a fan of our audio reports from nature’s frontline, go to patreon. com forward slash Mongabay to learn more and support the Mongabay Newscast. But you can also read our news and inspiration from Nature’s Frontline at Mongabay.com, or you can follow us on social media, Find Mongabay, on LinkedIn, at Mongabay News, and on Instagram, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Facebook, and TikTok, where our handle is @Mongabay, and on YouTube, @MongabayTV. Thank you, as always, for listening.