How empathy and spiritual ecology can heal humanity’s rift with nature

The Nature Of is a new podcast series from the nonprofit nature and culture magazine Atmos that speaks with prominent figures in conservation and culture about how humans relate to the natural world, and how they might heal and strengthen that relationship. On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, its host and Atmos editor-in-chief Willow Defebaugh details the series’ resulting revelations and why her publication covers the environment through the lens of community, identity, arts and culture. “From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to invite creative storytellers and artists into this conversation alongside scientists and journalists,” she explains. Storytelling and the arts, she says, house rarely tapped potential for helping people place themselves in the context of nature: “I think that what we need is to be changing people's hearts, not just minds.” Defebaugh also highlights how little individual action is actually needed to inspire greater collective action among the public, a fact that Harvard researchers revealed: only 3.5% of the public needs to be engaged in non-violent resistance for a movement to succeed. Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website. Please send questions, feedback or comments to podcast[at]mongabay[dot]com. Image Credit: Willow Defebaugh, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Atmos. Image courtesy of Camila Falquez/Atmos. --- Timecodes (00:00) The nature of relationships (11:24) Why science and empathy go together (16:23) On ‘spiritual ecology’ (20:43) Meditations on how humans see nature (23:41) Willow’s inspiration (26:10) Identity, community & nature (28:43) Art & culture (31:10) Biomimicry (36:38) Collective vs individual action (43:14) Speaking of solutions