Empathy & Compassion

Why Empathy is Important For Our Survival – Northwest Earth Institute

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\NWEI reflects on why empathy is important to our survival and how it is connected to taking responsibility for Earth.

The Northwest Earth Institute staff just participated in our newest discussion course: Seeing Systems: Peace, Justice and Sustainability. For six weeks we delved into the hard issues. Why is their war? How does structural violence relate to human caused environmental degradation? How do our so-called “sustainable” choices still often adversely affect people half the world over?


And, what the heck can we do about it all? As NWEI Board Member Alysa Rose reflects on, a connecting piece is empathy. “As a board member, I first challenged the fit of the topic to NWEI’s mission: Inspiring people to take responsibility for Earth. As I read each of the weekly sessions in Seeing Systems however, it is clear that the issues raised round out our view or definition of “responsiblity” and “Earth.”


And the concept that keeps coming up for me
is EMPATHY.”

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