In conversations about planetary empathy – the idea that our health, wellbeing, and very survival is deeply entangled with the living systems around us – a question was raised that has stayed with me. It surfaced in a nursing forum, asked with a half-smile and perhaps a trace of irony: “How do we put ourselves in the shoes of a tree?”.
It drew a few laughs, as expected. But the question lingered. Not because it was absurd, but because I found it disarmingly profound.
In nursing, empathy is foundational. We’re trained to step into someone else’s experience, to imagine their pain, their fears, their hopes (Levett-Jones et al., 2019). We speak of “walking in their shoes” as shorthand for this relational, humanistic skill. But when we expand our view to planetary health, we’re faced with a challenge: how do we cultivate empathy for the more-than-human world? What does it mean to care deeply and authentically for forests, rivers, oceans, or coral reefs? For creatures whose ways of life are alien to us, and ecosystems that don’t speak our language?
Developing a new kind of empathy
To begin, we need a new kind of empathy (Ward et al., 2024). Not one that anthropomorphises nature, but one that acknowledges our shared origins. Because here’s the wildest, most beautiful scientific truth: we are made of stardust.
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.
Carl Sagan
Just as Sagan famously declared in his 1980s TV series Cosmos – the carbon in our cells, the calcium in our bones, the oxygen we breathe, were all forged in the furnaces of ancient stars. When massive stars exploded in supernovae, they scattered the elements necessary for life across the cosmos. Eventually, some of that stardust coalesced into Earth, into water and stone, into mushrooms and whales and eucalyptus trees. Into us.
So, when we ask, “how do we put ourselves in the shoes of a tree?”, maybe the answer isn’t to become a tree, but to recognise that we never truly stopped being part of the same story. The story of matter becoming life. Of stardust becoming lungs and leaves. This isn’t sentimentalism – it’s astrophysics.
Empathy, then, doesn’t require us to pretend we are something we’re not. It requires us to remember that we are more connected than we often allow ourselves to feel. It asks us to dissolve the artificial boundary between “nature” and “human,” and understand that planetary health is not about saving the environment as if it were separate from us. It’s about recognising our entanglement.
Planetary health is human health
As nurses, we know how to hold complexity. We manage care plans that involve multiple comorbidities, social determinants, family dynamics, and ethical dilemmas, all before lunch. We are trained to listen, to assess, to act. These skills don’t just apply at the bedside. They are just as powerful when applied to the biosphere.
Planetary health invites us to expand our circle of care. To consider not just the patient in front of us, but the systems that support or endanger their wellbeing: clean air, water and food safety, a stable climate. It calls us to see health not only as an individual or community issue, but as an ecological one.
The Rockefeller-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health (Whitmee et al., 2015) defined planetary health as the “health of human civilisation and the state of the natural systems on which it depends.” This definition reminds us that health is inherently relational shaped by our interactions with the planet, its resources, and its limits.
Additional recommended reading includes:
Thinking like a tree
So yes, maybe putting ourselves in the shoes of a tree means imagining what it’s like to have your roots in depleted soil or your crown scorched by heatwaves. But more importantly, it means recognising that the tree and the nurse and the patient are all responding to the same planetary stressors. It means understanding that health care and Earth care are not separate tasks.
Empathy on this scale might sound ambitious, but it’s not unprecedented. We already practice forms of collective empathy when we advocate for future generations, or when we change our behaviours to protect people we’ll never meet. Planetary empathy simply expands the circle a little further to include other species, ecosystems, and timescales.
If that sounds a bit far out, remember: so are stars. And you’re made of them.
So next time you hear someone say, perhaps with a chuckle, “How do we put ourselves in the shoes of a tree?” you might answer: by remembering we share the same roots. Because the truth is, planetary health isn’t just about survival. It’s about relationships. And empathy, as ever, is how we begin.
As healthcare professionals, we are uniquely placed to lead this shift. Whether through sustainable practice, climate advocacy, or education, we can be agents of planetary empathy.
References
Levett -Jones, T., Cant, R. & Lapkin, S. (2019). A systematic review of the effectiveness of empathy education for undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 75, 84-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2019.01.006
Ward, A., Best, O., Richards, C., & Tunks Leach, K., Levett-Jones, T. (2024). Dear earth: cultivating planetary empathy for the health of all. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 19(3), 209-210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2024.04.020
Whitmee, S., Haines, A., Beyrer, C., Boltz, F., Capon, A. G., de Souza Dias, B. F., … & Yach, D. (2015). Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health. The Lancet, 386(10007), 1973–2028. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60901-1