In “Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire” (2018), Cara Daggett explains why, with white men, #climate denial and #misogyny so often go together.
She makes a powerful argument that the patriarchal power structures in our society are deeply entwined with our fossil-fuel based economy.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829818775817
This is a well written and thoughtful article, that touches on a key point that other articles like this miss: It points out that "masculinity" as defined here, means "white masculinity,"
Non-white men are *more* likely to be alarmed about climate change than white women. 🙂🙃
In fact, non-white boomers and silent generation, are more concerned about climate change than white Gen-Z women. 🤦🏿♂️
So the primary driver of this climate denial is unlikely to be masculinity in general.
@mekkaokereke Thanks for highlighting this.
I’ve edited the original toot to reflect that the combination of misogyny and climate denial is specifically a white men’s thing.
@mekkaokereke I’ve become more convinced that there is a stronger correlation between climate denialism or indifference and someone’s dependence or perceived dependence on cars.
So many people believe they need cars, that no matter the threat of climate issues that stem from them, they will fight for more parking, wider highways, faster speed limits.
#carculture has ruined our planet.
@bluejekyll @mekkaokereke if you go onto any car forum they are *full* of angry (mostly white) men claiming in various forms that climate change is a "conspiracy" and they will fight till the last to keep their cars.
One outlier is Team-BHP but thats an Indian forum (so many directly see the sharp end of climate change), but even on there the environment is rarely discussed (although when it is, its not as acrimonious and unsurprisingly there is genuine acceptance climate issues are real)
Disabled elder here. I'm extremely concerned about climate issues, but I *need* cars to exist. I don't personally don't own one but if my significant other didn't drive me around in her hybrid my life would be severely restricted. I have multiple comorbidities so I avoid public trans as I do other plague ridden crowded spaces.
@timbray @bluejekyll hard agree with Tim. Convincing governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels (in whatever form) is one of the things that's going to move the needle.
Convincing people to be "inconvenienced" is a non starter and we already know how to generate enough electricity without fossil fuels.
We can have the future we want from a position of abundance, not scarcity (a la _Electrify_ by Saul Griffith).
@davemangot @timbray it sounds like you might be suggesting that EVs are the path to the future. And if that’s via bikes, maybe. But in terms of cars it will be 15 years or more before we make a significant dent in ICE vehicles, which is why we need to move away from cars urgently.
100% agree that fuel needs to be priced at its real cost to society.
@bluejekyll @timbray the 3 biggest choices you can make are:
* transportation
* heating
* cooking
It will be never years before we convince enough people to give something up to save the planet. Scarcity is not a winning hand.
Thankfully electric motors are just better. EVs are just one piece of the puzzle. When I cook away from my induction, gas feels positively archaic. #stopburningstuff
The other big levers are not personal choices for better or for worse.
@pmorelli @timbray as someone who bikes around SF (without an assist) for 19 years with and without kids on the back, I gotta say SF has never been safer for cycling than it is today. All the slow street improvements are amazing as well.
That said, there are huge areas that can still be better. This is partly what I’m pointing out, a lot of people fight these improvements in their cities and then folks won’t choose to ride because it feels unsafe to do so.
@AutisticMumTo3 @mekkaokereke of course there are exceptions, and we have so much infrastructure built around cars that we don’t need to be concerned with that going away in our lifetimes.
Again, like my other replies, if only the people who actually need to use cars were the ones to do so, we’d be in a far better place. The issue is that is not happening because people are blocking things like protected bike lanes discouraging more people shifting away from cars.
@bluejekyll @mekkaokereke For a lot of Americans, it's not just a belief. Without a car they can't a job, social services, childcare, groceries, or even see their extended family.
Most could probably _survive_, but only with help from other people who will all be like "please just let us get you a car".
Most people don't get to pick what infrastructure they live in. And when somebody tells them to "just stop driving" they're gonna dismiss that person as not living in their reality.
@run_atalanta @mekkaokereke car enthusiast’s probably want fewer people driving as well, since it makes driving more enjoyable.
My sense is there’s even a potential common cause here in helping reduce car dependence in cities especially.
@mrbula @mekkaokereke @slothrop we’re fatalistic. ‘Everything sucks’ is the overwhelming world view of our cohort.
(I think that is oddly true even though things were never that horrible for us.)
I'm seeing that white is exclusive of latinidad--are white latinos being grouped under POC? Are we being excluded from this graph entirely?
Tyrone Slothrop
mekka okereke 
Earthling
Benjamin Fry
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
Levka
Tim Bray
Dave Mangot
pmorelli
Rob Galanakis
Morgan ⚧️
AutisticMumTo3
morgan
run_atalanta -> beige.party
Ole Dirty Rice 
Nicola
mrbula
Misanthropesq
Psittacus cafeina
Bruno Girin
Buy nothing new
Alexandre Morin
Carlos Cámara-Menoyo