Derek Markham is passionate about the environment, and he wants to know why so many men don’t want to talk about it.
Every time another guy asks me, “So, what do you do?” the conversation plays out in the same way. I tell him I’m a writer, and he asks, “Oh, what have you written? Who’s your publisher?” When I say, “I’m my own publisher. I’m a blogger,” you can see the look on his face change from wow to meh, instantly (It’s like I said “I’m an athlete…on the company softball team.”). And then comes the inevitable question, “What do you write about?” “I usually cover environmental issues, water, food, social justice, activism, you know, the most pressing issues on the planet.”
Big silent pause.
And then I hear, “So, Bob, how about that game last night?” followed by a highly animated discussion about who has the best defensive line in the league, during which I smile weakly and excuse myself with some lame reason and wander off.
Occasionally I do run into a guy who wants to go toe to toe on specific environmental issues, and then I generally get to listen to this dude regurgitate some bullshit they remembered the talking head saying on the news recap last night (before the game starts). Again, it’s almost always the same.
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It’s strange. When discussing “manly” topics such as sports, or cars, or business, or whatever, I generally see a bigger divergence of passionate opinions. But with the environment, you’re either “green” or you’re not. You’re either about saving the whales or you’re about fishermen’s rights. You’re about cheap energy now, or you’re about investing in clean energy for the future.
So when a guy wants to go toe to toe on an environmental issue, sometimes I rise to the challenge and offer my rebuttal to their talking points, based on facts and figures, hard science and data, taking into account the long-term effects of the issue.
And again, there’s a big silent pause.
Now contrast that scenario with a fictional encounter, with me talking smack to that same random group of men about sports: “I can’t believe you guys spend so much time watching other men fight homoerotic mock battles, grunting and sweating and patting each other on their tights-clad, overdeveloped asses.”
You can probably almost see the steam coming out of their ears, followed by a heated discussion about how I just don’t get it, and maybe even a summary of studies about the positive aspects of sports or a pithy quote from a popular athlete or coach about how noble it all is.
There’s no lack of courage there—or in defending one’s favorite team or favorite player—and there’s no shortage of facts and figures.
I don’t see very many men willing to say “Them’s fightin’ words, son” when it comes to protecting our environment.
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This is when I scratch my head. Why is a professional athlete’s record, or a team’s statistics, or the outcome of their next game, more important than talking about not poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink and the food we eat?
I know men who are environmental activists and fundraisers, journalists and biologists, green business owners and socially-conscious philanthropists. I know men whose outward appearance is to the contrary—tree-hugging cowboys and such—who go to great lengths to conserve and preserve our natural resources in their own way. And I also know ruthless businessmen who are all about “going green,” as long as it saves them money.
But for the most part, these guys are too afraid of being branded as capital-E Environmentalists to ever give impassioned speeches to convince their friends and peers of how important these issues are.
I don’t see very many men willing to say “Them’s fightin’ words, son” when it comes to protecting our environment.
Which leaves me wondering why I bother to do so at all. It’s all so much work, talking about real-life issues and taking action on them, trying to get people to educate themselves and to think critically about the issues affecting them.
Maybe I should just switch sides.
Fuck the environment, what time does the game start?
—Photo Highways Agency/Flickr
Derek, Your piece is very condescending. You aren’t going to makes friends and build bridges with that attitude. And I say this as someone who is so green I don’t even spend money on food. I live and work on a permaculture farm and nature provides most of my needs, be it through cultivating a garden, tending animals,, or hunting and foraging for wild foods. Environmental issues get my blood boiling, and I live for my work. It’s not like I don’t care or find the topic boring. Yet, I still think you’re condescending. I think you’re hanging with the… Read more »
I just spent an hour in front of my town planning commission asking them, as part of my Energy Committee agenda, to look at residential and commercial zoning regs that would ask builders to utilize the sun, more efficient standards et. I was told that they are a bunch of flat earth society folks who have no interest in hearing about it. Unfortunately if they quit their volunteer jobs on the PC there are not likely to be others who will replace them, let alone environmentalists.
Men are used to making the messes, and women have to clean it up. But really, the men I work with are so emotionally dead, they can only manage sports stats and their job. That’s all they are able to talk about.
Looking at what the earth has become, and who created the mess, I think we have to say that patriarchy itself is destroying the earth.
Wow, what a comment. Like wow! Here’s a suggestion to defeat the patriarchy and save the environment (you won’t like and neither will anyone else, but I’m going to proceed anyways). All women on earth should committ sepuku tomorrow (or maybe at Christmas, that would be nice gift to give). In less than 100 years the environment would be saved. Also the patriarchy would be completely screwed as there would be no more women to lord it over and patriarchy would become meaningless and totally defunct. Without any women, no feminist (those that remain) would have anything to bitch about… Read more »
I prefer not to talk about it because most people don’t really care (given their actions and on a few occassions, verbally confirmed to me by the parties in question), and because there’s almost nothing that can be done about it. Seriously, anyone living in North America can really only “pretend’ to care about the environment. So long as we live the way we live, almost no one can 100% honestly claim that they “care about the environment.” You become very hypocritical very fast. Which isn’t to say I’m not sad about my way of life destroying the world, but… Read more »
Because so much of environmetalism is based upon feelings and not facts. It is all about politics and not the environment. CO2 can’t possibly cause global warming because it does not rise into the atmosphere. This is because it is a heavier than air gas, 152% heavier in fact. This is why they use it in fire extinguishers and spooky ground fog in movies. The Greenland Ice sheet in contradiction to the propagandists de jour has actually increased in height by over 270 feet just since 1944. If you could talk about some actual facts then people would be more… Read more »
Gross generalizations there, John. I didn’t even bring up ‘global warming’, and there are tons of other issues surrounding environmental topics that are not open to interpretation. I guess you assume I’d have conversations about the environment that are solely based on my feelings, and not any science, eh?
But thanks for clearing up the CO2 question. I’ll let all of those other scientists know that they’re wrong, because a behavioral science and Bible degree trumps any other discipline, yes?
How ’bout them Colts?
Derek: its ok derek, he is just a worker clone not ready to contemplate the idea of spending his short life actually making a difference for a better world and has decided to be content with scraping by and will fight for his right to just scrape by. all the while ignoring the catastrophic effects of our wasteful culture in ignorant bliss just like bee number 3,355,634,888 Aaron: I feel you man, he is an elitist asshole incapable of adapting to the relaxation aspects that men share due to his anxiety over our lack of sustainability, and will tell you… Read more »
That was a good article, Derek. Personally, I find that many men are not interested in the environment. Several of my male friends have told me that recycling is a bunch of baloney and that global warming is a hoax. However, environmental activist groups tend to be male dominated. Yes, there are several women leaders in the envionmental movement, but it’s not that close to 50-50.
I am concerned that most top green jobs will go mainly to white males. I want civil rights and feminist groups to encourage women and people of color to become environmental engineers.
Aaron, as a reader and contributor to the Good Men Project, I’m going to assume that discussing the meaning of modern masculinity and what it means to be a 21st century man, father and everything else is at least somewhat important to you, and that you want to talk about it with other people. Now imagine if when you brought it up in conversation, even if it wasn’t regularly, no one wanted to talk about it. Moreover, they won’t even condescend to say something on the lines of “oh I don’t care, men are men and women are women, who… Read more »
More people are struggling to survive than ever. Is the environment an important issue? Yeah, but so is eating and trying to avoid sleeping on a park bench with your kids. When you’re at risk of not accomplishing the latter, talking about the former is relatively unimportant.
Your argument implies that the two are entirely unrelated. As one small example, living costs might not be such as struggle if alternative energy brought down energy prices.
One quick thought: let’s get rid of “sensitive” as any type of derogatory term. I think in this case “sensitivity” means a different perspective that someone is willing to passionately (and mostly reasonably I might add) defend. Good! A good man shouldn’t be fearful of sensitivity; they should embrace it and balance it with ultra macho toughness we’re constantly brought up with. In general, I think this article targets a bigger problem with society. We’re fearful of arguing important issues. And by argue I don’t mean the type of argument you see pundits on TV displaying as they yell at… Read more »
I feel your pain, Derek. A couple weeks ago I was driving back from a movie with a couple of friends and saw an alert on my cell phone about the number of people arrested for their protest against the Tar Sands reaching passing 1,000. I said, “Wow. Over 1,000 people arrested at the White House so far.” They both asked why. The arrests had been going on for days. I felt the blood rush to my ears. How could they not know about thsi? I said quite simply, “They’re protesting against the Tar Sands pipeline.” And one of my… Read more »
I’m actually laughing heartily, not crying into my non-dairy milk, so I guess sensitive is a relative term.
I’m sensitive? For someone who freely admits to writing something with the specific goal of drumming up controversy, you seem to be awfully surprised and sensitive about accomplishing your goal. If you write to elicit controversy why do you seem to be so surprised that you got exactly what you asked for?
And it’s pretty funny that you classify me as having a chip on my shoulder simply because I disagree with you.
Aaron – Sensitive much? No implication about ‘feeling bad about yourself’ from me – You’re reading that into it, and those are your words, not mine. And yes, I did write it as a tongue in cheek piece, and no, I’m not upset or insecure. I was just relating one example of this stereotype. I’m actually totally fine with my work and my ideals, and could care less about what someone thinks about what I do. Good Men Project wants free content, lots of controversy, and lots of pageviews, so I delivered what I promised: a piece on the environment.… Read more »
Aaron – 1. You just proved my point. You got fightin’ words about sports, but the environment is ‘boring’. 2. You completely missed the ‘tongue in cheek’ slant. 3. I don’t fancy myself as having a ‘benevolent agenda’. I just happen to think that our home (this little planet of ours, and the life support system we depend on (air, water, food)), is more important than discussing the way that other people play games. 4. I don’t want you to feel bad about yourself. That’s all you, mate. If you want to read ‘meathead cretin who couldn’t graduate from high… Read more »
Derek: I don’t feel bad about myself. I said I take issue with the implication in your article that we who talk about sports should feel bad about ourselves because we’re not all making our own clothing out of hemp and tending to our free range chickens in the yard. And sorry, I don’t think there is a tongue in cheek slant here. You’re upset not only because people are talking sports instead of the environment, but it also seems you’re harboring some insecurity regarding the fact that people hear “blogger” when they ask about what you do, and then… Read more »
Derek: This is such bullshit. Maybe they’re not interested in your discussion because environmental bloggers and activist tend to be among the most highly annoying people on the planet. Or, perhaps it’s because people like you have to pit sports against whatever cause you’re championing. Instead of trying to include them in the discussion and find some way to co-exist, you take on an elitist tone and excuse yourself from the conversation. Let me ask you, how is you walking away from a conversation about sports any different than another guy walking away from a conversation about the environment? Newsflash,… Read more »
Because sports is about now. Now is when records get broken. Harder, faster, higher, all that kind of stuff. The environment? That’s about later. A later that we have no way to understand, much less see, hear, touch or feel. Its about things that may or may not happen to people we may or may never get to see. Worse still, about things that may or may not make any difference whatsoever. Because the environment is about collective action. No one in the history of man has been able to make much difference in that regard. The issue is too… Read more »
I’ve spent the last year studiying for a Master’s in Sustainability and Environmental Policy, and I get that same silent pause when I tell a lot of people my subject. This is usually followed by something like “blimey, that sounds complicated” or “I wouldn’t know much about that” or, perhaps the most depressing answer, “what’s that?”
*studying
Because you know it’s the right thing to do. Because somebody has to stand up and fight. And because you believe in what you are doing.