Tag Archives: climate chaos

Petro-masculinity: History Recycled, Reified

At first glance, the relationship between fossil fuels and white male patriarchy may be difficult to evince, but if captured through the prism of the cultural history of the West, especially of America, the relationship becomes anything but unclear. This is one of the more sobering points of Cara Daggett’s essay, “Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire” wherein the linkage between authoritarianism impulses and white male patriarchy is contextualized around the usage of fossil fuels, hence the provocative term “petro-masculinity.” 

Though the paper veers too deep into psychoanalytic territory and at times reads more like a rant than a journal article, simplistically accounting the “shared frustration among white men who have struggled to find a housewife willing to receive their veneration” for one of the reasons how the psychology of Trump supporters worked to elect the current president, the essay nonetheless engages provocatively with the Climate Change crisis. The paper connects masculinity with the usage of fossil fuels and the practice’s pointed, destructive tendencies. Whether it be a clever display of environmentally-focused analysis of semantics (Daggett deconstructs the word “petro” by presenting the diametrically opposed forces within, those of dead/rigidity (fossils) and those of life/flow (energy brought about through death)), a socio-historical reading of white male cultural bonding with fossil fuels (a leitmotif is the link between the boom of cars and the stable jobs and social positioning that American white man procured after World War II) or a psychologically engaged approach to defining authoritarianism (studies of Nazi psychology is keenly used) as an unrelenting entity hellbent on violently spreading its order and influence, Daggett’s paper impressively covers the paper’s complex topic in a rich, interdisciplinary way.

The essay leaves the reader with enough meat to chew on for days. What’s especially striking is grounding the fossil fuel-American masculinity dialectic as a response to World War II gender dynamics:

Instead of sturdy husbands and firm fathers controlling their wives and children, lisping bureaucrats and social workers were now running the show. World War II exacerbated the problem; with so many men away at the front, and women working in the factories, male authority was further eroded (37). 

Though this isn’t Daggett’s words (she references Corey Rubin here), the essay is filled with this sentiment. Daggett’s arguments tend to connect the response of American white men to the World War II “re-gendering” of society (which consisted of fossil fuels usage ala energy consumption) to the present moment when American white voters, as an aggregate, have channeled their masculinity through damning global warming movements by doubling down on fossil fuel usage (i.e. the support of bringing back coal power despite the industry’s economic impotency) in their unbridled support of Trump and his dangerous climate politics. Such connections lead us to ponder interesting questions about the effect of culture on one’s politics and consider how the refusal to let go of power is manifested in one’s political stances. Trump’s detrimental positions on Climate Change  aren’t just based in an anti-science ideology, but also a politics rooted in a nostalgia for a past for which a certain group can feel; the idea that this nostalgia is inherently related to fossil fuel usage is both a disturbing but vital thought in perhaps understanding the Trump phenomenon. 

It is disturbing in that, like the flow/rigidity dynamic that Daggett professes as the bizarre  dialectic within the fossil fuels-American masculinity model (with “rigidity” representing the blockade of culture destruction and “flow” representing the perpetuation of a dominant culture and its systemic rule), nostalgia, normally attributed to preciousness and innocence, is juxtaposed with ecosystem destruction and violence. However, it’s essential to recognize this “destructive nostalgia” since “The novelty and freedoms enabled by fossil-fuelled civilization are entangled with horrific violence, such that to embark upon fossil-fuelled life is to spark off mass species extinction just as much as it is to make possible the internet or global social movements” (31). 

Accepting this allows us to see the rubric of Daggett’s thesis as re-contextualizing the simultaneous “creation-destruction” element of the industrialization-natural environment dynamic around white male masculinity, authoritarianism and fossil fuels. Despite its engrossing angle regarding the stabilization of patriarchy in relation to the destructive usage of fossil fuels, the essay is built on a point with which many readers may be too familiar; that is, our treasures and freedoms are predicated on the evaporation of our planet. If climate deniers are to accept this, we could all be one step closer to ending the recycling of a culture and identity that preserves ecological demolition and gross exploitation of natural resources. 

Trying and Failing: A Loser’s Journey.

A decade after An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 documentary following former vice president Al Gore’s attempt to educate and empower the public about global warming, comes this follow up feature, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. As in the first film, viewers follow Gore around the world on his mission to empower the public about the existential threat facing us all, and to convince governments, both local and national, to stop using fossil fuels and switch instead to renewable energy. The narrative of the film builds from some devastating updates on how rapidly climate chaos is coming at us towards COP21, the 2015 United Nations Climate Conference where nation states are set to meet and figure out a united front to tackle the crisis.

This hero’s journey style documentary is spliced through nicely with some private moments, Gore removing his sopping socks after trudging through a waterlogged Miami street, and some very sweet moments of levity. On a field trip, Gore shares a joke with a Swiss scientist about the ice melt looking like Swiss cheese, “You call it Swiss Cheese, we call it Emmenthaler” their laughter is poignant in contrast to the look that comes over their faces as they watch the melted ice flow away. An elegiac score and powerful sky-eye camera work drive home the scale of this unfolding nightmare, it’s huge. TV news and personal phone footage of various climate catastrophes propel the movie forward with an impressive sense of urgency.

Gore himself is an amiable but melancholy character, somewhere between Winnie The Pooh and Eeyore. From a once thrusting young politician with the world at his feet, he quite literally conceded defeat to the powers that have since overwhelmed this country. The anti-science conservative movement was cemented in place by the victor of his 2000 Presidential race, George W.Bush and while he does not connect those dots, he speaks candidly of feeling deep levels of personal responsibility for how badly the planet has fared these past few decades.

He insists at various points throughout the film that there are reasons to hope for a brighter future where we successfully switch to renewable energy, but the facts out-weigh him and he says somewhat balefully “It’s not happening fast enough.”

The reason why it isn’t happening fast enough is not explicitly stated, and this is a mistake. Intensely neoliberal policies and late stage capitalism have allowed the fossil fuel industry to take a deep and toxic hold in the U.S. It is one of the most powerful industries when it comes to lobbying against restrictions or taxes that could impact profits. According to a recent IMF report, in 2015 the government spent $649 billion subsidizing the industry, that’s 10 times the federal spending on education. Instead of taking these giants on, the film seeks out small victories with traditional opponents, with Gore gamely taking photos with a conservative Texan mayor who uses solar power. Hurried phone calls and brusque meetings with Indian government officials provide some narrative tension, and demonstrate well enough the void between the Global North and the Global South when it comes to who needs to take responsibility for what, but it’s just not a satisfying story.

I believe the story does not work because it’s an incomplete one. Chummy mentions of ‘Elon’ (Elon Musk, of Tesla and white savior fame) and the dogged belief that some start up corporate solution will save the day combine with flashes of Gore’s own insider status at the Paris talks to show us that he is too close to strike hard enough. The rampant race, gender and economic issues intersecting with the injustice of climate change are barely touched on, aside from a trusty Martin Luther King quote at the end of the movie, and more’s the pity. The looming presence of Donald Trump, soon to undo all of Gore’s work in The Paris Agreement is the nail in the coffin for this particular strain of crusading white environmentalism. That, at least, is well captured here, for all of posterity.