Love Thy Enemy?

Understanding and Responding to the Self-Destructive Necro-Politics of Petro-Masculine Climate Refusal

Kirjoittajat

• Ryan Manhire Turun yliopisto

Avainsanat:

climate change denial, Greta Thunberg, necro-patriarchy, petro-masculinity

Abstrakti

As the scientific call for radical action on climate change intensifies, climate denialists not only maintain the status quo but work to increase fossil fuel consumption exponentially. Rather than an epistemological crisis of scientific communication, a growing body of literature suggests climate denialism is tied to a defence of “industrial/breadwinner” masculinities (Hultman & Pulé 2018). I build on this research by analysing what I call the “petro-masculine” and “necro-patriarchal” (Daggett 2018, Valencia 2019) dimensions of the heated response to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg’s 2019 visit to Alberta, Canada. I then consider the importance of “engaged dialogue” (Aldrin Salskov et al. 2022) in overcoming the difficulties of analysing, understanding, and responding to petro-masculine necro-patriarchy logic without othering the “otherer”.