ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author discusses three concepts – 'industrial masculinities', 'ecomodern masculinities', and 'ecological masculinities' – and illustrates them by drawing on findings from empirical research that author have developed at length elsewhere. Ecomodern discourse emerged out of the intense clash between an industrial modern, pro-growth agenda on one hand and environmental movement discourses criticizing economic growth as a measure of prosperity on the other. R. W. Connell discusses how 'ecological masculinities' is a concept that could offer resistance to traditional, industrial forms of masculinities, if only scholars were committed to understanding it better. Connell argues that the men who dominated and ran industrial modernization performed a hegemonic form of masculinity. For the purposes of developing an understanding of industrial masculinities, climate scepticism can be theorized as consistent with the Enlightenment worldview that sees nature as dead, Rational Man as the rightful dominator, and engineering as the method of creating wealth for humanity.