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A blog for dudes, nay anyone, who is struggling with their clime-denity.

Preface:

For my people who don’t know internet lingo — TL;DR means Too Long, Didn’t Read. So if you just want the story without any of my handcrafted, brilliant sentences then just read that part. It’s similar to going to Church and the priest not reading the [Inlude brackets for longer text] part of the reading.

The Back Story:

(TL;DR version: I was a normal dumb dude who knew nothing about climate change and then I saw the world that was actually in front of me and wondered why, in my mind, I was in the male minority of this movement.)

Like any Millennial or Gen Zer or whatever the hell category I fall into, I was listening to a podcast. This particular podcast was my eco enthusiast friend Laura Diaz’s podcast called Eco Chic. That shit slaps, y’all need to check it out wherever you find your podcasts.

http://lauraediez.com/ — Check her website out here

She does these call-in episodes where she has a topic and a slew of people with different backgrounds call in and give their undying opinions on a topic. The one topic that is going to be coming up is the male stigma behind climate change and environmentalism and it really got me thinking.

I, like many dudes my age (19-25), was only thinking about certain things when I make life choices. My google history on any given day would probably show something along the lines of: “‘how do I make money doing minimal work”, “why the hell am I a Chicago sports fan”, “p”, or, “Is Margot Robbie single”. It never included anything along the lines of “yo, what’s the health of the earth like?” or “is my nacho addiction hurting the planet?”. A quick 10-day eco-nerd study vacay in Iceland really flipped my google searches on their head. I reevaluated my life choices and accepted the world that was presented in front of me.

The Male Stigma:

(TL;DR version — for no viable reason, I always felt judged and self-conscious when bringing up the environment or sustainability around people.)

If the title dragged you in then strap up. The feeling. Have you ever had a feeling you couldn’t describe? That is what I am struggling with right now. This is the hardest thing I am going to do in this blog; I am going to try and describe a feeling I had in my brain, a reservation of sorts. I don’t know if it was embarrassment, vulnerability, or the weight of the situation fucking with my central nervous system but every single time I muttered the words “climate change”, “environmentalism”, or “environment” I did it in a decibel slightly lower than the rest of my sentence. I sat there waiting, what felt like an eternity, for my attentive listener to rain down judgment and dissent onto the sentence I just verbally laid in front of them.

Why was this? What was holding me back? Why was there a question mark at the end of every statement I was making? Then it dawned on me. Zoinks CJ, you’re a dude. You shouldn’t care about this shit! You like diesel monster trucks and football. Duh, I thought to myself, pandering to my inner ego hoping to find resolution in burying my feelings down deep like most dudes. Then it happened. A snap. Well, more of a bend and snap back to reality, ope there goes the gravity. Like Raven Samone snapping back from a vision I realized how fucked up the male persona was when it came to climate change. Why has caring for the Earth adopted this feminine cloud around it? Fellas, is wanting to preserve all of THIS feminine now??



s/o Jay





The Research:

(TL;DR Version. None. You lazy bastard. Read this section, it is important.)

Sustainability in action

Two environmental trips I took

Trip Male Female The GREEN Program 44% 56% SISE (UIC) 54% 46%

Random Ass Polls

IG & Google Poll asking if people would abstain from meat 1 day a week

Poll Total Male Female Would give up meat for 1 day 74% 43% 57% Would not give up meat for 1 day 26% 80% 20%

I did some research on the numbers just to get a feel of what was actually going on in the world when it came to demographics. The numbers were interesting, to say the least. Some were exactly as expected and some were not. When it came to the sustainability community, my eco homies; giving a shit about the Earth was damn near evenly split demographically. On the other hand, when I was asking my general audience (received over 100 total answers, survey says this is a valid poll) not many dudes put their mouths where their words were, literally.

I chose the singular question “Would you give up meat and dairy for only ONE DAY a week if it benefitted the environment. Why this randomly specific question? Meat production impacts the earth in many ways, both positive and negative. Yes, we need meat in our lives; I am not saying nobody should eat meat but the overconsumption of meat is where the balance teeter tauters to ‘we done fucked up’. Due to the increasing demand for meat (from global, exponential population increase and also an exponential increase in consumption per capita), there is mass deforestation, excess water use, and production of greenhouse gas. We see all of these effects affect different parts of the world including droughts that lead to mass forest fires, food shortages in volatile areas, and the inability to remove CO2 from the air. Not eating meat for one day a week would reduce the demand for meat and lessen some of these impacts. This anti-meat alternative is also something those fragile men, like my past self, could do in the comfort of their own home. No one has to know you didn’t eat meat today, so your man-complex won’t be hurt on the outside.

(I am generalizing here) Every dude who is saying well then how am I going to get my GainZ after I go to the gym if I don’t eat meat, bro? My body is my temple and my alpha temple needs to eat meat. True, meat has a lot of protein, but there are so many other sources of protein that could be better for you and the earth. As it turns out, some meat (usually the cheapest meat at the store and most attractive) is mass-produced (due to demand) and from animals who aren’t grass-fed. Aka this meat is dogshit and the animals weren’t fed nutritiously so the meat itself isn’t what you think you’re getting. Check out these charts, I’ll summarize them in the next paragraphs for the lazy people who skipped them.

Full Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas emissions from Common Proteins chart here. Copyright © Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org.

This chart is a breakdown comparison of the different protein sources available and their CO2 emission per 28g of protein (it is suggested to get .32 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight ~50g for the average man or woman, but most diets have a much higher protein intake than that. I personally try to eat 120g of protein a day). If I were to split protein among my three daily meals they would look like this:

Meal Food (w/ 40 g protein intake) kg CO2 Breakfast Sausage, eggs, & bacon ~1.82 Lunch Brat & fries ~2.23 Dinner Steak & potatoes ~3.93 Daily total: ~7.88

You’re thinking to yourself, oh that’s not too bad… Well, Elon Musk is shoving an electrical cord up our asses telling us how bad gas-powered vehicles are and that they are ruining the environment. This is true and accepted as fact and it is said burning 1 gallon of gasoline (that’s a 20-35 mile trip) in a standard car releases 8.887 kg of CO2. So now my pretty normal, daily diet is producing 1 kg of CO2 less than a 25-mile car ride. So now that you’re aware of how much a diet impacts the earth let me give you some alternatives.

Replace:

Flashback to the question. Would you go one meatless day for the environment? The outlook:

Meal Food kg CO2 Breakfast Tofu & eggs ~1.16 Lunch Beyond burger & sweet potato fries ~.97 Dinner Mediterranean quinoa power bowl ~1.37 Daily total: ~3.5

Southwest Sweet potato tacos

Sesame mushroom rice

Power Quinoa Bowl

All veggie meals packed with nutrients and flavor

Your one single change has cut your consumption in half for this one day. Do it once a week for a year and you have now cut out 182 kg of CO2 a year. For my math people out there, that is the equivalent to 20 gallons of gas for doing absolutely nothing except changing your diet one day a week.

Not to mention, I guarantee you are getting a higher quality of food on that day. Meat doesn’t have enough fiber for a daily diet. Meat is loaded with saturated fats and is not alkaline in nature.

Little changes make big impacts in the long run. Tofu may not be for you, but that doesn’t mean to throw this blog out. We aren’t cavemen anymore. Beef doesn’t have to be a staple in our diet. If you’re too manly to eat tofu then take a look at where chicken or fish fall into place on this chart. Fish is loaded with nutrients and essential fatty acids the body needs and chicken is loaded with more protein than red meat and is a leaner more iron and zinc packed meat than beef or pork. Don’t let your ego be bigger than the wildfires in Australia, California, Brazil, Chile, … yeah, kinda nuts when all of this devastation is right out for you, huh…

Australia

California

Chile

Celebrity endorsements:

If you think you are bigger than a healthier, ecofriendly diet just take a look at this list of dudes who are either vegan or vegetarian. They seem to be doing just fine.

Alec Baldwin

Casey Affleck

Russell Brand

Woody Harrelson

Maurice Jones-Drew

Liam Hemsworth

Zac Effron

Peter Dinklage

Kyrie Irving

Joaquin Phoenix

Other stuff:

There are a bunch of other eco-conscious decisions that are trademarked are ‘feminine’ that I think are utterly ridiculous. Like bringing your own reusable bags to the grocery store? How has that gotten the ‘feminine’ tag? First of all, I ain’t trying to pay a bag tax in Chicago for plastic. Second off, do you know how much extra you could fit in a reusable bag vs a plastic bag? So much more. It redefines the, “Taking all the groceries inside in one trip” philosophy. Guys. It’s revolutionary. I’m sorry, is carrying more weight feminine now? Come on now, let’s do right by our sphere and take a little action on our own. We’re rebranding environmental to menvironmental.

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