Björn Wiman: the Way out of the new manlighetsprofeterna in the woods and see what happens

Myset low as usual tightly over the SVT:s ”Vinterstudion” last weekend. The presenter André Pops with the guests in the snug stugvärme while the wet snow fell on the big väggtäckande the tv screens. The programme included competitions on hopskrapad artificial snow in the Norwegian Beitostølen ski & biathlon from the slovenian Pokljuka.

Towards the end of the broadcast, came an unexpected element. It was about how expertkommentatorn in the biathlon, the past world CHAMPIONSHIP and OLYMPIC gold medalist Björn Ferry, had taken to Slovenia. Instead of flying like all the others he had traveled 44 hours by train from home in Storuman.

Björn Ferry and his wife Heidi Andersson striving the past few years towards the goal of living zero carbon by the year 2025, something that they told me about in the SVT series ”Storuman forever”. Ferry has not flown in almost two years, and during the season to travel around 1.300 kilometers by train across Europe to provide comments during the SVT's broadcasts in the biathlon. Now he showed up a video diary from the German sovvagnskupéer and testified about discussions with devout skidskyttefans in the last part of the way to Pokljuka. Now it will be ”tough tough-the train home for the Ferry,” stated the host of the show amused at the end of the broadcast.

biathlete and tv commentator. He is a man also. And the question is whether or not biathlon ought to qualify high on the list of the most manly sports – an activity where you both constrains the nature on skis and fires the firearm at the same time.

another male archetype is the actor and the former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. He goes as far as is known do not ski, but held in the last week of öppningsanförandena under the now completed climate change conference in Katowice. In the 1980s, the actor Schwarzenegger, a sort of prototype for masculinity – a coy one-shot with bulging muscles that pumped the ammunition out of the great assault rifles.

the Climate crisis should not be linked to either politics or sex, but the sad truth is that it is there.

When Schwarzenegger at the beginning of the 2000's would be launched as a candidate for governor in environmentally conscious California, this machoimage a problem. Schwarzenegger's gas-guzzling monsterbil Lobster was rebuilt to run on hydrogen, and in recent times, Schwarzenegger further boosted its klimatengagemang by actively supporting cases against companies and states that do not follow the paris agreement. In the same turn, he has further ”softened up” their masculinity, for example by becoming vegan.

Björn Ferry and Arnold Schwarzenegger are two examples of how the perception of masculinity interact with the setting, to the issue of climate change. Author Henrik Bromander spoke in a DN article recently with the researcher, Martin Hultman, who analysed the different kinds of masculinities in relation to the environment and the climate. Hultman sees Schwarzenegger as an example of a transition from ”the industrimoderna masculinity” – that is to say, the way to look at nature as something to exploit and conquer – to ”the ekomoderna masculinity”, which means that they acknowledge the climate crisis, but believe that it can be solved through green growth and climate-smart entrepreneurship. Björn Ferry would in turn be an example of a third category, Martin Hultman call ”ecological masculinity”: an active questioning of the continual growth and the pursuit of a life in harmony with nature's resources.

the Climate crisis should not be linked to either politics or sex, but the sad truth is that it is there. Over the years I have written about climate issues, I do not believe that I have come across a female 'climate change deniers'. An american environmental organisation stated a few years ago that the majority of the measures against climate change are regarded as ”female”, because they are perceived to be related to the concept ”passivity” and ”sacrifice”. Men are expected to conquer, build and overcome. Women, however, are passive and sacrifice themselves.

Katrine Marcal: Climate change is a man

also bred the new mansrörelsen, represented by, among others, the canadian psychologist Jordan B Peterson, who is in the public eye more or less fair got to figure both as a life coach for the lost young men, and a standard bearer for the new alternativhögern. One of the bearing thoughts in the kind of mansaktivism that he represents is that modern society has made men weak and feminized, and that they therefore need to straighten your back and regain its role as the society's italy. They need to express themselves with the researcher, Martin Hultmans terminology – re-enter in the industrimoderna masculinity, that refuse to see their own responsibility for how our civilization is in danger of going under. As Hultman points out, it is precisely from this outdated view of masculinity organised klimatförnekelsen is working.

To hear Jordan B Peterson during a lecture scornfully dismiss the work against climate change, eagerly acclaimed by a crowd of college students, is to see this connection, embodied. With klimatförnekandets help today's men travel to the splendid kraftkarlar, which have enough steel in ryggbastet to make up the bill with the new age of environmentally-conscious weaklings.

Interesting thought. Way out Jordan B Peterson and his disciples against Björn Ferry in the ski tracks so we'll see how it works in reality.

Read more by Björn Wimans chronicles of the climate crisis – and about the book ”Late on earth. 33 thoughts on the world's biggest news” .