The new book Man of Earth explores the cultural roots of ecological breakdown – and the kind of masculinity needed for men to live in service to life.
For more than a decade, I have spent much of my working life writing and talking about the climate crisis.
Each week, through radio, podcasts, articles and public events, I have spoken with climate scientists, environmental campaigners, farmers, psychologists, politicians, business leaders and ordinary citizens trying to make sense of what is happening to our world.
Then I wrote a book about masculinity.
At first glance, that may seem like a departure from climate journalism. In reality, Man of Earth grew from the same question that has followed me throughout my climate work: Why does our civilisation continue to damage the conditions that make life possible, even when we understand the consequences?
We have decades of climate science. We have renewable energy technologies. We know that fossil fuels are heating the planet. We know that forests, rivers, soils and ecosystems are being placed under extraordinary pressure. Knowledge is no longer the main thing holding us back. Something deeper is going on.
The climate crisis plays out through politics, economics and technology. Beneath all three lies a crisis of culture – and, more deeply, a crisis of maturity.
That is where my book begins.
. . .
The crisis beneath the crisis
For thousands of years, Western civilisation has told stories of conquest, growth, progress and expansion. Those stories helped build cities, industries, institutions and extraordinary technologies. They also helped create a civilisation that treats the living world as though it has no limits.
The Earth became a warehouse. Forests became timber. Rivers became water supplies, transport routes and sewers. Animals became commodities. The atmosphere became a convenient place to release waste gases without paying the cost of the damage.
Nature’s value was increasingly measured by what could be extracted from it.
This story is usually described as an economic model, an industrial model or a colonial model. It is all those things. It is also closely connected with an old model of masculinity.
For centuries, the admired man was the conqueror, the pioneer, the general, the industrialist, the landowner and the provider. He demonstrated his worth by gaining territory, accumulating wealth, overcoming opposition and leaving his mark on the world.
He was expected to remain in control. The language of masculine success and the language of industrial civilisation began to resemble each other: Conquer. Compete. Control. Extract. Accumulate. Expand. Win.
These values did not originate with men alone, and they do not define every man. Women can participate in systems of extraction and domination too.
Yet men have held most of the formal power within the governments, corporations, militaries, financial institutions and industries that shaped the modern world. Much of the fossil fuel economy remains governed by cultures historically associated with competition, extraction and control.
The history of industrial civilisation is, to a striking degree, also a history of masculinity.
In many of the climate and community groups I have worked with, women greatly outnumber men. They understand that the old story has become a threat to our survival, and they turn up to do the work.
Where are the men?
Put simply, confronting the climate crisis will require a new kind of masculinity.
. . .
From ownership to relationship
One of the book’s central chapters examines the historical parallels between the domination of women and the domination of nature. The histories are different and should never be collapsed into one. Even so, they have often relied on strikingly similar ideas.
Women were portrayed as emotional, irrational, wild and in need of male guidance.
Nature was portrayed as chaotic, dangerous, unproductive and in need of human control.
Women’s bodies, labour and choices were regulated by systems primarily created by men. The natural world was divided, measured, owned and brought into economic production.
In both cases, relationship was displaced by ownership.
Feminism challenged the belief that women existed for men’s use. Environmentalism challenges the belief that the living world exists for human use.
Both confront a worldview that turns life into property. The question underneath them is the same:
What happens when domination replaces relationship?
The consequences are visible all around us. A civilisation that views rivers, forests, animals and the atmosphere as passive resources will eventually exhaust or destabilise them. A civilisation that defines success through endless accumulation will eventually collide with the physical limits of the planet.
The climate crisis did not begin when humans discovered coal. Its deeper roots lie in the story that whatever can be controlled, measured and extracted is therefore ours to use without limit.
. . .
The personal becomes planetary
The connection between masculinity and ecological breakdown does not exist only in boardrooms, parliaments and industrial systems. It begins much closer to home.
The habits that shape a man’s intimate relationships also shape the families, workplaces and institutions he helps to build.
A man who cannot listen does not suddenly become a good listener when he enters politics.
A man who cannot admit that he is wrong may carry the same defensiveness into the company he manages.
A man who treats another person’s needs as an inconvenience may carry that attitude into decisions affecting communities exposed to pollution, fire or flood.
A man who mistakes control for strength may create institutions that behave in exactly the same way.
The pattern scales up.
Many boys are still taught to hide fear, grief and tenderness. They learn to appear certain, self-contained and unaffected. They learn to perform confidence, toughness and control, even when something inside them is falling apart.
For a while, society rewards this performance. Workplaces reward it. Markets reward it. Politics rewards it. War rewards it.
The Earth offers no such reward.
As I write in the book:
“The living world cannot be cared for well by men who have cut themselves off from feeling.”
When men are trained to conquer their own sensitivity, it becomes easier to conquer forests, rivers, women, children and animals – and to treat the future with contempt.
When sensitivity is severed, relationship with life is severed too.
Grief matters. Love matters. Attachment to place matters.
The capacity to recognise another being as alive and valuable in its own right matters.
Without those capacities, climate policy becomes an abstract contest between competing interests. With them, the destruction of a forest, the poisoning of a river or the destabilisation of the climate becomes something much more immediate. It becomes a violation of relationship.
. . .
Entering through another door
Climate communicators have spent decades explaining emissions, temperature increases, tipping points, carbon budgets and renewable energy.
That work remains essential.
Yet many people now switch off as soon as they hear the familiar climate language. Some expect a political argument. Some feel accused. Some feel powerless. Others believe they already know what will be said.
Man of Earth enters through a different door.
It begins with questions men are already carrying.
Why are so many men lonely?
What happens when work no longer gives a man meaning?
What happens to male purpose as artificial intelligence transforms employment?
How can men remain strong without becoming controlling?
Why do some men respond to uncertainty with anger?
What does it mean to be a father, partner, citizen or elder?
Where does a man belong?
What should he give his life to?
These questions may appear far removed from climate policy. Follow them deeply enough and they lead towards ecology, community, responsibility and our place within the living world.
A man may begin by asking why his relationships have failed and discover that he has spent much of his life performing a role rather than living as a whole human being.
From there, he may question why his worth depends on status, productivity and control. He may begin seeking belonging rather than consumption, purpose rather than accumulation, and service rather than endless competition.
That is climate action at the level of identity.
Political organising, regulation and decarbonisation remain essential. This work happens beneath them, examining the values and human stories from which political and economic choices emerge.
. . .
The climate crisis is asking men a question
For years, I believed the climate crisis was asking humanity a question: How will we come together and solve this?
While writing Man of Earth, I began to suspect that it is also asking men a more specific question: What is the place of a man in a world learning to live through relationship rather than domination?
Men have often been encouraged to understand power as the ability to impose their will.
Power over women. Over political opponents. Over land. Over nature. Over life.
The ecological age requires another understanding.
The world still needs male courage, ambition, strength, discipline and willingness to act. The task is to redirect them.
Courage can protect life.
Ambition can restore landscapes and communities.
Strength can remain present during conflict.
Discipline can become devotion to a craft, family or place.
Leadership can create the conditions in which others flourish.
This is the difference between domination and mastery.
Domination seeks control over others. Mastery develops capacity within oneself.
A master musician does not dominate music. A master carpenter does not dominate wood. A master gardener does not dominate nature.
They learn through attention, humility, patience and relationship.
The deeper a person enters mastery, the more clearly they recognise their dependence upon everything around them – people, animals, plants, rivers, forests, soil and the countless living systems that sustain them.
Mastery is participation, practised skilfully.
Mastery begins where domination ends.
. . .
What kind of strength will we reward?
The coming decades will reveal what kind of masculine strength our culture chooses to admire.
Will we continue rewarding the man who acquires the most wealth, attracts the most attention, controls the largest company and defeats his competitors?
Or will we begin recognising other forms of strength?
A father who stays awake through the night beside a sick child is strong.
A man who can admit that he was wrong is strong.
A man who remains calm during conflict is strong.
A whistleblower who exposes wrongdoing is strong.
A community leader who stands against a destructive development is strong.
A farmer who protects the fertility of the soil for future generations is strong.
A man who refuses a profitable business model because it causes harm is strong.
A man who protects life rather than dominating it is strong.
The climate crisis calls for mature strength – men who can tell the difference between courage and aggression, leadership and control, protection and possession, ambition and greed.
It calls for men who can use power without becoming possessed by it.
An ecological civilisation becomes possible when women and men begin recognising and rewarding qualities that support life rather than domination.
. . .
Inner work is only half the journey
There is a danger in discussions about cultural and personal transformation. They can become a comfortable substitute for political action.
A man may learn to listen. He may repair his relationships. He may become a loving father, a trustworthy partner and a caring friend. He may walk into a forest and experience himself as part of the living world.
All of that matters.
Then he returns to a society whose laws still reward pollution, extraction, manipulation and short-term profit. He returns to an economy that treats the living Earth as disposable material.
He encounters corporations legally permitted to push environmental and social consequences onto everybody else, and governments that acknowledge climate danger while continuing to approve the projects causing it.
As I write in Chapter 23:
“A transformed Man of Earth who leaves the structures of domination untouched has completed only half his journey.”
Relationship and responsibility must eventually enter the law, the economy and political decision-making.
Otherwise, we will speak of connection while financing destruction.
We will teach children to care about nature while governments approve projects that poison rivers, clear forests and expand fossil fuel extraction.
We will recycle and electrify our homes while corporations continue manufacturing mountains of materials and chemicals for which no safe destination exists.
We will encourage men to act responsibly while our legal systems protect organisations designed to avoid responsibility.
This is why the final chapters of Man of Earth move from personal transformation to corporate law, democratic reform and collective action. The book proposes a basic principle:
Every corporation may pursue its legitimate interests, but not at the expense of severe harm to people, communities, the climate, the natural world or future generations.
It also proposes a broader Life Test for laws, public investment, infrastructure and industrial development.
Among its questions:
Does it protect the stability of the climate?
Does it safeguard water, soil and biodiversity?
Does it protect children and future generations?
Does it strengthen democracy rather than concentrate power?
Does it help humanity use technology wisely?
A proposal that cannot pass these questions should be redesigned – or rejected.
The first responsibility of civilisation is to protect the conditions that make civilisation possible.
. . .
Climate activism without beginning with climate
Man of Earth does not focus on emissions targets, energy markets or the technical details of climate policy. Its climate work happens elsewhere.
It explores why a civilisation with extraordinary scientific knowledge remains unable to act with wisdom.
It examines the story of manhood that taught generations of men to associate worth with control, accumulation and conquest.
It asks why men are hurting, what they have lost, where they might find belonging and what kind of strength the living world now requires.
The ecological transition will demand more than replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.
It will require a movement from extraction towards stewardship. From ownership towards relationship. From performance towards authenticity. From domination towards mastery.
From power over life towards power in service to life.
That is why I see Man of Earth as climate activism. We could call it ‘deep climate activism’.
It speaks the language of masculinity, relationships, work, desire, artificial intelligence, belonging and purpose. Beneath those subjects lies the same question that has driven my climate work for more than a decade:
How can human beings learn to protect the living world they belong to?
For men, the question becomes more personal:
What kind of men does the living Earth need us to become?
Man of Earth – Masculinity, meaning and the future of being human is published by Geelong Media.
→ www.books.by/mikaidt
