What is one thing the Earth and Andrew Tate have in common? They are both being roasted.  

With the online debacle between renowned environmental activist Greta Thunberg and mainstream misogynist Andrew Tate making headlines worldwide, the climate movement has once again been brought to people’s attention. 

“[Thunberg’s] reply gained traction to quickly become one of the top 10 tweets of all time (…) it has been liked 3.5 million times and shared directly 650,000 or so, and the interchange became the topic of countless news stories around the world, from India to Australia,” Rebecca Solnit said in The Guardian.  

For years, much of the research on climate change interchanges ‘gender’ with ‘women.’ Essentially, historical research has depicted women as victims of climate change’s negative effects; while this is accurate, such findings advocate for solutions to address problems regarding women’s issues and deflect from the focus on its causes: men’s greater responsibilities and failures leading to climate change.  

“Gender researchers’ emphasis on women’s plight and inequality obscures the exception that proves the rule: men wield the (sometimes) invisible hands that create and perpetuate the climate crisis at the expense of everyone, including women,” Joane Nagel said in a Frontiers research study. 

Men’s power and actions regarding the environmentalist movement are often glossed over by the emphasis on women in discussions of gender and climate change. With this perspective of characterizing climate change as a ‘woman’s problem,’ the role of men in climate change has been masked, enabling many to refuse to recognize and support the climate change movement. 

“I genuinely do not know how someone could support him [Tate]. He clearly does not respect women and was arrested for human trafficking. Tate is truly a bad person, and the fact that people continue to support him worries me,” Olivia Baudo, senior, said. 

Many believe there is an association between machismo (aggressive masculinity) and the denial of the climate change movement. Oftentimes, many versions of this type of masculinity result in selfishness and indifference being a person’s defining characteristics, making them very individualistic. Therefore, caring and acting for the common good goes directly against their ideologies.  

“The tater tot [Andrew Tate] is fried and salty in prison,” Nick Nejad, sophomore, said. 

Although Tate and his brother were recently arrested by Romanian police due to their connection with sex trafficking, tackling harmful attitudes towards the climate movement is far from over.