Oh Earth Day! Why do I scorn thee? When I hear of your arrival, my mind is filled with images of bearded, hippy men and hairy-legged women throwing paint on Humvees.
Be gone, oh label that lumps love for the land and hate for hygiene in the same barrel! Where have I learned to disdain this day?
Perhaps growing up during the 80’s and 90’s in a small, Republican town colored gray my view of green. In my circles, it seemed a rule that any choice of a plant or animal over human wants was parallel to blasphemy.
Basically, it wasn’t manly or godly to be green. True men cut down trees and drove diesel trucks. And somehow, we believed tree huggers were atheists and vegetarians were agnostic.
And what of my Arab counterparts? My Bedouin buddies who would give their blood for their homeland couldn’t give a rip about Earth Day. “I’ll die for my country!” followed by throwing their trash out the car window. We share a common contempt for conservatism.
My point in my rambling is to show that to be sober-minded about things such as environmentalism carries with it a stinky stigma in both Arab and American life.
Today, this Earth Day, we are stopping this stigmatic cycle-- A real man cares for his family, why not his planet as well? We are going to reprogram the subconscious of the public with macho mantras about Earth Day.
Here are some of the chants to inject testosterone into tree-hugging:
Real Men Recycle and Pansies Pollute
Studs Salvage and Weaklings Waste
God said ‘Care for my garden’ and I said ‘Give me the shovel!”
and my personal favorite;
Pick up that trash or I’ll break your nose!
My final proposal is we get rid of the term Mother Earth and install a more imposing figure such as Uncle Dirt or Step-Father Earth. Forget obligation to conservation, how about scaring into caring!
If you dump old car oil on Uncle Dirt, he will completely destroy your life
or
If you wanna live till your next birthday, you better respect your Step-Father!
As I close this Ode to our Globe, I won’t coo a poem or whistle something soft and cuddly about our dear planet.
Imagine instead a hybrid monster truck with a clean-shaven Daisy Duke standing in its bed. She’s playing AC/DC on a solar–powered electric guitar as it drives overtop a bunch of empty beer kegs, crushing them so they can be recycled.
Cue the non-pollutant fireworks, Hank Williams Junior jumps out of the truck and yells, “ Are You Ready for Some Football… on organic grass watered by recycled waste!” and we all party hard using biodegradable cups and eating grass fed, free-range beef!
As a finale, I yell out, “Thank you Uncle Dirt! You rock!”, drop the microphone and sadly, then go wash the paint off my Humvee.
By Brett Weer
