Is Solarpunk Our Future?
What I read: How We Build a Solarpunk Future by Charlie. Published April 20, 2022.
Our world is in trouble. I know, that’s no surprise to anyone who’s paying attention. Authoritarianism is on the rise. Capitalism is no longer working to lift up the average worker to a good standard of living. (Did it ever? That’s probably a valid question.) Human rights are in some cases backtracking.
Overarching across all of that is a world just beginning to be besieged by the ramifications of climate change that left unchecked will eventually decimate humanity horribly.
So, to quote an often-uttered phrase, “Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”
I had never heard of Solarpunk as a movement or social philosophy prior to stumbling upon this article and its accompanying video. After watching the video and reading the linked to articles along with another one I found that was quite informative, it appears Solarpunk has at its core the philosophical mindset to save humanity and the planet if we take the messaging to heart and act on it.
That’s the million-dollar question. Will we act. We’ve not been doing such a great job of acting on some of the worst problems humanity faces.
What is Solarpunk? Well, the video is clear it’s not something called Cyberpunk, which I will admit I had to look up when I read it mentioned. As I see it, a core differentiator between Solarpunk and Cyberpunk is the role of capitalism.
Solarpunk without the abolition of capitalism is just greenwashed Cyberpunk.
Wow. The abolition of capitalism. That’s a tall order. We have an entire global economy based on mostly free market capitalism. Even in communist or authoritarian-led countries they practice a form of controlled capitalism to get in on the worldwide market to enrich their countries. Entirely understandable, but also entirely unsustainable for the long term.
As I read it, Solarpunk is both a literary genre and a social movement inspired by that genre. Cyberpunk is a literary genre only, or at least mostly. Cyberpunk stories and art can perhaps call people to action. Indeed, Cyberpunk has been referred to as a motivating force. But it appears Solarpunk utilizes the literary genre to more directly inspire people to envision and act to create a better world in which technological advances and harmony with the planet coexist in optimal and realistic ways.
Blunting rampant capitalism in favor of a more equitable sharing of resources is at the core of Solarpunk. The bottom-line mentality that fuels capitalism has turned out to not work in the average worker’s or citizen’s best interests. The focus on profit over benefit has proven to be harmful to lot of people and the planet in the process.
The profit centered global economy we've built has driven us to create technologies, that for the most part, function to expand margins and make more money for the capitalist class. Ideas and inventions that can't compete in the market, regardless of whether they are zero carbon or built community health are pushed to the margins.
The video uses two existing examples to illustrate how a Solarpunk approach can be used in our future everyday lives. Wind-powered cargo ships and earthships. Wind-powered cargo ships are exactly what they appear to be, ships that transport cargo and are powered by wind. Earthships are homes created using recycled materials and designed to be self-sustaining and remain comfortably warm or cool without using climate-damaging technological solutions.
Underpinning Solarpunk is the dismantling of capitalism. This is a refrain one reads frequently when diving deep into some of the proposed fixes to the world’s problems. Is Solarpunk a form of socialism? Probably. There’s a Facebook group named Solarpunk Socialism. So at least some people think Solarpunk has socialism leanings.
To the video’s credit, it does not attempt to make the case that the idealized Solarpunk vision should be adopted wholeheartedly or without further experimentation and thought. The thing I like about how the video positions Solarpunk is that it is, like so much of life, contextual.
I need to digest the concept of Solarpunk more, but for now it does seem it’s one prong in the collective effort to inspire a better, sustainable world for everyone. The world sure needs it.
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