Solarpunk

Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

Last June, Pasadena, California — about 11 miles from downtown Los Angeles — decreed that June 22 was Octavia E. Butler Day, in honor of the science fiction writer born in the city on that date in 1947. The Pasadena middle school Butler attended was renamed for her in 2022.

Kia ora! I'm just another solarpunk in Aotearoa looking for other like-minded friends, inspiration, and advice on other ways I can green up my life.

We outlive capitalism. In a post-scarcity society, people do things not out of desperation but for joy. Xavi loves nothing more than putting on a silicon tail and swimming as a mermaid. She performs for children. Xavi encourages them and their parents to protect the clean water of the city’s canals. A community treasure, she is the first person who comes to mind when excited doctors develop a surgery to turn someone into a merperson. Xavi pioneers it, pushing the boundaries of transhumanism.

It's got little instructive explainers worked into the story. Good art, too.

Let me know if you have suggestions for short phrases that could excite people enough to investigate solarpunk.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22438897

Picture up top from yours truly, lmao

Today, imagining a better future is a powerful act of resistance. It’s a way of reclaiming our agency when it feels like the ground is falling away beneath us. This isn't about naive optimism or pretending the difficulties we face aren’t real.

I didn't know anything about Bhutan before reading this, so it sounded fairly Solarpunk to me. I'm hopeful for their new city.

I was digging up old layers of the Internet and found out about old (well, late 90s, early 2000s) texts by Bruce Sterling who mentioned his Viridian notes where he describes something very close to a solarpunk movement (sustainability focused tech and social changes). It is fun to read because some have very strong cyberpunkish vibes but with the twist that cyberpunk describes the world we are in right now and viridian is the world we want.

In just over two years, their small Hamilton-based business, Sustainable Plastic Solutions, has reclaimed 3,000 tonnes of plastic and has created a world-leading closed-loop circular economy for grain tarpaulins.

Didn’t plan on publishing my solarpunk novel this week. But it feels like the time for a story that’s radically hopeful.

Well, it’s happening here.

This essay by Tim Wu exposes insightful concepts essential to the solarpunk movement. Six pages is only too inconvenient to read for those who are most trapped by convenience.

Events by initiatives across the world, which build upon Kate Raworth's *Doughnut Economics* (Summary by herself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=talXb1wiEFY)

Hello! I hope this is the right place to post this! I'm part of a small team launching Tractor Beam, a new fiction publication dedicated to optimistic visions of the future loosely related to soil, farming, agriculture, etc. We're doing an open call for short stories for our first issue. Details here More details / updates on judging etc, on instagram: [@tractorbeam.earth] (https://www.instagram.com/tractorbeam.earth/?hl=en)

This summer I read The Lord of the Rings to my eight-year-old and was struck by how much the themes continue to be relevant for the modern environmentalist movement. Ents destroying Isengard (the industrial power) is the classic example, but there's so much more. Mordor as an imperial, extractive power. Hobbits regenerating the land after it has been degraded. Gimli trying to preserve the Glittering Caves of Aglerond. And of course, growing trees symbolizing renewal and prosperity. So, I decided to write all these themes down, and compare them to instances where similar things are happening today.

First of all, detergent pods are for dummies who cannot measure the right amount of detergent for a job and those who don’t know that water hardness is a factor. They are for convenience zombies who cannot be bothered to think. So from the very start, pods are not for solarpunks.

The article is of course about the US situation, where the small scale and one-off nature of passive houses may be increasing costs.

I gotta say that I feel weird reading this examination of Octavia Butler's notes.

Wasn't quite sure where to ask the question in the title, or if this is even the right question to ask, but figured a Solarpunk community would be most likely to have the answers I'm looking for...

There was a post on Reddit that praised the ubiquitous "Dear Alice" commercial, and inevitably a comment criticizing praise for a commercial. This led to me to wonder more about who it was that made this famous solarpunk advertisement. The answer is an animation studio called The Line. I went looking at some of their other work, and came across this interesting demo short for what appears to be a proof of concept or pilot for a solarpunky animated monster hunting series.

About 23,500 of the 1.5 million customers that lost power in western North Carolina still lacked electricity on Sunday, according to Poweroutage.us. Without it, they can’t keep medicines cold or power medical equipment or pump well water. They can’t recharge their phones or apply for federal disaster aid.

I found this the other day, while I was paddling with a green kayak. I would not say it is solarpunk, but I think it could lead us to the right direction

Every Sunday this Discord of solarpunks has discussions, which are often thoughtful and interesting. We are about to start a new book, Solarpunk Creatures. Now is the perfect time to join us.

Sharing this here, because tumblr and reddit have login-walls and I don't want this gem to get lost.

Hi all!

Hope this fits here.

Accompanying article [fr] https://bonpote.com/la-carte-des-pensees-ecologiques/

I'm sure similar things have been shared here before because I saw this and thought it was possibly the most solar punk thing possible.

A fixation on system change alone opens the door to a kind of cynical self-absolution that divorces personal commitment from political belief. This is its own kind of false consciousness, one that threatens to create a cheapened climate politics incommensurate with this urgent moment.

With every solution, and even in the title of this newsletter itself, I emphasize the number one thing individuals can do that most of us are still not doing: talk about it! Use your voice to explain why climate change matters and to advocate for climate action.

A new Tailor joins a community which has lacked one for years. In a world of distributed manufacturing tailors are no longer just artisans, but educators, material and sustainability experts, fashion designers and translators of cultures, making sure no garment offends others when traveling. Seeing that they’re much less traditional than their predecessor, will they be accepted by the community? Which bold statement surprised everybody?

Communities are clustered by common users. I am also part of jlai.lu, a french-speaking instance, that is pretty isolated, while slrpnk.net is very spread out. I find it an interesting view.

Für die deutschsprachigen Solarpunks unter euch: Ich hab letzten Monat meinen Blog gelauncht, auf dem ich in Zukunft regelmäßig Romane besprechen sowie allgemeinere Gedanken zu Solarpunk als Bewegung teilen werde.

Theo Mulraney is my real name. I'm a British man who accelerated the development of AI by arguing on forums about physics, morality and why I think everyone should be more optimistic. Lots of people like me were getting about, changing the narrative of history by obsessing over fantasy worlds.

two signals drive the human spirit: positive and negative vibes.