Solarpunk can be viewed from many angles – and articles which try to look at all of them can be somewhat too long and rather overwhelming, so that readers just don’t get the point of the movement.
One particular article from last year has been featured in these pages – focussing on the ‘technology’ point, namely that we already have the tools we need at hand to create a better future:
SolarPunk: “where renewable tech meets socio-ecological enlightenment” – Sidmouth Solarpunk
And the piece was so good, that another aspect was highlighted – the freshness, the promise, the ‘enlightenment’ of solarpunk:
solarpunk: toward a gritty, gnarly, pragmatic, better future – Sidmouth Solarpunk
Here is yet another look at the same piece by Sage Agee, writing in the Earth Island Journal – this time focussing on the inspiration of science fiction:
“The one place where I escaped from this constant masking and shifting was in the books I consumed. At 17, I read Ursula LeGuin’s series of novels, the Hainish Cycle, for the first time. I was instantly drawn into the worlds she created, where gender was fluid, as in The Left Hand of Darkness, where some worlds grappled with climate disaster just as some had overcome it, as in The Dispossessed. The way she experimented with the utopian, which always included queerness and dissolved gender roles, was like nothing I had read or experienced.
“When I allowed myself to fall into these fictions, my dread would turn over into an almost hopeful outlook. I understood this as fantasy, though, and never considered taking what I had read in LeGuin into my real life. Instead, I spent years dreaming of alternate realities, where I hadn’t been born into a doomed world…
“Such stories are now called “solarpunk,” a literary genre that has grown in prominence over the last few years and is echoed by a real-world social movement. Solarpunk is driven by a need for people to imagine a better future from where we are, not necessarily a fantasy world set in an unfamiliar, unlikely future. Solarpunk pushes against the bleak Blade Runner future of cyberpunk — a speculative genre centered on urban dystopias dominated by corporations and technology. Solarpunk provides a shining vision of a positive future, grounded in our existing world, one that emphasizes the need for environmental sustainability, self-governance, and social justice. Solarpunk imagines an inclusive, sustainable, possible future, where renewable technology meets ecological enlightenment…”
Solarpunk Imagines a Future Where Renewable Tech Meets Socio-Ecological Enlightenment
And here is one of the stunning pieces of art used to illustrate the article – by Yuumei:
Boundless
From the depth of the ocean
To the limitless sky
Open a book, open your mind
This world is boundless
So let your imagination fly
Boundless by yuumei on DeviantArt
…