My goodness, we need some good, positive stories!

Solarpunk might be able to provide some of these – as explored on these blog pages over the last couple of years and more, whether looking at the power of storytelling or how storytelling can spark real-world change or Solar Punk: always a positive news story.

Ultimately, though, “Solarpunk is a very powerful cultural narrative that could really bring together efforts”.

Which is what Spencer Scott, PhD writing in the online magazine One Earth this month powerfully suggests in a piece on Solarpunk: Refuturing our Imagination for an Ecological Transformation.

Here’s a key section:

Solarpunk as Narrative Strategy

Solarpunk isn’t fortune-telling. It isn’t meant to be literal or prescriptive. It’s narrative strategy; it’s a direction. Inherent to its ethos, its manifestations are decentralized and adaptable to local cultures, contexts, and beliefs.

Science fiction author Cory Doctorow said, science fiction isn’t predictive of the future; it tends to be about diagnosing our current aspirations and anxieties. Solarpunk is the first draft of a play script that we must rehearse living into. We will adapt as the story develops, but the importance is in setting an intention.

This makes solarpunk practical in the same way—although in the opposite direction—that the 1939 World’s Fair was instrumental in cementing car culture in the American psyche. At the World’s Fair, Americans were sold a vision of the future where cars were central to a metropolitan future, which enabled freedom and leisure. In the following decades, America built a version of that future that we still live in today. Solarpunk seeks to use that same strategy to build a future designed not for the benefit of a car company’s bottom line but for the whole planet.

Solarpunk is bottom-up advertising for a liveable future. Whatever shade and shape that may turn out to be in practice, what is important right now is that we galvanize around a vision worth fighting for. One in which technology works in service of ecology and a global culture adopts the centrality of an ecological education.

‘Dear Alice’ Solarpunk anime ambience – YouTube

Solarpunk And Appropriate Technology

The solarpunk movement embodies a unique perspective on the role of technology in shaping a sustainable and ecologically harmonious future. It exists in the space between the skepticism of Neo-Luddism and the unbridled techno-optimism championed by the billionaire class and their ilk. Solarpunk acknowledges the inadequacy of attempting to solve today’s pressing environmental issues with the same mindset that created them, but that doesn’t mean technology itself needs to be thrown out with the bathwater.

Solarpunk recognizes the sheer complexity of the challenges posed by climate change and biodiversity loss. As such, the movement leaves space for “appropriate technology”: innovation that is driven by a genuine commitment to preserving and enhancing both human and ecological well-being. Solarpunk maintains that the impulse for progress and innovation remains a powerful motivating force. However, it seeks to redefine progress, shifting the focus from the narrow pursuit of maximizing profit to optimizing the intertwined well-being of humanity and the environment. It also champions the intelligence of Indigenous knowledge, the wisdom of diverse cultures, and recognizes the profound lessons that nature, as the original inventor, can teach us.

All this being the case, contrary to popular belief, the ecological movement will actually require a shift toward more complex and more technologically, philosophically, and culturally advanced societies. Philosopher Bruno Latour, in his book “Down to Earth,” eloquently captures the essence of this perspective: “There is nothing more innovative, present, subtle, technical… nothing more creative, nothing more contemporary than [living within the boundaries of our Earth system as it actually exists].

“What necessarily precedes a shift in the outcomes of our technology is a shift in the spiritual, social, and foundational beliefs that guided their creation. In this vision of a solarpunk future, technology serves as a means to an end, not an end in itself. It becomes a tool through which we pursue a new North Star: the sustenance and well-being of our ecosystems, which in turn sustain and enable our existence. The movement calls upon the creativity, ingenuity, and innovation of builders and creators, emphasizing that the new mandate is not a sidelining but a reorientation. These shifting priorities, constraints, and philosophies open up a whole new frontier for technological innovation. Within the constraints of a world with finite resources and ecological boundaries, Solarpunk’s ethos encourages us to channel our innovative spirit into constructing a future that aligns harmoniously with the Earth and its ecosystems.

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