Solarpunk
Contextual Quotes
1.
"Cyberpunk and Solarpunk are actually based on very similar tenets. Both contain the central idea that human nature doesn’t tend to change. The key difference is that Cyberpunk assumes that the worst human traits will dominate, leading greed and exploitation to win out. Consequently, Cyberpunk is full of grimdark dystopian visions and high levels of cynicism. Solarpunk in contrast assumes that the best human traits will dominate, giving more optimistic eutopian (not utopian) visions. Cyberpunk is in reaction to the shiny spacesuits and silver rockets of the 1960s. Solarpunk, in turn, is in reaction to Cyberpunk. Where Cyberpunk is about nihilism, Solarpunk is about anti-nihilism."
- A solarpunk statement [1]
2.
"within the Web3 context, solarpunk refers to a political aesthetic that promotes positive externalities, positive-sum worlds and public goods in Web3 and beyond – what I call the “three Ps.” Crypto’s solarpunks are characterized by a commitment to collaboration, optimism and are green-pilled."
- Paul J. Dylan-Ennis [2]
Description
1. Ben Valentine:
"Solarpunk is a literary movement, a hashtag, a flag, and a statement of intent about the future we hope to create. It is an imagining wherein all humans live in balance with our finite environment, where local communities thrive, diversity is embraced, and the world is a beautiful green utopia.
...
The "solar" in Solarpunk is both a description and metaphor for the movement's commitment to a utopia that is accessible to every human on earth, as well as to all of our planet's lifeforms. No single business can capture and privatize sunlight to hoard it for itself or sell it at a cost. It's one of the only universally accessible goods. Solarpunk futures envision a world of distributed clean energy, available and benefiting everyone.
"The re-distribution of power, whether it's political or electric, is at the heart of my story," Solarpunk author, Alia Gee, tells Hopes&Fears. "Getting the power aspect taken care of is the only way I believe there can be a better future for everyone. (I'm very keen on the everyone part. Not just white males or CIS or human-like life forms.)"
In that way, Solarpunk centers on outsider and marginalized groups because it must. Those with the least access to power in today's paradigm will be those we must closely listen to if the Solarpunk dream is to be made a reality. For if it is to be sustainable, it will be essential to distribute power and infrastructure throughout independent communities.
...
So while Solarpunk at first glance centers around technologies that help create green utopias, the most important part of the movement is dealing with the real human challenges of living together on this planet.
That is likely due to the Solarpunk belief that the technology we need for a utopia is already here; we just haven't found the political will to enact one. As Solarpunk author, Claudie Arseneault tells Hopes&Fears, this is what makes Solarpunk so powerful, it "works from existing technologies, from things we already know are possible." Arseneault believes that, "Solarpunk is a genre that says both here's what our future needs to look like and here's how we can get there. That's fantastic."
The blossoming movement is positioned in contrast to the darkness of exceedingly popular apocalyptic science fiction today, offering instead a bright future. The "punk," of course, references and builds off of the two literary genres that predate it, Steampunk and Cyberpunk. Instead of looking back in time and relying on outdated technologies like steam power, Solarpunk makes use of the best technologies available today. And, instead of imagining dystopian futures of networked crime and surveillance, Solarpunk taps into an extant community.
...
While there are several books that fit into the Solarpunk genre, the term precedes any concrete literary or artistic movement. Aside from a few active Solarpunk Tumblrs, the most noteworthy publication from the genre is a Solarpunk anthology, which is only available in Portuguese. The editor of the anthology and a science fiction writer himself, Gerson Lodi Ribeiro, told Hopes&Fears that, "It's difficult to imagine the survival of humanity for the next one hundred years without shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources."
(http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/city/life/215749-solarpunk)
2.
"It’s a name that’s been given to a movement/community centred around imagining a more sustainable future. Solarpunk has found expression in many art forms, including literature, fashion, and architecture. A prefigurative element within Solarpunk takes it beyond fantasy and fiction. What prefiguration means is enacting the changes you would like to see; and by doing this showing that a different world is possible. The hope is to inspire further change, instead of relying on fear to motivate action.
The Solarpunk label reflects both this positive outlook and other elements within it. Rather than rejecting technology, Solarpunk embraces its use where this enables us to live more sustainably. Solar energy embodies many of its central themes - a green, infinite source of power, freely available to everyone. Inclusivity and equality are prominent strands within the Solarpunk vision, along with rejection of unsustainable consumption. The ‘-punk’ part of the name reflects the challenges it presents to some aspects of our current way of life. Possibly the closest thing you’ll find to a mainstream depiction of a Solarpunk future is the land of Wakanda in Marvel’s Black Panther. However, a key point is that it’s also about what we do in the here and now. Anyone can be part of the Solarpunk movement today, through activities such as sourcing clothing sustainably or rewilding our garden - it’s simply about exploring ways of living in greater harmony with nature.
The future we’re presented with is often so bleak that people want to look away; Solarpunk aims to provide hope, through an alternative inspiring vision. In a recent survey less than 10% of people wanted life to return to normal after lockdown. Many had noticed positive differences such as improved air quality, more wildlife, and stronger communities. These changes could become permanent, but we risk drifting back to business as usual.
Solarpunk offers a vision of what the future could be, not what it will be. We can’t rely on others to make it happen - if it’s a future we want, it’s down to all of us to make it real."
(https://www.solarpunkstorytelling.com/about/solarpunk/)
3. The Alternative:
"Solarpunk is the first creative movement consciously and positively responding to the Anthropocene. When no place on Earth is free from humanity's hedonism, Solarpunk proposes that humans can learn to live in harmony with the planet once again.
Solarpunk is a literary movement, a hashtag, a flag, and a statement of intent about the future we hope to create. It is an imagining wherein all humans live in balance with our finite environment, where local communities thrive, diversity is embraced, and the world is a beautiful green utopia.
The "solar" in Solarpunk is both a description and metaphor for the movement's commitment to a utopia that is accessible to every human on earth, as well as to all of our planet's lifeforms. No single business can capture and privatize sunlight to hoard it for itself or sell it at a cost. It's one of the only universally accessible goods. Solarpunk futures envision a world of distributed clean energy, available and benefiting everyone."
(https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2017/8/19/fromcyberpunk-tosolarpunk?rq=solarpunk)
Pre-Crypto Solarpunk
Paul Dylan-Ennis:
"Prior to its Web3 debut, solarpunk had a few fuzzy senses:
Shorthand for a small literary genre with roots in South America between the 2000s-2010s. This first strand starts out quite cyberpunk, where solarpunk simply meant “set in a solar-powered setting,” whether this was positive or negative in outcome. The genre slowly developed its own characteristic themes and became more optimistic. A typical story would be about humanity repairing our relationship with the natural world, crucially, without regressing into Luddism. Notably, the stories are somewhat conscious their world-building might influence the real world, rather than simply existing for entertainment. You can find these short stories in translation in “Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World” (2018).
The name for a smattering of short stories and art by Western authors and graphic designers who published in blogs and on social media originally, before creating their own collections and magazines beginning around 2010. This is the source of the stereotypical solarpunk “aesthetic.” It is steampunk Studio Ghibli meets early-level Zelda (and things can get a little flowery). Much of this art is Tumblr-quality, but it is also, to be a little basic, quite gentle and nice to look at, begging for some emerging artist to raise the standard, push the medium. The stories are of quite varying quality, but a decent representative collection is “Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers” (2018) and the recently launched Solarpunk Magazine continues on this tradition. This kind of imagery – futuristic architecture populated with trees – has made its way even into Vitalik Buterin’s blog, albeit wryly.
A post-hoc definition for a microgenre of science fiction by novelists who wrote, from the 1970s onwards, about the creation of sustainable societies and particularly how they can be achieved. Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson are the standard bearers. This microgenre portrays societies that are post-capitalist and ecologically utopic. For example, in Robinson’s “Pacific Edge” (1990) we see a description of a California in 2065 that has managed to transition into a “utopian” society, but one quite grounded and realistic. I say “utopian” because the term implies an unachievable state, but these novels usually present societies that for all intents and purposes feel like “real utopias,” to be a bit paradoxical.
A more active, prefigurative branch associated with anarchists such as Saint Andrew where there is a stronger emphasis on putting theory into action – like seed-bombing cities. This variation arguably also includes early solarpunk pioneers in crypto/Web3."
(https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2022/09/20/what-are-solarpunk-and-lunarpunk-anyway)
Typology
The Alternative:
Hanzi Freinacht makes a "distinction between “authoritarian” and “emancipatory” solarpunk. The former uses the aesthetic of the genre - a beautiful orderly balance between technology and nature - as a way to make its enclaves and regimes attractive to the world’s elites and privileged."
(https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2022/7/18/solarpunking-a-society)
Characteristics
By Dr. Paul J. Dylan-Ennis:
"The three Ps of solarpunk Web3 (as I hope everyone will now call them) are closely related. The first, an emphasis on creating positive externalities, is based on a recognition of tech’s history of producing negative externalities, such as fake news spreading on Meta. Solarpunks are committed to conscious tech building, where you take into account the implications of your project beyond your immediate community.
The textbook definition for public goods, P number two, are goods that are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. This means you can’t stop anyone from using them and using them does not diminish them for anyone else. In the solarpunk context, it originally meant a focus on unprofitable but necessary infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, but has since expanded to helping fund good causes beyond Web3 as well.
Finally, positive sum world-building is the guiding star for solarpunks – the effort to build a better world for tomorrow. If contemporary crypto culture is focused on financial immediacies (like rug-pulling or raising funds just to raise funds), solarpunks attempt to break the cycle by actually building public goods with positive externalities that last beyond us, at a civilizational level.
(https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/09/20/what-are-solarpunk-and-lunarpunk-anyway/?)
Solarpunk Design Characteristics
The Alternative:
"The second essay (by Hanzi Freinacht) lays out what political (and even policy) appeals a solarpunk movement might make, to the populations of a city, region or country, that might lure them away from an eco-techno-authoritarianism. There are four initial design criteria:
It has to be about Transcendent Design - big, heroic, visionary structural and infrastructural projects. Not always valorising small is beautiful
And about Grand Design - municipal ambition for parks and public spaces
Inclusive Design - which recognises “a living mycelium of communities, of real people with real roots and relationships. Without activating and establishing solarpunk movements and transitions to sustainability in these basic communities, and simultaneously stimulating these for greater social coherence and mutual trust, solarpunk cannot truly function. It loses its soul”
Solarpunks need to be commons designers “sharing in open source knowledge, direct action for reclaiming and redesigning spaces, while engaging not only middleclass citizens, but also a wide variety of movements.”
(https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2022/7/18/solarpunking-a-society)
Hanzi Freinacht on the Seventeen Characteristics of a Solarpunked Society
The Alternative, citing:
"Builds around the decentralization of the power grid. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Its about solar power, after all, and that invites a decentralization of power production and thereby of power and resources across society (including a renewed self-reliance that would make Emerson proud).
Explores decentralization of other systems, like waste, water, and of course, food production. Yes, there it is, the “good slippery slope” of solarpunk. If one thing is decentralized, why not more things? While we all like cheap food, we also like the idea that people close to us that we trust can produce it if need be. This ultimately spreads power in society, as reliance on a few powerful others creates unhealthy power relations. It also means that people can work in these services if they don’t have conventional (modern) jobs.
Uses metamodern aesthetics: implicated authenticity and craftsmanship, but avoids New Age hysteria and direct Fantasy elements. This one could merit its own article, but the idea is that metamodern solarpunk needs to be more implicated, subtle, and sophisticated in its design. It can’t be too “in your face” because it then too easily becomes phony and used to trick people. It needs to master the art of subtly inviting the trained observer, not trying to impress, or even press its own values and aesthetics upon everyone.
Coordinates with the sharing economy. Obviously, solarpunk societies can hardly co-exist with excessive commercialism/consumerism and private ownership. The existing numbers of cars and lawnmowers are wildly exaggerated as compared to the actual need in society — only the lacking logistics (and culture) of sharing hinder a drastic reduction, thereby putting consumption within ecologically reasonable bounds while maintaining a high standard of living. To create genuinely green public spaces, we must share more so that we can burden the space with fewer cars, fewer garages for lawnmowers and cars, and so on.
Builds around material-flow sovereignty. You and your community have very little say and control over how your materials flow around you (from production, to transportation, to waste management) and while we must all work to reduce wasteful and unsustainable flows of material, many different solutions to these issues are possible depending on the contexts of our living conditions. Hence, local community control over material flows coupled with commitments to achieve ecological goals would make sense.
Rewards positive externalities (and reduced/replaced negative ones). A favorite of my commoner friend, Michel Bauwens: today people only get paid for what other people can directly buy, not for e.g. reducing a negative externality of farming, etc. A solarpunk society would give vouchers to reward any innovation or initiative that reaches common goals, even if there is no “product” being sold. So people would be able to make a living by contributing to, for instance, cleaner water, reducing carbon footprints, and so on. This would incentivize innovation in these fields.
Requires a very strong civil sphere (high trust). As discussed above, solarpunk is fundamentally about civil society — even if it must be reflected at all of the four levels discussed above. As a first step to “solarpunking” society you must thereby always build a strong civil society (clubs, associations, communities, congregations, and so on) from which solarpunking can start. The Transition Towns movement is a lot about gardening, when push comes to shove, but it offers a good civil society backbone for solarpunk.
Requires high average value meme. Controversial as this is (and discussed at length in my books), people must feel, think according to, and embody fairly “progressive” values for solarpunk movements to truly make sense. While there is certainly a role for, say, Christian solarpunk communities, it makes little sense to build a solarpunk movement on the basis of traditionalist fundamentalist evangelists who are against not only any notion of climate change, but even of Darwinian evolution and mainstream science. Nor can the average Wall Street banker be expected to embody values of punk, subtle aesthetics, reconnection to nature, and DIY innovation of postcapitalist solutions.
Connects to redefined metrics of growth/success (and post-growth economics). Solarpunk must be based on other measures than GDP and create a theory-and-practice feedback cycle with heterodox economics that emphasize the reduction of suffering and ecological values.
Connects to reconciliation ecology and interspecies democracy. Basically, solarpunk societies should be cleverly thought-out to sustainably host non-human creatures — like forests, which don’t get invaded by a million rats, but there is still a rich and diverse ecology.
Connects to new municipalism and (digitally enhanced) local council democracy. Basically, solarpunk needs to be punk — building on citizens reclaiming control over their local economies and participating actively in decisions and planning. It’s hard to imagine a truly solarpunked city without a strong element of such renewed municipal autonomy. Solarpunk in a city like Berlin could for instance be introduced through a large fund that will invest in solarpunk projects, but only if the spending of solarpunk transition investments are subject to deep-democratic decision processes of the citizens involved.
Actively nudges towards higher subjective states. However we may view the paternalism of nudging, it cannot be denied that some environments and cues are more likely to make people feel safe, relaxed, and kind rather than aggressive. Whatever design features may nudge in such directions should be included — if, of course, it is an active choice of democratically empowered citizens.
Builds on oscillation between futurism and nature mysticism. Pretty interesting religious currents are likely to emerge in our time, not all of which may have much to do with solarpunk. But solarpunk spirituality would neither align with slick, metallic sci-fi, nor with pulsating, green, fantasy and a longing for the indigenous and animistic; it would try to stretch across this divide, marrying an intimate love of nature to the awe of tech and science.
Connects to digital and cosmolocal economies. The digital realm provides an important space for shared innovations and open source best practices. As such, it invites cosmolocalism: share much of the intellectual goods globally online (and sell some of them) and produce a greater proportion locally. This not only helps optimize for ecological footprints (what to produce where, at what scale, versus the costs of transportation… locally produced is not always better for the environment but it’s a case-to-case calculation), but equally builds resilience into the global system (otherwise, a few bottlenecks in the world’s transport system can paralyze the entire world, cause starvation, fuel poverty, etc.).
Is coordinated with urban crime prevention. Of course, issues of crime, gang violence, ethnic tensions, and so on, don’t magically go away because you “solarpunk” a city. But rather than viewing progressive and idealistic solarpunk visions as antithetical to crime prevention, it can be used for such purposes: dramatically upgrading shanty towns and ghettos, lighting up public spaces, creating greater self-reliance so that fewer people need to resort to criminality, defocusing on material prestige goods which drive inequalities and criminal behaviors, etc.
Builds on critical urban studies. An obvious point, perhaps, but real-world deep-democratic solarpunk should be less based on sci-fi writers and painters and more on urban sociology and urban ecology, understanding such issues as “who the living space is really for” and “how its spaces are used in unexpected ways by whom” and “who gets included/excluded from spaces, on what grounds”, etc.
Has eco-villages as its base (cottagepunk). Last but not least, solarpunk is not just about metropolises envisioned in green: it’s just as relevant in suburbia, in small town life, in villages, on the country side, even in wildlife restoration. A key element of solarpunk are eco-villages based around local communities where people can access things like a plot of own land, own electricity, and control over a local water supply — many such villages would be able to build up a new kind of economy where people can make decisions together, have at least some limited backup self-reliance if the economy goes badly, and have alternative identities and roles than just their jobs. Jobs would in turn often be digital distance jobs. This can allow for sustainable, attractive, close-to-nature living combined with participation in a global economy. This may include living concepts such as the ReGen villages. Thus far it hasn’t been successful, but imagine what such projects could do with the proper backing of state actors."
(https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2022/7/18/solarpunking-a-society)
Web3 Lunarpunk vs Solarpunk
By Paul J. Dylan-Ennis:
"Lunarpunks do not see themselves as Web3, but they are definitely in dialogue with it, most likely strategically.
A bit of background: Lunarpunk also pre-exists its Web3 form, but in a much more obscure and niche sense as a mystical brand of solarpunk. It was also very nature-oriented, but a little more pagan and witchy. Think psy-trance festival in a small college town. I have not been able to uncover any substantive politics associated with pre-Web3 lunarpunk.
The lunarpunk critique of solarpunk first bubbled up in privacy advocate, DarkFi developer and CoinDesk alumna Rachel-Rose O’Leary’s quasi-manifesto “Lunarpunk and the Dark Side of the Cycle,” which put forward her radical, lunarpunk ideology.
O’Leary presents solarpunk as the naive sibling, who means well but lacks the rugged life experience of the lunarpunk adventurer, who has seen the enemy up close. Meanwhile, back at home, their hippie friend has spent his summer blissfully listening to techno on a terrace in some sun-kissed European city (possibly Barcelona). They have probably joined a decentralized autonomous organization. (You might notice that in O’Leary’s manifesto I’m the solarpunk encouraging people to join DAOs!) This is the lighter critique, the long-running criticism in politics is that the ally lacks discipline. And in politics the ally sometimes gets the harsher words, even more than the enemy.
The harsher criticism is that solarpunk is both naively optimistic and represses the emerging dystopian “dark cycle.” Solarpunks, O’Leary acknowledges, are concerned with building public goods that outcompete the old institutions when writing that “solarpunk hackers are creating transparent infrastructures for funding public goods.” But the introduction of the term “transparency” – not a word commonly used in solarpunk public goods communities (Gitcoin, DoinGud, etc.) – reframes their intent quite dramatically.
See also: Crypto: The Gift That Keeps On Giving (to Charity) | Opinion
This is an overlay coming from the lunarpunk perspective, which also uses sci-fi-tinged naturalistic motifs, but which equates images of the sun not with optimism but surveillance. Ethereum itself, rather than simply solarpunk, is surveillance-prone, O’Leary argues.
The deeper critique is that solarpunk contains inherently statist tendencies and impulses that are dangerous. The idea here is that the solarpunk interest in building Web3 identity-based systems is intrinsically statist because it follows the Western rationalist logic of Gestell – slowly turning people into documented stock, controllable with bureaucracy.
O’Leary also contrasts solarpunk with the more solemn work lunarpunks are doing in preparation for an oncoming privacy war by building an anonymity-preserving blockchain called DarkFi. This war felt theoretical until recently, but has taken on a greater seriousness since the Tornado Cash sanction by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Lunarpunks see crypto’s clashes with the state as inevitable. O’Leary contrasts this with solarpunks’ denial about this conflict and desire to ignore the ultimate bearish scenario where retail and venture capitalists flee at first sight of the state’s ugly side.
Underlying all this is the idea that the solarpunks, with their taste for transparent systems-building, will have effectively built their own prison."
(https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2022/09/20/what-are-solarpunk-and-lunarpunk-anyway)
Discussion
The SolarPunk Timeline
By Welf von Hören :
"There is an alternative timeline we can choose to manifest. The future we are choosing can be termed the “Solarpunk Timeline.” This designation is not necessarily an endorsement of Solarpunk philosophies or politics but rather an appreciation for the aesthetic imaginaries they envision.
In the Solarpunk Timeline, screens exist outside our bodies, encouraging us to be fully present within our bodies, connected with nature, and engaged in harmonious creation with the whole. Instead of being immersed in our screens and increasingly digitizing our lives, we will be exposed to reality, returning to more analog ways of being.”
On the level of personal lifestyle, vibes, and health, the moral superiority of this direction should be immediately clear to anyone with a body.
Evolutionary mismatch as produced by Limbic Capitalism — reverse-engineering human vulnerabilities emerging from evolved biological mechanisms to ruthlessly optimize for the extraction of attention, market dominance, control, predictability, etc — is not something mature humans wish for people they love.9
The pursuit of healthier, more human-friendly technology is the natural conclusion, in search of increasing levels of evolutionary harmony.
Instead of just technology or just nature the core value here is about wholeness. About synergistic design. About Ergonomics and aliveness. About respecting the wisdom of nature, and stewarding our god-like technological powers with care. About appropriate epistemic humility. About seeing reality more clearly. About existential maturity.
Yes, there are many more questions: What makes technology human-friendly? How do we scale that to the level of global capitalism? What about the great fact, numbers going up, “progress” being in service of humanity? How do you actually direct civilization in that direction? What is Solarpunk in practice?
Speaking of Solarpunk, it’s a beautiful vibe, but seems to be not much more than that. Crucially, something I’ll want to look at in this series is how Solarpunk lacks a certain realpolitik vibe; how it takes for granted the stable, peaceful, civilized features of Western democracies; how those in term are enabled not least by wealth and might, guns and oil."
(https://welf.substack.com/p/towards-the-third-timeline)
More information
- A solarpunk manifesto at https://solarpunk-aesthetic.tumblr.com/post/166295059920/a-solarpunk-statement