You’ve heard of cyberpunk and steampunk, but what’s solarpunk?
A new sibling in the family of speculative future movements, solarpunk envisions a future of hope: spurning dystopia in favor of solar panels, plantlife, artisanal machinery, and a little bit of anarchy. But how do solarpunks interact with this vision in their daily lives?
Well, solarpunk is split into two primary parts — which are interlinked, but still reasonably separated — the genre of fiction and the aesthetic solarpunk, and the activist movement solarpunk.
The genre of solarpunk focuses on what a solarpunk world would look like: a world that is powered entirely by sustainable energy — usually mostly solar panels, which is where the movement gets its name — and is in harmony with nature. People live good, sustainable lives, humanity is no longer in threat of extinction by climate change, and in many visions of solarpunk worlds government is very small; it only exists as much as it absolutely needs to, and sometimes doesn’t exist at all. Solarpunk worlds are populated by artisans of machinery; technology has become something to be learned and tinkered with on an individual scale rather than an industrial one. Large industry is mostly absent from solarpunk visions, and buildings are often covered head-to-toe in plants and stained glass solar panels. Many interpretations of solarpunk — especially solarpunk fashion — make an effort to include African and Asian aesthetic and cultural influences in their visions of the future in an effort to create a less mercilessly westernized image of what the world might become. This half of solarpunk describes what exactly the vision for the future is, usually without worrying too much about how to get there.
On the other hand, the activist movement solarpunk leans much more heavily into the punk side. Rather than spending time daydreaming about what a solarpunk future may look like, this side of solarpunk focuses on what can be done right now to ensure that future comes to pass. For some members of the community, this means something simple like going vegan or trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle, but many solarpunks take their activism a step further by establishing community gardens and greenspaces, or even helping to design an open-source robot that mechanizes small-scale farming. While most activist solarpunks don’t find themselves going that far, the core tenets are the same: solarpunk is more than just an aesthetic, it is a completely possible and viable vision of the future that chooses to dwell on hope rather than despair, and as such it is the vision that should be the focus of our efforts. Solarpunks also often find themselves opposed to the current structures that impede their progress towards their shining future — anything from corrupt governments or oil companies to government and capitalism themselves may be marked as the enemy of progress and denounced, depending on who you ask. This half of solarpunk spends a little less time dreaming up the specifics of the solarpunk utopia, and more time planning when and how to hit the streets in order to bring that vision to life.
These two aspects of solarpunk are inseparable, and while solarpunk isn’t a monolith the core tenets of both tend to permeate most solarpunk spaces. However, different mixtures of these two sides are apparent in the differing spaces, and for anyone whose interest has been piqued the best way to learn more about this subculture is to check out their community spaces. For now, solarpunk communities seem to be mostly online — although a few people have mentioned physical spaces — the ones I spent the most time investigating were the r/solarpunk subreddit on Reddit, the solarpunk tag on Tumblr, and the solarpunk server on Discord. However, there are also Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, as well as various solarpunk blogs and newsletters. In a survey I put out publicly on the subreddit, Tumblr tag, and Discord — which received a stunning total of 110 responses in a little over 3 days — I found that Reddit seems to be the most active community, with a whopping 51.8% of respondents coming from the subreddit. Reddit has more activism in its mix than aesthetic, and though there is still the occasional art post here and there most of this sect of the community is dominated by news concerning the environment, as well as some pieces describing how to enact change. Tumblr was the next largest with 23.6%, and its content and community is mixed quite differently between solarpunk’s aspects depending on which users you look at — something to be expected from a blogging platform. However, Tumblr did seem to have the highest rate of art, aesthetic, and fashion posts out of any of the others; this was not the only thing there by far, but it was more prevalent than in other online communities. The solarpunk Discord was the smallest of the main three I looked into with only 9.1%, but the content there stretched across the entirety of solarpunk with neatly organized categories allowing members to quickly and efficiently find the kind of solarpunk content they were looking for. Some sections were more active than others though: the political, economic, and news channels were slightly more active than the others (ignoring the general and off-topic channels). The remaining 15.5% was made up of the various other sites and communities that I hadn’t been able to find on my own before putting out the survey — although some people who chose these other options also indicated that they used one of the main three as well. Of course, it’s important to consider that my data is likely skewed based on where I posted the survey, but I’m confident that while the exact numbers may not be perfectly accurate, the trends they represent mostly hold. Knowing where people who are interested in solarpunk congregate is a great first step towards learning more about the subculture, but there’s one last fundamental question. Why are people attracted to this movement?
There seem to be two main ways people get drawn in, correlating with the two aspects of solarpunk. One of them is by encountering the aesthetic, enjoying it, and digging deeper — a large part of the early solarpunk community seems to have been created in this way by one 2014 Tumblr post that got quite popular. The other is by encountering the punk activist ideals of solarpunk, but there’s an interesting twist to this one: it is much more common that people already held some solarpunk ideas before encountering it, and simply jumped on board once they learned their ideas had a name. Many of the survey respondents when asked how solarpunk interacts with their daily life responded that they felt it didn’t change much, as they already held many solarpunk ideas without knowing they were solarpunk before they were introduced to the community. Which makes sense, in a world filled with anxiety surrounding the climate and the future of humanity and our relationship to nature, a movement structured around actively trying to repair the damage that has been done would be quite attractive and agreeable to many people. Indeed, when asked whether their personal economic standing influenced their involvement in solarpunk 49.1% of respondents said yes, and when asked whether the economic standing of others influenced their involvement a whopping 76.4% said yes as well — which speaks to one of the main tenets of the movement, and one of its main attractions.
Solarpunk is a speculative future movement that is unique in its dedication to compassion and hope — its version of the future is not a dystopia, nor is it simply a flavorful dream: it is a very possible world where people no longer have to struggle for even the most basic necessities of life, and humanity lives in peace. And while not all of us may agree that a solarpunk world can really deliver on all of its promises, I think that kind of future is one we’re all hungry for — and personally, I think I would have a lot less trouble living in the city if it were completely smothered in plants.
