Solarpunk Part 1 — More Than Just a Yogurt Commercial?
“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism” is a quote from Fredric Jameson that has stuck with me lately. Since publishing our last batch of articles I have read headlines almost every day that do not inspire much joy. In a small act of personal rebellion to escape this I have thrown myself into art. All different types (even abstract). I wanted to find something — a movement, a trend, a stance — that did not feel plastic, but still managed to put a word to encompass the relationship between art and sustainability.
I’ve discussed my search with the friends, artists, writers, and researchers in my personal circles and, tentatively, all roads lead to punk. More specifically, Solarpunk.
While not an entirely novel concept, the solarpunk literary movement has been gaining steam and attempts to do the impossible: imagine an optimistic end to the climate crisis.
Before we get into the nitty gritty I would encourage you to take a beat, forget whatever headline just popped up on your phone, and reflect on what this might mean to you.
This post will be a slight deviation from our other pieces. Since Solarpunk has its origins in art, our examination of it will begin with art. Future posts will deviate into more academic deconstructions of how realistic this future may be, but I have found that it is more productive to have this deconstruction first be driven by hope as opposed to anything else. Basically, just skip to the end for some book recommendations or stick around if you’ve got a minute and want to know more.
The Solarpunk Movement
Solarpunk seeks to highlight a few interesting insights right off the bat: Can capitalism exist without the climate crisis? What does a sustainable future look like? How do we create sustainable futures in a way that goes beyond the words net-zero?
Luckily, an easy introduction to the answers lies in this video, Dear Alice. Dear Alice also happens to be part of a series of animated commercials for the yoghurt brand Chobani.
Dear Alice visualizes core elements of sustainable cities and the solarpunk genre. We can see humans, technology, and nature more or less in harmony. There is not an exhaust pipe or smog cloud in sight and people have a much healthier relationship with the nature that surrounds them. All with the core ethos of ensuring future generations can enjoy everything just as you are, if not more.
Admittedly, I found the flying school bus to be a bit excessive.
How Does This Deviate From Popular, Dystopian Genres?
Other than the general optimism, where solarpunk breaks from other sci-fi genres is the technology it showcases. Familiar cyberpunk media like Fifth Element, Blade Runner, Cyberpunk:Edgerunners or steampunk media like Hugo, Sherlock Holmes (the robert downey jr. one), and Howl’s Moving Castle depict technological innovation as cold and inorganic. Insofar as to directly explore where the boundaries to our humanity are — though this is mainly a cyberpunk theme.
So as Climate Insight seeks to explore how industries change to make our world more sustainable, we also seek to address how we decide to change our futures through art.
It is important to note that this genre is not yet clearly defined. It is a movement that has a manifesto, a purpose, historic inspiration and a clear destination. However, most of this structure was created in the mid-to-late 2010s and the actual substance to it is still slender.
For those that prefer subtlety in their art, I would honestly suggest looking elsewhere. Sustainable development is very much not a subtle concept. Books like A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers explores a human civilization undergoing the “rewilding” process through a gender non-binary protagonist.
Even source texts like The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin seek not to placate, but to instigate. In this novel, Leguin uses a physicist from an anarchic society on a desert moon to navigate how the transition away from the excesses of capitalism can be done with or without profit.
Where do we see Solarpunk in the Real World Today?
In a nutshell: sparingly. But that’s what makes it special. We can see pieces of it evolving around us and it is something that we can create ourselves. Hybrid wind-solar plantations, tiny-home projects, the Biosphere (both the one in Montreal and in Arizona), and the Futurium in central Berlin are excellent examples. Each defines an element of sustainable infrastructure or seeks to redefine lifestyles so as to make them more harmonious with our environments.
In future posts, I will seek to analyze technological and social innovations that push us towards the futures imagined in solarpunk. The next article in this series will focus on circular economies and their material requirements.
If you’re interested, some contemporary entries to the genre include:
Solarpunk: Histórias Ecológicas e Fantásticas em um Mundo Sustentável — by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro (the first text to outright use the word ‘Solarpunk’)
A Séance in the Anthropocene by Abigail Larkin
A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy both by Becky Chambers
If you want to read some of the novels that inspired this movement I would suggest:
Pacific Edge by Kim Stanely Robinson
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — both manga and film by Hayao Miyazaki
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow — this text is a non-fiction, historical work seeking to challenge the traditional historic assumption of humanity evolving from “primitive” to complex, modern societies.
