Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”
The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and lush, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid.
Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world , but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not only warnings.
Solutions to thrive without fossil fuels, to equitably manage real scarcity and share in abundance instead of supporting false scarcity and false abundance, to be kinder to each other and to the planet we share.
Solarpunk is at once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, a way of living and a set of achievable proposals to get there.
- We are solarpunks because optimism has been taken away from us and we are trying to take it back.
- We are solarpunks because the only other options are denial or despair.
- At its core, Solarpunk is a vision of a future that embodies the best of what humanity can achieve: a post-scarcity, post-hierarchy, post-capitalistic world where humanity sees itself as part of nature and clean energy replaces fossil fuels.
- The “punk” in Solarpunk is about rebellion, counterculture, post-capitalism, decolonialism and enthusiasm. It is about going in a different direction than the mainstream, which is increasingly going in a scary direction.
- Solarpunk is a movement as much as it is a genre: it is not just about the stories, it is also about how we can get there.
- Solarpunk embraces a diversity of tactics: there is no single right way to do solarpunk. Instead, diverse communities from around the world adopt the name and the ideas, and build little nests of self-sustaining revolution.
- Solarpunk provides a valuable new perspective, a paradigm and a vocabulary through which to describe one possible future. Instead of embracing retrofuturism, solarpunk looks completely to the future. Not an alternative future, but a possible future.
- Our futurism is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk’s potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community.
- Solarpunk emphasizes environmental sustainability and social justice.
- Solarpunk is about finding ways to make life more wonderful for us right now, and also for the generations that follow us.
- Our future must involve repurposing and creating new things from what we already have. Imagine “smart cities” being junked in favor of smart citizenry.
- Solarpunk recognizes the historical influence politics and science fiction have had on each other.
- Solarpunk recognizes science fiction as not just entertainment but as a form of activism.
- Solarpunk wants to counter the scenarios of a dying earth, an insuperable gap between rich and poor, and a society controlled by corporations. Not in hundreds of years, but within reach.
- Solarpunk is about youth maker culture, local solutions, local energy grids, ways of creating autonomous functioning systems. It is about loving the world.
- Solarpunk culture includes all cultures, religions, abilities, sexes, genders and sexual identities.
- Solarpunk is the idea of humanity achieving a social evolution that embraces not just mere tolerance, but a more expansive compassion and acceptance.
- The visual aesthetics of Solarpunk are open and evolving. As it stands, it is a mash-up of the following:
- 1800s age-of-sail/frontier living (but with more bicycles)
- Creative reuse of existing infrastructure (sometimes post-apocalyptic, sometimes present-weird)
- Appropriate technology
- Art Nouveau
- Hayao Miyazaki
- Jugaad-style innovation from the non-Western world
- High-tech backends with simple, elegant outputs
- Solarpunk is set in a future built according to principles of New Urbanism or New Pedestrianism and environmental sustainability.
- Solarpunk envisions a built environment creatively adapted for solar gain, amongst other things, using different technologies. The objective is to promote self sufficiency and living within natural limits.
- In Solarpunk we’ve pulled back just in time to stop the slow destruction of our planet. We’ve learned to use science wisely, for the betterment of our life conditions as part of our planet. We’re no longer overlords. We’re caretakers. We’re gardeners.
- Solarpunk:
- is diverse
- has room for spirituality and science to coexist
- is beautiful
- can happen. Now!
Why don’t we try to put the manifesto on a git platform and let the people propose changes, reviewed by the people themselves? It could be a amazing way to create debates an to let the people decide what solarpunk is.
Hmm, I don’t think git repositories are very accessible, but I did mirror it on our wiki here: https://wiki.f-hub.org/books/slrpnknet/page/a-solarpunk-manifesto (but registrations for that wiki are not open yet).
Are there any concrete improvements for an “Manifesto 2.0” that you would propose? I know it has been around for a while, but it still seems fine to me.
personally I would give more focus to the core like sustainability, anti-capitalism, use of technology, in the future but also in the present. But I don’t have actually anything concrete to propose. It was just an Idea to generate more discussions about what solarpunk is and to democratise the manifesto. You’re right. The Wiki looks actually a more accessible place.
I cant tell you how wonderful it is to find a community like this. You’ve put into words what I’ve been grappling with. So excited.
I see a lot of opportunity for cross-pollination with other humanist activist groups. I think the Solarpunks and Cypherpunks have a lot of the same libertarian socialist/anarcho syndicalist ideas.
Here’s a discussion I am attempting to have right now about human rights, inspired by a lemmy.world post: https://infosec.pub/post/698707
or
https://slrpnk.net/post/863537
One user posted this comment.
Ill take a stab at it.
Action Plan for Societal Rights
This plan outlines potential actions for enabling certain societal rights. These measures might need substantial changes and persistent, collective action from various stakeholders, including governments, non-profit organizations, businesses, communities, and individuals.
1) Right to Solidarity
- Educate the public about their rights to organize, unionize, and engage in collective bargaining.
- Advocate for and draft legislation to safeguard and expand these rights, including during strikes.
- Establish legal aid funds for workers facing legal action when involved in strikes.
2) Right of Initiative and Right to Recall
- Lobby for legislative reforms permitting citizens to initiate legislation or recall elected officials.
- Launch educational campaigns to inform citizens about these rights and how to exercise them.
3) Right to Free Software
- Encourage the development and use of open-source software through public funding.
- Urge government and institutions to adopt open-source software and contribute to open-source projects.
- Promote legislation ensuring proprietary software companies provide public access to their source code or offer free alternatives.
4) Right to a Third Place
- Invest in public infrastructure, such as parks, community centers, and libraries, which can function as third places.
- Encourage businesses and developers to incorporate community spaces into their plans.
- Implement urban planning policies prioritizing the creation of spaces for community interaction.
5) Freedom from Eviction
- Advocate for housing as a human right and push for legislation that protects against eviction, especially during rent strikes or for vulnerable communities.
- Invest in affordable housing projects and increase public housing funding.
- Enforce rental control policies and establish legal funds to assist tenants facing eviction.
6) Right to Democratic Education
- Advocate for democratic and inclusive education systems allowing students, parents, and teachers a voice in decision-making.
- Encourage educational policies promoting critical thinking, creativity, and active participation in society.
- Develop training programs for teachers to implement democratic education in classrooms.
7) Right to Cross Borders
- Advocate for fair and compassionate immigration policies.
- Support international cooperation to address the root causes of forced migration.
- Improve legal and humanitarian assistance for refugees and asylum seekers.
8) Right to be Forgotten
- Advocate for digital privacy laws, including the right to be forgotten, and lobby for their implementation.
- Raise public awareness about digital privacy and how to protect it.
- Encourage technology companies to design privacy-preserving systems.
9) Right to Purpose/Freedom from Meaningless Labor
- Support the development of employee-owned cooperatives and other forms of worker self-management.
- Advocate for job guarantee programs and universal basic income to offer economic security.
- Encourage businesses to provide meaningful work and ensure fair wages, good working conditions, and employee participation in decision-making.
10) The Right to an Employee Fund
- Encourage legislation mandating companies to allocate a portion of profits for an employee fund.
- Create awareness and provide education about the benefits of such a fund.
This plan, if progressively implemented with broad societal consensus, can help attain the listed rights without necessitating a complete societal revolution. However, these steps require consistent efforts, funding, cooperation, and most importantly, political will.
Just joined today and I feel like I’ve found my tribe.
I really like a lot of what’s being said here, anti-capitalism, sustainability and optimism for a better future are wonderful. However I feel like independence and autonomy are at odds with community, in order to accomplish many of the goals outlined we’re going to need more people working together than ever before. Given the earth’s population we’re going to need large scale efficient clean energy systems, much of which will need to be inner connected.
This seems to be an variation of it: https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/the-metamodern-solarpunk-manifesto
very nice, I found myself inserted in these lines, I always had a solarpunk viewpoint of the world and didn’t knew it! I’m more in a neutral field I’m not that anti-capitalist but I truly see flaws in the centralized capital system (I’m more like into the post-capitalism mindset), hope I can learn a lot here with all of u about farming and essential peasant skills haha, peace and greater energy.
