It’s about time I talk about the righteous anger all solarpunks have with capitalism and how all subversive action is necessary action, all mutual aid is essential mutual aid, how it’s okay to be pissed at the system in which we live. Peace, love, and understanding can be afforded to people, not to the system which exploits them. This isn’t the hippie movement 2.0, non-violence isn’t always an answer, especially when violence is counted as property damage.
In short, feel that righteous anger, it’s justified. We’re solarpunks, that doesn’t mean we’re pushovers, to attack the state we must speak its language.
People are starting to care about the environment, and that’s wonderful… but there’s a catch. Always is, isn’t there? It’s a mix of aestheticism, marketing, and research suppression. More often than not, most entrepreneurs and companies are out to make a quick buck off of people who think that reducing waste or using renewable materials is active environmentalism. It’s not their fault for having the wool pulled over their eyes, that’s how so called “green capitalism” is designed, blaming others for being fooled is just victim blaming. Another tool of separation by the ruling class is greenwashing.
But where’s the point in what I’m saying? It’s not gonna stop anytime soon. The point is to potentially educate those who fall for these these things, as I’ve stated before, they’re victims of marketeering and (probably) propaganda propelled forward by the ruling class. In the end, putting green in front of whatever is being sold doesn’t make it true. Don’t be a victim, be what they fear most, educated.
That’s all for tonight (currently 7:22 American Central time zone as I’m typing)
I’d love for you to share this, with how many (ugh) liberals are on Tumblr, I wouldn’t be surprised if I got backlash for blaming capitalism, but anyway, this has been @punkofsunshine, have a good one and stay safe.
Why Solarpunk Gives Me Hope for the Future ft St Andrew
When we look out into the murky depths of our future, it’s hard not to despair. The scars of capitalism run ragged through our minds, bodies, and environments. The uncertainty of a world in climate chaos is driving many into a state of apathy. Inaction and status quo politicking is so prevalent among the ruling class that it’s easy to believe in neoliberal hawk Margaret Thatcher’s assertion that “there is no alternative.” Well, there is. It’s beautiful, vibrant, and gives me hope for a juster, more ethical, and more ecological future. It’s called Solarpunk. Today, we’re going to dive into the visions of Solarpunk, uncovering what it is, what it looks like, and how exactly it can be implemented right now to construct a radical eco and human-centric present.
Solarpunk. A burgeoning movement blending aesthetics and politics that envisions a future which answers the question: “What kind of world will emerge when we finally transition to renewables?”
Loving how the core question of solarpunk is constantly being re-iterated.
“What does a sustainable civilisation look like, and how can we get there?”
I just read this article earlier today and I absolutely love the little Margaret Thatcher throwdown that occurs.
That aside, it’s a nice little article, short, sweet, and to the point. Would highly recommend reading when you have the time.
Hello my lovely humans, welcome back to what I like to call informal essays. Today brings together two very important topics to me, food and conservationism. This is going to be longer than my last post and is going to involve some sidetracking as well.
I came up with this topic while looking at all the spices I was using to make butter chicken for dinner tonight and wondering how much the price was going to go up when shit really hits the fan, if we could have such dishes like this again, etc. So, essentially my anxiety spiral led me to doing research and wanting to discuss the intersectionality of culinary arts, climate science, and farming. In our current state, beef reigns supreme in terms of climate change contribution, the most eaten meat in the world is actually chicken, which is significantly less harmful than beef or pork, and yet beef and pork have the greatest climate impact and are highly susceptible to diseases (poultry is as well, don’t get me wrong). In general animal farming is a big contributor to climate change, crop farming is as well…
Crop farming, which I talk about here, also emits a lot of fossil fuels, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and pollutes ground water, depletes soil, and flows downriver along with cow and pig manure, thus killing fish, crustaceans, marine reptiles, and mammals who live in or around the sea. This combination of disregard after disregard for natural ecosystems leads us into where we are now. The Midwest is on the cusp of desertification, there’s been no agriculture reform or sign of actual change, which is why we need to take it upon ourselves to start vertical farming, hydroponics, and soil-less farming on an industrial scale. Not only is it more efficient, it’s better for the environment in every possible aspect, even using less water and requiring very little usage of fertilizers, but how do you replace animal farming? Answer: You don’t, you just get rid of it, the least amount of impact out of any animal is the chicken, so it may be able to stay, but cows and pigs cannot be farmed en masse anymore, it’s dangerous for our environment and our health, so they must be used all at once, and composted (with the rich preferably). It sounds cruel, I know, but there aren’t many better options. Of course the meat and dairy industries will try to interfere like they always do, but we knew that would happen anyway.
Moral of the story, our modern agriculture industry is profit focused and not based around the health or well-being of us or our planet, causing both a rise in greenhouse gas emissions, water and land pollution, and is just generally bad for us in the dietary respect.
Anyway, that’s all for today babes. This has been @punkofsunshine have a good one and stay safe.
Lunarpunk is the sister aesthetic to solarpunk, but darker, I was actually surprised to see it has it’s own flag presented below. The basis is people moving to the moon and waiting for the earth to heal while in colonies, there would be tons of difficulties with low gravitational pull, constant unfiltered radiation from the sun, and probably even keeping warm, very compelling in my opinion.
It looks much like the solarpunk flag, but unlike the solarpunk flag, lunarpunk doesn’t have a political movement attached
Tidalpunk
Tidalpunk is basically humans moving to the sea because the land has been left unhealed for so long, it’s almost uninhabitable, so people are living on or under the sea until the land is able to start healing again/ Expansion in population has led to housing out at or under water that’s Eco-friendly and doesn’t harm wildlife, sadly this one doesn’t have a flag. Luckily it has an aesthetic though.
Sustainable, ocean-based living? Yes please, makes me wish I knew how to swim though. To be perfectly honest I’m out of ideas on this post, so if you have any more ideas, please feel free to re-blog with what sub-genres relating to solarpunk you could find. I’m certain there are niche ones that I haven’t found yet.
As always, this has been @punkofsunshine, see ya’ll soon.
just curious on why you say that the lunarpunk flag has no political movement attached? since any sort of -punk movement is inherently political as an opposition to capitalism, and the above flag has pretty obvious ties to anarchism
How I’d like to describe lunarpunk is as a narrative device and aesthetic, it’s an offshoot of the solarpunk genre, yes, but it has no movement of its own. Lunarpunk is solarpunk, but with aesthetic and attitude changes. Lunarpunk is more gritty and dark than solarpunk, but shares the same message in the way that we must treat the earth better if we want to live on it and that includes an opposition to capitalism, authoritarianism, etc. However it has no characteristics of a defined political movement as it’s using the solarpunk message solely.
Focusing on too many things at once is a problem I face personally, couple that with the need to take everything upon myself and low stress tolerance and you have a disaster waiting to happen. If you face the same problem as me, I’d highly suggest making a group of specialized people and solve small problems locally, whether that be growing food, hooking up satellites for free WiFi, setting up a Food Not Bombs chapter in your area, or even cooperation in local to state government. We all have our talents, honing yours can change a life, but it takes all of us to change the world in a significant way. To rebuild a structure, parts must be torn down, the more you tear down periodically, the better the structure is going to be, however it must be reinforced. You cannot expect a house to stand without a plan for a structure, we are the supports that make the wall, the roof, and the floor. The foundation is what we believe in, and what the foundation is, is hope. Hope for a future that can be, with action, collaboration, and resistance against the hierarchical, overbearing, and exploitative power structures that currently exist.
This has been my first post in a while, so I’ll see ya’ll again in probably a month to commemorate my first post on this site “A Beginner’s Guide to Solarpunk” which absolutely blew up my account, to be truthful I’m proud of how far we’ve all come with our small internet based movement reaching new heights and our voices getting louder in the ears of politicians and capitalists alike. We’re here to stay, don’t forget about it.
This has been @punkofsunshine, have a good one and stay safe.
In terms of aesthetic, genre, and political movement, Solarpunk is very new. Anarchism has been around formally since 1809, but perhaps even before. So in terms of egalitarian ideologies, Solarpunk is the peppy, bright-eyed child in the egalitarian/collectivist political sphere, but at this point it’s our best hope in terms of getting out of the choke-hold we’ve been in for so long. Having hope in the future doesn’t make a movement less serious, it makes the people involved fight harder than those on the sidelines. Solarpunks are the scholars and players, we study and we play in our down time. I know I do at least, I have connections all across my community, even into city government and partially into county government, so pulling a few strings would be easy, but I also do things that aren’t so legal. In the spring and summer, I’m an avid guerrilla gardener and graffiti artist. Not that I’m any good at graffiti, but I get the message across in biodegradable spray paint and chalk. One of these days I’m going to talk face-to-face with our energy council and treasurer and discuss a bill to add clean rooftop energy to all the small stores in my city, but that’s just me.
What drives us is hope, we’re tired of feeling trapped under a sense of impending doom, we’re tired of feeling trapped under capitalism, and we’re tired of the evils of the world winning because it’s profitable. We’re angry, we’re smart, and we’re strong, much stronger together than any bourgeois pigs. Even if we have to work within the red tape, we will prevail because we’re working together and I think we can all get behind that goal.
