The impression I’ve gotten of Solarpunk through lurking on this instance is of some sort of hybrid between bright and dark green environmentalism. These mix like oil and water. The bright green component, that solar panels and EVs are going whisk us away to a utopian future, is a turn off from participating.

I think this fundamentally comes from Solarpunk being an aesthetic movement where it is just so easy to draw a bunch of solar panels and batteries in some digital artwork. How are the quartz and those battery materials being mined? How are those raw ores being reduced both on a chemical and energetic standpoint? Is it even possible to have artisan/localized ways of producing these technologies vs the current status quo dependent on highly energy-intensive six continent supply chain and cheap hydrocarbon flows. Brushing aside these kinds of difficult questions with techno-optimism leads to bright green environmentalism.

The manifesto states that this movement is optimistic, but there is room for aesthetic optimism constrained by the laws of physics in the collapse of the current system. Having to re-localize and work together to survive after supply chains fail leading to re-establishment of community. Ingenious ways of salvaging unusable modern technology, like building a wind turbine from harvested car alternator. Maybe this isn’t ‘solarpunk’ but I would like to know what movement it is.

I appreciate your point and I don’t necessarily think we shouldn’t be producing PV. But what is the plan in 30 years when those panels reach end of life? Are we eventually reaching some sort of steady state where we are using the electricity from solar panels to replace those solar panels? Our mining is highly dependent on diesel without a clear replacement, and making solar grade purity silicon is a highly complex and energy-intensive process. Its not about the carbon emissions today, its that it might be come much more difficult to manufacture PV in a future without cheap energy. I’m not sure that will be the future, but currently many people want to completely bet the farm on wind (another testament to fossil fuel) and solar.

Oh no, no criticism here. Keep it up!

Awesome! I appreciated the writing to go with it, particularly about asking where all the things depicted in solarpunk scenes come from. Generally as a culture we are blind to the embodied energy in the structures around us and goods we use, which shows up in art.

I don’t want to come off as negative to anyone creating art and expressing themselves imagining the future they want. I just think it’s also important that others critically examine the space of what is imagined for what is actually possible in the real world. Happy to hear any feedback on how do that in line with the intentions of this server.

Hi all, recently joined. Seems like a great community and I’m looking forward participating. I just started exploring the fediverse in general and was really drawn into this instance and idea of solarpunk.

I’m coming from mainly being immersed in ‘collapse’ content, but am now more interested in a constructive discussion of the future. I’m still interested in what future sustainable society will actually be realistic in the absence of fossil fuels, which are not as easily replaceable as in mainstream green narratives suggest. For example, we don’t actually have a plan for a self sustaining (without fossil fuels) way to make the photovoltaic solar panels prominently featured in solarpunk art, as discussed in this article. However, that article also mentions concentrated solar power at the end, which involves simply mirrors redirecting the sun to run a steam turbine, shifting reliance on complex technology and global supply chains to an 18th century technology that could in principle be built by small-scale communities in a de-industrialized rooted/thrilling future. Concentrated solar power plants would also just be objectively cool additions to solarpunk art.