solarpunk century

looking to the future with the world in mind

[solarpunk-century]

what in the world is solarpunk please tell me

Across the last six or so years, solarpunk has graduated from an aesthetic to a combination of art and politics that focuses on everything from a positive imagining of our collective future to actually creating it. It began mostly as a visual vocabulary and literary subgenre of science fiction like steampunk ( steampunk focuses on the past and the industrial revolution). Solarpunk focuses on a positive future grounded in our existing world that emphasizes the need for environmental sustainability, self governance and social justice.

-It is a movement that is dedicated to human-centric and eco-centric ends. It looks beyond capitalism and the current rift between humanity and nature.

-Solarpunk a futurism that focuses on what we should hope for rather than on what to avoid. It recognizes that climate change, the consequences of centuries of damage aren’t averted in the future. Yet it still manages to incorporate hope. A future where we have a lot of work to do, but we are doing better. Using technology in more uplifting ends. Solarpunk emphasizes real-world application, Its all what we do here and now from DIY projects to larger organization.

-It’s other core aspect is that it’s very aesthetic and artistic and it uses a lot of nature motifs and takes inspiration from art nouveau, upcycleing, and asian and African styles and artistic movements.

-What is not solar punk is slapping trees and flowers on steel skyscrapers or concrete buildings, that is green washing which as the appearance of sustainability but is actually really damaging to the environment. A ton of water is used to maintain those “green” buildings and they are often not built with sustainable or durable material.

When having no hope for a positive post-climate change future is completely understandable, we also have to understand that the first step to mitigating climate change is knowing that it’s a future that's possible and worth fighting against. Regardless of the odds stacked against us.

ways to incorporate solarpunk into your life☀️

Learning how to fix/adapt things instead of buying new replacements every time something breaks.

Starting personal or community gardens and weatherproofing them to hell and back because seasons are becoming less and less predictable.

Support local craftsmen and artisans as well as learning crafts/trades yourself!

Normalize walking or cycling (If possible depending on geography and weather because biking in Minnesota winters is a fools errand).

Educate (if you are able) people on the dangers of climate change and how to take care of the environment.

Employ solar panels no matter how small.

Practice upcycleing and learn how to properly recycle.

Voluntier in humanitarian aid and practice organizing and taking care of your community.

[thesolarpunkgardener]

[alpaca-clouds]

Poll: Solarpunk Topics to Write More About

So, I have decided to go back into blogging a bit more about Solarpunk - both as a genre and as a movement. But I now gotta ask you: What kinda Solarpunk stuff would you like to read more about in this blog?

What kinda Solarpunk Topics would you want to read about?

Solarpunk Fiction/Solarpunk Writing

Solarpunk Worldbuilding

Solarpunk Technologies

Solarpunk Media

Solarpunk Culture

Other [Comment Bellow/In Tags]

Voting ended onMar 31, 2024

[melgillman]

Over on my Patreon I shared another sneak peek of pages from the little mushroom foraging zine I’m drawing in my spare time this spring! come with me into the woods and learn about Log Snacks —> patreon.com/mgillman

Get more from Melanie Gillman on Patreon

creating As the Crow Flies

[melgillman]

Documenting a foraging trip through my 2024 hourlies this year!

[southernsolarpunk-deactivated20]

Original

[melgillman]

It's December and it might seem like fruit season is pretty much over for most of the eastern half of the US, but it's a good time to look for bradford/callery pears! (AND it's a good time to eat the fruit to curb their spread, as a highly invasive plant!)

Here's a page from my fruit foraging zine, FRUIT FOR FREE. You can download the whole book from my ko-fi page if you want to see more!

[sylviaodhner]

The Shopping Center Disconnect

[thesolarpunkgardener]

[troythecatfish]

[fandomsandfeminism]

You know what the most frustrating thing about the vegans throwing a fit over my “Humans aren’t Parasites” post is?  I really wasn’t trying to make a point about animal agriculture. Honestly, the example about subsistence hunting isn’t the main point. That post was actually inspired by thoughts I’ve been having about the National Park system and environmentalist groups.

See, I LOVE the National Parks. I always have a pass. I got to multiple parks a year. I LOVE them, and always viewed them as this unambiguously GOOD thing. Like, the best thing America has done. 

BUT, I just finished reading this book called “I am the Grand Canyon” all about the native Havasupai people and their fight to gain back their rights to the lands above the canyon rim. Historically, they spent the summer months farming in the canyon, and then the winter months hunter-gathering up above the rim. When their reservation was made though, they lost basically all rights to the rim land (They had limited grazing rights to some of it, but it was renewed year to year and always threatened, and it was a whole thing), leading to a century long fight to get it back. 

And in that book there are a couple of really poignant anecdotes- one man talks about how park rangers would come harass them if they tried to collect pinon nuts too close to park land- worried that they would take too many pinon nuts that the squirrels wanted. Despite the fact that the Havasupai had harvested pinon nuts for thousands and thousands of years without ever…like…starving the squirrels. 

There’s another anecdote of them seeing the park rangers hauling away the bodies of dozens of deer- killed in the park because of overpopulation- while the Havasupai had been banned from hunting. (Making them more and more reliant on government aid just to survive the winter months.) 

They talk about how they would traditionally carve out these natural cisterns above the rim to catch rainwater, and how all the animals benefitted from this, but it was difficult to maintain those cisterns when their “ownership” of the land was so disputed. 

So here you have examples of when people are forcibly separated from their ecosystem and how it hurts both those people and the ecosystem. 

And then when the Havasupai finally got legislation before Congress to give them ownership of the rim land back- their biggest opponent was the Parks system and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club (a big conservation group here in the US) ran a huge smear campaign against these people on the belief that any humans owning this land other than the park system (which aims at conservation, even while developing for recreation) was unacceptable. 

And it all got me thinking about how, as much as I love the National Parks, there are times when its insistence that nature be left “untouched” (except, ya know, for recreation) can actually harm both the native people who have traditionally been part of those ecosystems AND potentially the ecosystems themselves. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance there about recognizing that there are ways for us to be in balance with nature, and that our environmentalism should respect that and push for sustainability over preserving “pristine” human-less landscapes. Removing ourselves from nature isn’t the answer. 

But apparently the idea that subsistence hunting might actually not be a moral catastrophe really set the vegans off.  Woopie. 

[wondermumbles]

#love seeing discussions about this#because everyone wants to see western conservation as infallible#without realizing that it’s still built on white supremacist and colonialist beliefs

- @finding-my-culture

[riley-coyotl]

All of this year's pumpkins so far!

[cosmonautroger]

[fortheloveofteaa]

[melgillman]

It's autumn olive season on the east coast, so I figured I'd share one of my favorite pages from my fruit foraging zine! You can do your local ecosystem a solid this fall by eating this invasive fruit & helping curb its spread.

Read the whole zine here! https://ko-fi.com/s/bd38ecf5e4

[temprarytattoos]

[politijohn]

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