I was digging up old layers of the Internet and found out about old (well, late 90s, early 2000s) texts by Bruce Sterling who mentioned his Viridian notes where he describes something very close to a solarpunk movement (sustainability focused tech and social changes). It is fun to read because some have very strong cyberpunkish vibes but with the twist that cyberpunk describes the world we are in right now and viridian is the world we want.
It led me to learn that there is a label that more or less matches solarpunk in political theory: Bright Green Environmentalism
This is a huge corpus of text and I obviously disagree with some things, and the 1999 vibes of promoting at the same time intense air travel (for multi-culturalism) and sustainability sounds a bit tone-deaf, but I find it interesting to dive in with a tolerant curiosity.
(Dig that 1999 GIF btw!)
I think solarpunk is more dark than bright.
Taking electric vehicles as an example: Electric vehicles are great and should replace nearly all fossil powered vehicles. But at the same time, the amount of vehicles should be reduced significantly. This can happen trough better public transport, but also by reducing the need to go places, especially related to consumption and work. In my opinion, this can only work with a shift in the way our economy works.
@thisfro @keepthepace - everything you just said was solarpunk. why is that dark?
Ah I mixed up light and bright haha
But I still think solarpunk may be a bit darker than even “bright”, as technology is not only the tools to make the change, but technology is one aspect of it and direct change in the political and economical system is needed as well.