Solarpunk — MXGDML

SOLARPUNK PARADIGM: What is Solarpunk?

“Solarpunk futurism is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk’s potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, thrivability, generativity, independence, and community.

The "solar" in solarpunk is both a description and metaphor for a commitment to a utopia that is accessible to every human on earth, as well as to all of our planet's lifeforms. Solarpunk futures envision a world of distributed clean energy, available and benefiting everyone.

The "punk" in solarpunk is about rebellion, counterculture, countereconomics, enthusiasm, and individuality. It's about going in a different direction than the mainstream, that's increasingly going in a scary direction. A counterculture and economics that values individual choice, freedom, decentralization, self-direction, love and hope - qualities missing in mainstream culture. It's about creating space for free expression, creativity, to "punk out" and express your unique and true self.

At the heart of Solarpunk is that the “MegaCrisis” (global ecological and economic collapse) can be overcome by a “Mega-Convergence” of radical decentralization and abundance systems. It represents a profound and historically unprecedented structural shift, powered by distributed clean energy, use of recycled and upcycled materials (circular economies), and cheap and ubiquitous 3D desktop manufacturing.

Solarpunks believe the technology we need for a utopia is already here; we just haven't found the political will to enact one. Instead of imagining dystopian futures of networked crime and surveillance, Solarpunk taps into an extant community of "can do" optimists, makers, permaculturists, bright green designers, artists, activists, builders and visionaries.

Solarpunk fully embraces radical abundance. Artificial scarcity is not sustainable as the tools of abundance become more available. As regenerative technological systems improve, the use of natural resources will return far below what the planet naturally regenerates, resulting in a planetary biosphere restored to pre-industrial levels. This means we can create ever better tools and standards of living for everyone while decreasing the overall footprint that humankind has on the planet - what Buckminster Fuller called "ephemeralization" - doing more and more with less and less.”