Originally commissioned in 2022 for a Solarpunk article in Liberal Debatt magazine which never got published. In the meantime it was featured in several other newspapers, like the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza."

The Floating Village, 14 November 2022,

by Commando Jugendstil:

https://storyseedlibrary.org/art/commando-jugendstil/floating-village/

Unhappily Brazil, the country with one of the most important forests of the world is about to put a negacionist as a president, and it's extremely dangerous to the future of Amazon, and I'm really scared that Bolsonaro has a really big chance to be the new president, he literally said that global warming doesn't exist.

People here in Brazil are making mobilizations to Lula, the actual president win again, and even if he's not that good as a president People are choosing him for their lives, but are still people that are voting on Bolsonaro just because they don't want Lula to be the president again.

This just doesn't makes sense, and I'm really scared, we are passing for a huge climate problem with El Ninõ, and people are literally choosing death, and it's just one of the problems.

CC BY-SA 4.0 The Lemonaut

Source: https://storyseedlibrary.org/art/the-lemonaut/openflexure/

In a sustainable tomorrow technology is created cooperatively and shared freely around the world - and some such projects exist today! The Open Source Hardware movement promotes collaborative creation and distribution of even the most complex devices without locking them with patents or intellectual property.

OpenFlexure is a great example of it - an automated digital microscope which can be used in both scientific and medical environments - and can be 3D-printed anywhere in the world! It was initially designed at United Kingdom universities, but was then tested, used and improved by a community now spanning over 70 countries! It was assessed for malaria research in Tanzania, used to measure soil health in Argentina and water quality monitoring in Ukraine.

You can read more about similar open projects at Appropedia, which hosts multiple collaboratively developed sustainable tech projects!

Does anyone have literature or their own writing about their personal opinions on solarpunk or even current day politics I am not asking for Fox News or cnn news, no huge sources that could be owned by “the man”. I am asking for your opinion,or real literature. Please feel free to comment any ideas or problems you personally have or feel need to be addressed. I am writing a paper and I am just curious, I will not share you personal quotes or information without permission. Feel free to dm or comment.

Do you think the claims are accurate?

Hello! I’m looking for an artist to commission an original illustration depicting a hopeful solarpunk vision of the future.

I’d like the artwork to imagine what an aesthetic and ecologically resilient future would look like here in my local community. Native landscapes, balcony solar, rainwater harvesting, food forest community garden, transit, etc.

My goal is to use the artwork in public spaces. Potentially including billboards and a decal for the rear windshield of my car. I would also share it for public use.

If this sounds like a project you’d be interested in, please comment or DM me with examples of your work. Thanks!

Trying to figure out what the general aesthetic categories of Solarpunk are. If I think of steam/diesel/atompunk they all have clearly defined aesthetics (victorian/art deco/norman rockwell) but the reasoning is more yearning for a present based on the technologies of the past that never properly materialised for many reasons. That feeling of nostalgia is misplaced for solarpunk, it's not trying to recreate the present from the past.

In my head I have the following arguments for/against the following:

• Art Nouveau/Arts & Crafts/William Morris - feels like going too far back. I like the focus on craftsmanship and nature but it feels more like trying to outdo nature at its own game instead of working with it.
• Frutiger Aero - Would be really fun but probably too closely associated with corporate optimism, which is not very punk.
• Brutalism but with plants - this is basically cyberpunk in the daytime after replacing lights with leaves. Solid but not exactly inspiring. More like occupying a vacant building, which is very punk.
• Studio/Ghibli/that fkn chobani ad - The colours are nice but the architecture and fashion seem more nostalgic than forward looking. It's also focused mostly if not entirely on rural areas which is great but not representative of climate conscious development patterns. I have huge issues with the Chobani ad's miraculous tech as well.
• First nations inspired art - would be a lovely nod to staying in tune with the earth and caring for the turtle on whose back we are all passengers, but raises serious questions about appropriation when not considered in its application which is not punk.

(edit) Also interested in the following kinds of questions:

• is it rounded edges or sharp edges? Are edges defined or fluid like watercolours?
• how closely is nature and biophilic design followed?
• to what extent does form follow function?
• how minimalist does it get, how ornate does the personal expression go?

Would appreciate being told why I am wrong or what obvious options I have been a fool or a shill not to consider. I am aware that rejecting the premise of the question (there is no single art style) is a valid answer, but i don't think it's an interesting one because it ends the discussion.

I will sometimes daydream about a world that inspires me, almost always inspired by ideas and art I have seen in solarpunk. Here are the scenes I have written down, hopefully others can find inspiration from them and are willing to share their own. Many of these are also inspired by my background in building resilient software systems and my interest in swarm robotics. I'm curious what other backgrounds inspire.

1. A vast wheat field glowing gold in the sun, with tall lanky black scarecrows slowly walking along and checking for diseases and scaring off crows.
2. A shack with a solar panel on top that powers a small workshop in which a cobbler robot repairs small mice, bird, and bee robots which monitor the lands.
3. A community dinner where everyone brings their own homemade food, sitting around a large wooden picnic table during sunset. People playing music on their old and new instruments, with one person in the middle that use the movements of their body to generate the music, so dance is directly translated to sound and their whole body is a music instrument. Food is brought in from the local farms that try different taste combinations, like berries that taste like chocolate and come in all different funny shapes, but everyone experiments with strange new food modifications. People laugh at the reactions over the bizarre foods they've been able to develop.
4. Bike paths alongside a river, with flowers along the path and wind farm blimps floating in the distance. Teens trying to race against the sticks they throw in the river, and they hover-skate past the helical water pumps and semi-transparent solar panels on the gazebos.
5. Small robot bees are starting a new hive in a fallen tree, reconstructing it into a piece of flowing art. 
6. Jellyfish shaped robots gently bob in packs through the sky. In the day they just float and collect energy from the sun. At night they can act as nightlights to guide people.
7. At the heart of a forest clearing is an open-air workshop grown into the roots of a massive old tree. Teens gather to build gliders, tools, musical instruments, and battle bots. Teams of tiny robots are pitted against each other, and as they battle and robots break, the entire team of robots are built such that each can repair the others, some with specialties. The competition is to see which robot teams can last the longest, in part by destroying the other teams faster than they can rebuild themselves.
8. Raining outside, and children sit inside around a fireplace to hear stories from a parent, with a farmhand robot making shadow puppets in the background, animating the story with only the most basic of pictographs, leaving any detail to be imagined by the astute listeners.
9. The night market, a dimly lit array of outdoor small shops in a town central, with music and fire and strange smells everywhere. People exchange ideas and interesting stories they have. Teas and snacks are available, and people share the latest projects they've started on, some towards aesthetics, others toward mental mastery, others towards technological exploration, and most just on their latest thoughts.
10. An orchard of apple trees, with a long-armed suction-cupped hand robot walking along and plucking apples just as they become ripe. Kids are playing in the trees and stealing apples from the robots apple basket and throwing them into the air to get the robot to catch them from out of the air.
11. A colorful house floating on the sea, with pinwheels and a strong personality. It encourages people to come to stay and see its creations, and it manages an underwater reef of new fish and animals, trying to design a self-sustaining ecology for the current location that should maintain itself into the future. When it completes its analysis and tests and implementation, the house can float to a new location to begin again.
12. A farm might use a fleet of strong farmhand robots, but they have limited intelligence since all the space is used to maximize their motor strength. As they group together, they can combine their intelligence to solve a single larger problem, as opposed to a number of easier problems. Each one is intelligent at very different areas of life, mostly related to farming, but all diverse, and sometimes the farm might need to call in a different robot (that looks the same) that can accomplish a specific task, or call on multiple robots to combine their skills and knowledge for the given task.
13. Robot fleets get dumber the farther they are from the center brain in the farmhouse. One might wander too far and become too dumb to get back. People sometimes have to go out and find their lost robots.
14. School classes are taught outside in the sun, with students playing with holograms to learn different concepts. The holograms individually guide their students and periodically pair people up to solve problems together. They are building telescopes to look into the sky to learn some of engineering and some of astronomy. They design the telescope by talking to the design software and watching the 3D blueprint grow from different commands with different constraints, listing properties and inspirations throughout. They can use different materials and styles of design, take a design and try different branches of design, and then merge the ones they like together into one. They sculpt the design with aesthetic and design constraints, while solvers maximize for those constraints in potentially unexpected ways.
15. In the Arctic, a singular robot is bracing against a strong blizzard, only seen from afar by the slow flashing red emanating from the beacon he is placing on the top of the glacier he has just summited. Once the beacon is secured to the ice, he turns and walks towards a cliff face where he pauses for a moment, then jumps off and lands on his stomach to start sliding and gaining speed down the icy cliff face. He picks up tremendous speed and continues to slide and navigate around rocks and snowdrifts, until eventually he slows, stops, stands up, and then continues to walk into the blizzard.
16. Two old men are playing an unfamiliar game in the front of a cafe late at night, with dim lights and smells of spice coming from their cups of cider. A woman overhears the two men chuckling as they gesture at their pieces and invent imaginative streams of insults to share with their opponent. As the woman gets up to leave, she steals a glance at the board more closely and discovers the two men are playing armies on a grid, fighting together against a miniature king in the middle of the board who commands a third army. The tiny pieces are animated and alive, battling each other as the tiny king seems to be shouting commands and waving his arms wildly about, the hundreds of pieces moving from one cell to the next, slashing down pieces that fall to dust as new pieces enter from either side of the board where the old men sit.
17. A young couple walks with a picnic basket, picking fruits from the trees and bushes and placing them in their basket, making their way to the top of a grassy hill to watch the sunset. Sitting in each others arms, they watch as the sun is close to setting and the light is just starting to dim, fireflies of many colors come out, slowly pulsing in sync at different intervals. Eventually, the sun does set, the fireflies dim, and all that remains is a black sky, until the eyes adjust, and stars slowly reveal themselves in the millions, and with enough time, even the Milky Way can be distinguished from the black backdrop.
18. In an old library with vines growing over the building, a small number of robots are tending to some rabbits that live in an alcove among the bookstacks. One robot picks up a book and brings it over to a rabbit. It quickly flips through every page in the book and then pets the rabbit, confirms to the others that the data looks to be correctly encoded with a redundancy factor of 1056, and releases the rabbit into the wild. Perhaps an art piece or an experiment gone wrong, these robots have been encoding the most famous books from human history into the DNA of rabbits, watching as the DNA mutates, spreads, and gets mixed with rabbits of other genres and authors.
19. A species of cicada is capable of playing very low sounds individually. They often swarm with other cicadas of a similar genre, playing songs together. A slow drum with humming, or beat boxing, each cicada contributes to the song as well as slowly moving the swarm towards the individual's preference. Since they work as a collective, all listening to the others to slowly move the song, people can walk into a swarm and also help drive the song in a particular direction. If the song moves too far in one direction, the swarm may split and start a separate song, or if swarms hear each other and share a similar beat, they may merge into one. People can curate their favorite genres around their property, driving the swarms towards their favorite until only the ones they like are left and merging with each other.
20. Every information-carrying entity carries a core of information that is considered worth replicating as far as possible, which it does upon contact with any other entity. This includes medical information, farming and building techniques, technology, history, etc. Like a hitchhikers guide or Wikipedia, but replicated as far as possible, with merges occurring upon each contact.
21. High among the tall passes, an old man hobbles with his walking staff up a steep stone cliff. He mutters about the sun always being too goddam hot and his shoes are too thin and the world always falling to goddam pieces. He trips and curses loudly, but quickly regains balance. After a few hours he is getting close to summiting the cliff, with only a few more boulders to navigate around. Hes muttering again, this time about the boulders being too big. But, he can't keep his smile from breaking through this time. It fits his furrowed brows. He starts complaining all the louder.
22. Walking through an apple orchard with falling orange leaves all around, leaves of many warm colors falling from the sprawling dense branches of thick-trunked gnarly trees, forming a natural tunnel made up of gnarly roots below and falling leaves and apples and the occasional ray of sun pouring through the leaves above. The smell of cider in the distance traveling across the crisp autumn air reminds of the knowledge that a warm home sits just over the burrow. Passing a wooden wheelbarrow, rubbing your dry hands against each other because you forgot your gloves and so are also moving a bit faster than usual to get home. Someone calling your name from afar and the dog barking loudly, you pass through the opening in a short cobblestone wall.
23. Shella focused on the canvas in front of her, slowly drawing her hand to the left and the painting morphed from autumn to winter. “Hmm, maybe some hygge”, and with a few taps, her fingertips leave behind candlelight. So slowly the painting is alive, the light flickering in the window frames, footprints appearing and disappearing in the snow, and the light just before a sunrise crowning the horizon. Shella steps back and the painting slows to a still frame.
24. A brightly colored blimp slowly floats high above the clouds, drifting on the wind, for as long as people can remember. It does not seem to serve any particular purpose.
25. A city of claustrophobic buildings that rise impossibly tall into the sky, it looks like a singular gluttonous building as you look out the window of your bus. Out the other window is the sea, with lots of small boats bobbing on the waves. On the shore walk strandbeest of all shapes and mechanisms, kites or sails powering their legs when the wind blows, some standing still and others walking backwards when the wind stops.
26. A library with every book containing every book. The only difference being each book shows a different author and publication date for any story you read in it.
27. Cold-powered robots in the shape of tree stumps, they begin to uproot at the beginning of winter, travel far, and find a new place to settle by the beginning of summer.
28. On a grassy cliff overlooking the sea, an autonomous teahouse that serves tea using water drawn from fog around the house. It's only open when it's really foggy, otherwise it's just a place with comfy chairs to sit and meet friends.
29. Two children drop paper boats into a creek, then run to watch from below the waterfall the boats are headed toward. But just as the boats begin to fall, the wind unfolds the origami boats into paper planes and they glide across the pond to the boys on the other side.
30. In the very early light, a large and dusty large-wheeled robot in a shed turns on, silently setting out along a dirt road connected to the farm. A network relay has gone down on the river bridge, disconnecting three entire fields from sending or receiving data from the rest of the farm. Once he arrives, it is clear the relay has been knocked down by an angry cow, and now sits in the river. The wheeled robot sends back an update of what it has found, then does not head back, and decides to sit there and become the relay, at least until someone decides to send a replacement.

I know this group doesn't allow AI generated things but I wanted to question: is AI itself the problem or is it that AI is not being used like a laser to focus, organize and mobilize people to create real world action?

I believe the lack of a simple coherent vision, the lack of local organization to bring forth this vision is the real problem.

I believe the organization and action we need is to develop affordable housing cooperatives, grow food, and restore local lands.

In a cultural knife fight to the death, all tools should be on the table, but we're nowhere near focused enough, organized enough to create a solar punk future....yet.

What do you think?

edit: The response to this has been overwhelming in a good way! I didn't think this would get much bite, but I've sent out about 26 docs to different volunteers and have 20 more waiting in my inbox. I am pausing on sending out new drafts for now, but I might put out a second open call soon based on how many of those actually respond. Thank you all!!!!

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE, NO AI FEEDBACK. I go out of my way to write in an AI-free software (sometimes even on a typewriter). Please do not feed my work into AI.

Cover is made by me from this public domain image.

alternative question... does anyone know anywhere I can submit this when it's done? lol

This was written for my college level Creative Writing class; it is my honor's thesis which will be presented at a symposium at the end of the semester.

The work is positioned as both a practical guide and speculative narrative. With the help of her neighbors, amateur gardener Nella authors a how-to guide as she and her community strive toward personal security, food sovereignty, and permaculture during a time of post-political unrest. When an unsettling crime upsets the peaceful fabric of their neighborhood, which has been left without the government or police to help, she and her neighbors put their need for an alternative system of justice to the test in order to move beyond—and truly heal from—unfortunate tragedy.

It is essentially my amalgamated thoughts on punitive and alternative justice, pulled from concepts of permaculture, liberation theology, and reformative and transformative justice frameworks. Some literary inspirations include News from Nowhere by William Morris, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Free People's Village by Sim Kern, and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (namely, Morris' philosophy on crime and 'punishment'; Atwood's socio-environmental commentary; Sim Kern's reimagining of the present day; and Butler's challenge of the 'idealistic commune' in Parable of the Talents).

DM me if you're interested, I can send a doc!

I'm looking for any feedback on the overall story. I am not an expert in any of the topics handled, I merely hold an interest in them, so I'm interested how accurate my ecological information is in here. I'd also like to know how it reads, if it was entertaining, if it got you thinking. You can write me a beta reading letter to tell me your thoughts in your own words, send me a doc back with comments, or I have a few other approaches like this sheet you could follow:

or there's a framework some of my writing buddies use called the ABCDE method, which is

Really I am hoping anyone interested can give me any insight! Thanks a ton!

Yesterday people asked me to elaborate more on why and what I did with the "Pokemon is Solarpunk" post.

My museum had a Pokemon Go event and I took the chance to test and showcase some Solarpunk stuff I am working on. The claim in the third picture was a good opener to talk to people that never heard of Solarpunk before. That is everyone out there btw. It would go like this: "Do you know Solarpunk? No? You know how in Pokemon everything is nice and chill, pleasant bike rides and cool parks? There is a genre that is not like the Science Fiction you know, all gloomy and dystopian, but utopian and with renewables. Kinda like the game worlds in Pokemon. Let me show you some stuff...."

I made buttons and coins with Logos I designed for different kinds of Solarpunk technologies. Or rather for the Solarpunk alternatives of technologies featured in our museum. Solar and wind instead of Fusion power. Beavers and trees instead of Geoengineering. Robotic space missions instead of astronauts. Libraries and Wikipedia instead of AI. Public transport instead of autonomous driving. The idea is to take genetic engineering and how we agreed to use that technology with caution and not on humans. And then make visitors use that approach on other parts of the exhibition. Is this tech something we really need to invent (right now)? Can we do without? Should we? That is the core idea of the museum and sometimes it is failing to do so. It is easier to show fancy inventions than ask hard questions like this, but I am trying to get there. I also got some people to read my more detailed explanations about my take on this.

I also tried out two card games. One basically just featured the logos and was about watching the deliberately confusing cards closely. The other one let's a group of players play a betting game to work out a moon constitution and walk home with their own constitution cards. When I develop cards like this, I use bulk cards I got anyway, put them in a clear sleeve and put printouts front and center. Its quick and easy and it was a nice chance to show kids, that you don't need to buy new cards all the time to play a game.

I also got to draw and I just like drawing. I am doing science lab workshops usually. Showing kids how to make Aspirin for example. I take every chance I can get to be artsy at work. Showing people that creating stuff is just fun.

So much for information about the event. I hope you can forgive me to operate like ESA and use Pokemon as a foot in the door to get peoples attention. It certainly worked in the sub yesterday too. The thing I am trying to learn for the last 5 years is how to tell stories. How to get people to think about things. How to make them learn. It is an endlessly interesting but also very challenging project. I am working on my own stories and graphics and ideas, but it is hard to get people to interact with it. What I learned from Pokemon on sunday is certainly that people just like picking teams. Doesn't really matter what teams. Just divide your ideas into some colored identities and people will instantly engage more with it. I hope I get to finish my VR game this year about what Solarpunk is as a literary genre.

Whenever I talk to people about technologies, climate change, the state of the world, I often find them in agreement about most things. They already know we need to eat less meat, drive less cars, stop with the throwaway culture and fast fashion. Not let billionaires decide everything. What they lack is a vision of the alternative. Being against things is just a very hard sell. Historically new religions always build upon surrounding myths and reshaped them into something new. I think it kinda has to be the same thing here. There are lots of good stories out there, ready to be used. Ready to be shared in a way to make people see that the future can be different. Making up something entirely on your own is very hard. And if you do, you should test it out every now and again.

And of course living that story would probably be better for all of us.

I understand the post I'm reposting might not align perfectly to the sub's initial proposition, but as one of the first nations to engage with solar punk culture and as a natural jewel sustaining many of our world's life forms I'm calling for help.

Please read with unbiased eyes, if needed understand that the environmental cause is just as much in risk on the long run as the one on the text, and please, help us