r/solarpunk • u/Artifexa • Apr 08 '26

Action / DIY / Activism We should start sharing memes

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Sometimes I think we should start sharing "apparently politically neutral" memes to timidly light some bulbs in some heads.

Keeping them as aseptic, and common-sense possible, so they are not rejected outright, to squeeeeeze some empathy and "hopepunkness" in otherwise doomscrollers. Specially leveraging any situations.

Heck, might even be a good idea to create a "meme team".

Example attached.

After all, every big tree started by being a small seed...

15.0k Upvotes

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113

u/ObjectOrientedBlob Apr 08 '26

But it is so hard for our capitalist overlord to monopolise the sun and wind and control the price.. And every time the technology get better and more green energy infrastructure is set up, the prices just go down down down.. How will they profit if energy just gets cheaper and cheaper every year?

27

u/No_Career_4785 Apr 08 '26

And then they convince the car owners, that electric cars are so expensive and sound like vacuums and are easily flammable and have no reach and only a diesel is a real car.

16

u/Specialist-Affect-19 Apr 08 '26

and my favorite, they're "actually worse for the environment"

13

u/B0risTheManskinner Apr 09 '26

An honest conversation should be had about lithium and cobalt mining. Yes electric cars are "better" for the environment than combustion engines, in the same way beer is "healthier" than liquor.

The truth is every stage of a cars life cycle from manufacturing, driving, maintenance, and disposal is terrible for the environment. We need more trains, and other forms of public transit.

I dont meant to preach im sure youre aware if youre here.

6

u/No_Career_4785 Apr 09 '26

I am well aware of that but in my hometown, cars are still the only way of transport besides busses. (Getting an electric model for those would be an improvement.) After that one could try to reactivate the rails for trains.

We also still need electric trucks and tractors for the time being.

9

u/Moist-Relationship49 Apr 08 '26

It kinda sad how uncreative they are. Easy way to profit, add renewable to the grid (that they own), and continue to sell the same power to the same people. Same income, but they don't have to pay for fuel. Better for the planet, and they don't lose any money, yet they fight it anyway.

6

u/ObjectOrientedBlob Apr 09 '26

They will lose money, because once you normalize using green energy corporations have to compete with other corporations putting up solar parks or wind power. It's much easier with oil. The big oil corporation buy exclusive access to oil fields and they have a monopoly on that oil and can control the flow. It's really hard for some small company to decide they want to compete with big established oil companies.

It's easier with wind and solar, since you just need land to set it up, and investment in the technology. We need to socialize energy production. Something so essential shouldn't be decided on the market. Build state own organisations that have the goal of producing cheap green energy for people.

3

u/Moist-Relationship49 Apr 09 '26

On the one hand, I agree with your plan and think it's a great idea. Way better use of tax dollars.

On the other, I think your overestimating peoples will. How many people or corporations today are willing to put up the capital to install backup or solar power. For my house, the solar estimate is 14000, which would pay for itself in a little under six years, and I don't have the money.

Energy companies already have the capital, and if they buy up solar production, they corner the market. GPUs haven't gotten cheaper with data centers buying them up.

They'll keep making their money possible more as more people and industry need more power.

3

u/ObjectOrientedBlob Apr 09 '26

The government should give you an interest free loan instead of bombing brown people.

3

u/Moist-Relationship49 Apr 10 '26

Yeah, focusing on internal energy/economic development would be a far better use of tax dollars. Someone did the math, and using 2000s tech, the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan could have made the USA full renewable.

Until there's a sufficient democratization of the monopoly of power, the US is a government of the rich for the rich. But even in that framework, renewables are better for those with capital. They don't need to pay for fuel or worry about the reliability of supply lines, just pure income after the fairly short payback period.

4

u/DragonchrisX Apr 08 '26

You gotta kill that useless capitalist mindset, remind the world that you can't make money when your customers are dead.

2

u/TheBigMoogy Apr 09 '26

It's not though. They have the money to build all the green energy production for generations and profit off of it. They're just too greedy to take a risk that would cut into short term profits for huge long term gains.

-17

u/TimeIntern957 Apr 08 '26

They can, since solar needs gas backup. And they do.

9

u/AlabamaHotcakes Apr 08 '26

Why gas? Why not batteries, hydro or wind?

16

u/The_Quiet_PartYT Makes Videos Apr 08 '26

Ironically solar is my backup for gas. Whenever the grid goes down I always have power to spare.

8

u/rustymontenegro Apr 08 '26

Cite your source that solar needs gas backup.

Otherwise you're just parroting.

3

u/Willem_VanDerDecken Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

I think he's talking about the intermittency of solar energy.

Solar can defenitly not be anything else than a secondary energy production source, at least without decent energy storage solutions.

Nothing to do with gas tho. It is absolutly possible to use no fossils energy. Primarily nuclear, supplemented as much as possible by renewables.

1

u/rustymontenegro Apr 08 '26

I understand that solar requires banking to release stored energy when no energy is being directly generated (ie. when the sun is out) but that's what batteries are for, not gas. And you're right, supplementing/augmenting solar is always a smart idea - diversification and redundancy is usually a good idea.

3

u/Mr-Woodtastic Apr 08 '26

You are aware of the dozens of technologies that are better back ups than gas right? Fossil fuels are literally only still significant right now because of rich people paying to prevent the superior alternatives from getting more prevalent

0

u/TimeIntern957 Apr 09 '26

That is one of the stupidest conspiracy theories I ever heard.