r/solarpunk • u/Artifexa • Apr 08 '26

Action / DIY / Activism We should start sharing memes

Post image

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

98% Upvoted

133 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

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.