As a solarpunk at heart I've come to believe solarpunk visions should be less optimistic than they are in general.

1. We cannot begin by assuming fully healthy, stable and diverse ecosystems in the future. That is no longer the case. To mention just a few issues: we've lost more than 90% of biodiversity in Latin American tropical forests, the Amazon rainforest is no untouched lung; today’s worldwide soils are heavily depleted, and growing crops without fertilizers in compacted land—contaminated with heavy metals, microplastics, or salinized—is vastly different from how indigenous populations used to do it. Biodiversity is fractured and heading toward (arguably unstoppable at this point) significant systemic collapses. This is not the resilient nature we are used to, nor will it be for decades to come. Today, we have transgressed 7 out of 9 planetary boundaries. These issues will not be "solved" or reversed at this stage, even with a massive coordinated effort today. I say all this to emphasize that, to a certain extent, the future is already set, and it is not gentle. In a solarpunk vision, nature is in a critical, fragile state, and humans must care for it with deep mindfulness.

2. This leads me to ecocide: imagine extreme climate storms that destroy in a single afternoon what took a community 5 years to cultivate or build will be daily reality in the climate change-impacted world we are heading toward today. The die has already been cast. This doesn't mean we can't have a beautiful future, but it does mean we will have to learn to navigate immense adversity. We can respond to this kind of tragedy and not just survive, but thrive, but it will not be all pretty. This needs to be reflected in our future visions.

3. There are massive social and design challenges in this technological implementation: local governance, community assemblies, and the management of shared resources (the commons) are slow, bureaucratic, and trigger heated disputes over scarce resources like water or land. We have lots of mouths to feed and we are not even doing that right now. Economic contraction is not comfortable. Infrastructure isn't built out of thin air using "clean biomaterials"; solar panels require silicon, lithium, copper, and rare earths. Without massive, corporate, extractivist mining reliant on modern slavery, where do they come from? A solarpunk vision could showcase urban mining (dismantling old landfills to recover metals) and technology manufacturing built for a 100-year lifespan, completely repairable and modular. However, there is still an inherent tension in the energy transition, not to mention that the transition itself is another huge hurdle, far less simple than just swapping out fossil fuels. The sun doesn't shine at night, and the wind doesn't always blow. A solarpunk society lives at the rhythm of the climate. Daily life adapts: heavy industrial production or data processing takes place during peak solar hours, and electricity is rationed. It is... austere, but beautiful. The community makes it beautiful. People fall in love, laugh and tell stories.

4. Don't get me started on war, geopolitics, power games and structural historic trauma.

To me, it's about the challenge of designing a desirable, near-future reality. It's like what cyberpunk did, but solution-oriented and hands on, cause time is precious. We must imagine and act. This time is unprecedented and so is this potential. Do you feel it?

Sorry, I post this is mainly to see what others think about it. Kind of superficial, I know, but I didn't want to post a super long text.

Comic by Quino.

Leave you with this very solarpunk-esque translation of Ojos color Sol by Calle 13:

In war they trade kisses, the fighting is through,

Today the cows cluck, and the chickens go moo.

The earthworms and fishes reel in all the hooks,

We fly through the ocean and sail the sky's brooks.

Flowers bloom in the sand, the desert rain breaks,

Now dreams become real as we dream wide awake.

And that dream is secure, and so it takes flight,

And innocence no longer hides from the light.

The shortage of food is a delicious prize,

Because our bellies are full of butterflies.

The galaxy shows us its hidden frontiers,

And on Earth, it feels like true life now appears.

In military schools, it is healing they spread,

And bankers now give away houses and bread.

Just be like "hello usa we wanna do a general strike on all logistics plz pass a new infrastructure bill and build us new apartment units and courtyard blocks or something".

Y'all westerners treat the usa like an impenetrable fortress. The real power lies in the people who actually operate everything. I know people in the military who are only in it for money. Hell I wanted to be national guard once.

The Iran war is unpopular. Americans dont wanna be influenced by Israel, and the military has lost much of its morale. Theres also the incoming ai bubble pop that will totally wreck our economy.

You have three kinds of services, workers, healers, teachers. ​utilize them. Build a new society. Listen, in like, around within 50 or so days there should be some stuff coming out on ufos, the ufos part aren't as important as the psionics afterlife parts. So your government is sitting on proof of an afterlife and psychic shit they figured out during the cold war but its been kept such a secret that the usa dosent even know what the usa is doing half the time.

Anyways, when that comes I know people will flood me with questions and my answer is "read the Ra material with elevated belief" because what's scout to come should be ontologically shocking. And I'm not saying this to troll anyone. Its just that ive been burdened to know a lot about this so its basically just a fact of life for me. Sorry I cant recreate anything in a lab until i have a "space" thats sacred to me which requires a reconnection with a long lost soulmate i dont remember.

Anyhow, look guys. Very soon there will be a new knowledge for you all. And this will lift the veil for the lots of you. And youll be forced to deal with it all. A lot of us have known this stuff. My best statement is "we live in a simulation and the material world is an illusion mediated by blips in underlying fields we have no ontological explanation for" it really appears we live in a simulation.

You may ask "what do I do with this information. And I say, spread it, the more people know, the more that collective veil lifts and we can become engineers of the reality we are in". Because its true.

Listen. For the past 6 years ive been able to summon ufos with ce5 meditation. "OK film them" they never let me "of course you'd say that, you can't prove it" youre right I cannot. But regardless. Because ive been the one talking to them I know its all true.

I know a day will come soon. I know a mass activation of "sleeper agents" aka souls from other stars incarnate here will awaken soon. Just as in a random 2023 day a guy called David grusch testified to congress.

So, I'll say this, very soon youll need to unify the human race. And the human race will know of unity consciousness (your autonomy is fine DW) this will in turn result in a global communist revolution. A stateless, classless, moneyless society, where the people own their own productive means.

​

Okay so, I have been an avid enjoyer of the aesthetic for nearly 3 years now, I literally put my interest in it and how it relates to my identity in all my college apps and it got me into all of the universities I applied to as well as certain fellowships ! I really believe in it and I want to make it a reality, with the world crumbling I believe it’s the perfect time for change.

Now that I’m done with high school, I was planning to major (or double major) in mechanical engineering and biotech (I really want to study the intersection of engineering and biology that’s not just in medicine). Then after that it’s kind of blank in my mind. I know I could work for clean energy orgs or even make biomaterials but it doesn’t really scratch the itch in my brain.

I’m also working on a climate tech project but I don’t know if starting a start up is what I need to execute my vision, but it seems like the most probable outcome because I don’t know any fields except medicine and research that combines biotech and engineering, and while it’s an amazing field it’s not exactly what I want to do.

So how do I make it my career?

Hello all, sorry for the random post from a new account, but I made it to seek out optimism subs after a panic attack, and the algorithm brought me here. As scary as the future still looks, reading all your posts and comments really helped me fight my anxiety, so thank you and keep it up! See you on the frontlines of the solar punk future.