Manifest. Manifesting is believing in something to see it become real. It is the ability to use the power of one's mind to create a reality that you wish to experience. Imagine this - you wake up with all the comforts you enjoy every day, and then you look outside and see this lush greenery all around your beautiful high-rise apartment. You breathe fresh air that flows easily through your body and the latest news talks about everything right with the climate. Isn't that a wonderful way to live?
Solarpunk is a sub-genre in science fiction where this dream is being manifested into a possible reality in the future. Amidst all the anxiety surrounding the climate crisis, and everything else that is wrong in this world, Solarpunk is a breath of fresh air that brings hope as well as an optimistic vision of a world where technology, human, and nature live in harmony. This sub-genre argues that the right climate action does not mean giving up on one's comfort, it instead shows how the world would be when we live in appropriate abundance. It also believes in increased cooperation and compassion amongst people of the world. In today's dystopian outlook of how our future will be because of the disruptions to our environment, looking into a utopian possibility of merging humans with nature is a necessity. It is important because right now, what we're all playing is the blame game and finding ways to satiate the capitalist world we live in. Solarpunk on the other hand shows us that we can look for opportunities amongst the chaos and that beautiful harmony is indeed a possibility.
Maya Angelou once said, "Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time." Instilling fear with the message that the world is doomed because climate change is on the brink of being irreversible, does our generation no good. All it does is bring about anxiety and hopelessness amongst the old and young, or worse, apathy. Hope, however, pushes us to look for opportunities and possibilities to retain the beauty that Mother Earth is. Solarpunk is more than just a sub-genre of science fiction or an art movement. It has every possibility of becoming a way of life, not just in the future, but today. Here are a few possibilities Solarpunk canvas that is plausible without being too utopian to handle.
Actively using more and more renewable sources of energy to power our lives. Using renewable sources of energy to not just power your homes, but also extended to bigger buildings is not a very difficult or impossible feat. If the Cochin International Airport can run with 100% of its power coming from the solar panels they've installed, I think installing some in our homes and offices is not a far-fetched idea.
Solarpunk also focuses on bringing the community together. The concept of a neighbourhood is lost in today's world. We're all too comfortable being couped up in our homes without poking our noses in each other's business. But what we've forgotten is that human beings are social animals. Being there for each other, protecting and helping one another, and being each other's shoulders to lean on is what is human. Solarpunk lays emphasis on bringing people together and having maker spaces that are essentially built to bring people together, to share ideas, issues, and solutions. These spaces are by the people and for the people, not some saviour mentality where one dictates and the other operates. It seeks to encourage marginalized people of society to have equal space in this world.
Today's world is a capitalist one. One where nothing is ever enough, and more is always less. We've been conditioned by everything around us to constantly want more, and never to just enjoy where we are. There is a difference between striving to make your life better and the feeling of not being enough. The first tends to push you to be a better version of yourself, while the other is capitalism - you will never be happy with where you are no matter how much you achieve. Solarpunk aims to dethrone capitalism and bring a sense of happiness and satisfaction, rather than a feeling of doom.
House plants are cute, but why stop there? Why not integrate more green patches into your world? Solarpunk envisions a world where farming extends to more than just the rural areas. Utilizing the blank canvas that a high-rise building is and creating vertical forests on all of them. Growing your vegetables needed for daily use is another step towards making the Solarpunk dream come true.
While the whole Liberalisation, Privatisation, and Globalization movement has opened a plethora of possibilities for us, it has also created this dissatisfaction with what is easily accessible in our local markets. Be it a fruit or a precious stone. We are always wanting things that are not easily available. Solarpunk as a movement talks about bringing back the concept of localization and showing us the beauty in nurturing what is already available and looking for more only when necessary. It encourages us to take pride in what our local communities have to offer.
Solarpunk aims at altering the concept of transport. We're not talking about spaceships or flying cars. We're talking about powering vehicles, be it private or public transport using electricity generated by renewable sources of energy. It also talks about the usage of Airships over Aeroplanes, since they both do the needful, with an Airship only using about 10% of the fuel that an aeroplane uses. Solarpunk hopes to bring the concept of sails to 21st-century cargo ships and add solar panels to them to power their journey.
A future without Dull, Dirty and Dangerous jobs is a long-term goal that Solarpunk is looking at. Most of us are stuck in a vicious cycle where we're doing jobs that do not promote mental stimuli. In the 21st century, there still exists a stratum of society that does the dirty jobs that the rest of the world does not even wish to think about. Scavengers, sewage cleaners, and garbage collectors are just a few examples of the dirty jobs that need to be done and are being done by humans. Underwater welders, miners, and rig workers are some of the dangerous jobs that do not necessarily need the human touch. Automating such menial, dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs will provide us with the opportunity to seek meaningful tasks that can enrich us intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.
Concept image of Saudi Arabia's Neom. (Source: CNN)Solarpunk is the future. It must be! Our future is supposed to be a symbol of hope and happiness. Not what the media is feeding us and certainly not the stuff that the capitalists are telling us. Earth has been here and will continue to be here much longer than you and I. Why not manifest it to be a beautiful place where we can live in synergy with nature? After all, we come from her, and all of us eventually do go back to her.