Those of you who are regular dippers into this site will know that I have a some pretty dark feelings about the imminent future of humanity and our biosphere.

Even so, [note to self] collapse is just collapse. It is not the end. And there are plenty of wise folk who have a far more optimistic take on our future. Be it our future, or some sort of re-gathering into the next future.

One such pathway is Solarpunk.
I really do recommend this excellent essay by Ben Harris-Roxas as he examines the philosophy of solarpunk via the medium of film.

So… you might be asking, what exactly is Solarpunk?
Here is Ben’s take on the movement:

• Ecological restoration: environmental damage being healed through patience, technological innovation that integrates rather than displaces, community mobilising, or through nature’s own resilience.
• Harmony between nature and technology: societies that integrate green spaces, renewable energy, and appropriate technology rather than dominating or destroying ecosystems.
• Community-focused solutions:collective action, participatory governance (rather than democracy per se), and people suporting each other winning out over individual heroism or authoritarianism.
• Hopeful futures: even amid crisis or collapse, paths forward exist through cooperation, ingenuity, and transformed relationships with each other and the natural world
• Decentralisation of power:innovation emerges in bottom-up ways more than through technocracy or rarified expertise, resistant is grassroots, and corporate monopolies and centralised power by localised systems and control.
• Do it yourself/maker culture: creation by skilled craftspeople and artisans doing meaningful work, there’s creative repurposing of existing goods, and tools are accessible.

Ben Harris-Roxas

Now, if these ideas interest you, take the jump and read the whole article. And then…like me…you might be nudged to check out some of the movies he mentions.

These films aren’t escapist fantasy. They’re imaginative rehearsals for futures we could actually build, if we keep these principles at the forefront of how we think and act. Optimism isn’t naivety about how bad things are, but insistence that transformation remains possible through collective action and relationships. 

Ben Harris-Roxas