Solarpunk

My intent in doing this blog is 2 pronged, to get my artwork and writing out into the public eye, instead of hiding it in files and folders here in my home, and to play whatever role I can in shifting our thinking about the future in a more optimistic direction.

So, naturally Solarpunk will be relevant to this blog. I won’t go into the history of Solarpunk so far, or restate the definition or description. You have that information at your fingertips, from Wikipedia and dozens of other sources.

I will say that it is a strong influence on my art, and integral to any optimistic vision of the future. We are creatures of nature, and need it in order to survive, so any positive vision of the future for us as a species, necessarily includes living in harmony with nature.

This is not to suggest that we should give up on this whole technology thing and move back into tents and huts, or that we must shut down all industry, only that we are part of a larger biosphere and need to find our place in it.

Tool-making, from weaving clothes and making stone tools to microchips and automobiles, is an integral part of humanity, an aspect of our phenotype.
To demand that we stop doing it would be akin to expecting beavers to stop making dams or bees to stop making hives.

We just need to change the way we approach our tool-making. And we can. In fact I see signs that that process has already begun. It won’t be simple or easy, and we have major challenges ahead. But it can be done, and, provided we survive our current challenges, we will do it.

That better future is out there waiting for us. We may have to go through fire first to get to it, but it’s there, and we can reach it.