Solarpunk 01012024

Solarpunk 101 Applied Permaculture Principles

Start where you are
Use what you have
Do what you can

This is harder than it used to be. Unspooling thoughts onto the page. I’m a little rusty, please bear with me.

Today being the first of January 2024 I am releasing literary inhibitions and opening my mind up to the world. Again. The first time back in 2002 when blogging was barely a thing, I managed it for a good many years before the impulse to write about whatever was going on my life became too much of an albatross.

However, there is a reason for this resurgence…

And that is, my intention to chart the evolution of a personal journey towards being more Solarpunk. Exactly what that means will unfold over time, this is merely an initial mark in the sand. The sign in space (Italo Calvino, CosmicComics). Which I am prepared to return to and find unbearably naive in the future.

So, where to start.

The world is on fire1, we are sleepwalking into the catastrophic dystopias of complete planetary system and social breakdown, living through climate emergency as every day brings another “unprecedented” extreme weather event. Not to mention yet another country joining the current total of 51 wars going on around the globe (although apparently that’s not classed as “World War.” Yet). Sometimes I wake up and think well really, what is the point? Without the capacity to imagine a future we can bear to live in, the daily struggles of humanity really do start to feel like running on a cosmic treadmill to nowhere. And yet.

The privilege involved in giving up and going full nihilist is not really afforded to many. So we continue.

You could call me naive, or simply an optimist but I still think there are many reasons to believe we can shape the future to be a brighter and more liveable one than the present for the 8 billion people (not the 8 billionaires)2 and however many species are left on the planet. It will take courage and imagination.

Let’s start now. Come with me on this journey to be Solarpunk and we can find the way together.

As they say on the Permaculture farm: start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

I set this site up to try and create a portfolio website and since it is floating randomly in space, much like Calvino’s character QfwfQ, have decided to repurpose it for now so that I have somewhere to write. Sending out a signal to whoever stumbles across it, sans any of the natty neo-liberal marketing tools.

There will be no SEO on this site. I quite like embracing the paradox of invisible multiplicity, words dancing on the point of a pin while heading in multitudinal (no sp. error thanks anyway) directions. Tangent upon tangent, layer upon layer this scrambled heap of random thoughts vying for my attention.

So, having taken care of the materiality – finding the login detail, fixing up the formatting, getting through a few initial blurts – what was it I came here to say? I do quite the confessional nature of the blog post as a format. Nothing momentous, lived in the moment writing that appears to be flying off the tips of my fingers but may involve levels of nuance, detail and thoughtfulness that can surprise even the writer.

I came here to think through – with you, dear reader, whoever and wherever you may be – how to BE in the world. At this precise moment in time, facing the complexities of our global situation and my own personal circumstances. How to pick myself up every day and take some action – however small – that moves the dial, keeps me going on the path of optimistic action instead of giving in to the ever present dread that threatens to overwhelm us all… (except perhaps those people and corporations and nations who are apparently benefiting from climate change.) ABC RN Future Tense; Who are the Beneficiaries of Climate Change? Ha, good freakin’ question. As you know, those who are most affected by the devastating emergencies of climate change are those who contributed least to cause it in the first place.

It feels existential, this threat is urgent and immediate. And while facing it can induce rage, despair and paralysis, there are many things being tried by many people who refuse to accept the status quo, who will not back down before fossil fuel overlords and corporate greed, who are standing up for the right to live on a living planet with dignity, equality and respect. I stand with each and every one of those who are fighting back against the destruction we are currently witnessing. And believe me, there is no Planet B. This is an endgame. So let’s get to it and find ourselves a Solarpunk Future we can live and thrive in.

Until then, below are some sources. (My mind works like a kaleidoscope, may as well get used to it.)

Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an age of Climate Anxiety

An impassioned generational perspective on how to stay sane amid climate disruption.
Climate and environment-related fears and anxieties are on the rise everywhere. As with any type of stress, eco-anxiety can lead to lead to burnout, avoidance, or a disturbance of daily functioning. 

“When we’re faced with record-breaking temperatures, worsening wildfires, more severe storms, and other devastating effects of climate change, feelings of anxiety and despair are normal. In Generation Dread, Britt Wray reminds us that our distress is, at its heart, a sign of our connection to and love for the world. The first step toward becoming a steward of the planet is connecting with our climate emotions—seeing them as a sign of our humanity and empathy and learning how to live with them. Britt Wray, a scientist and expert on the psychological impacts of the climate crisis, brilliantly weaves together research, insight from climate-aware therapists, and personal experience, to illuminate how we can connect with others, find purpose, and thrive in a warming, climate-unsettled world.”

In Generation Dread, Britt Wray seamlessly merges scientific knowledge with emotional insight to show how these intense feelings are a healthy response to the troubled state of the world. The first crucial step toward becoming an engaged steward of the planet is connecting with our climate emotions, seeing them as a sign of humanity, and learning how to live with them.

Generation Dread, Britt Wray MIT Press Bookstore

Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence

What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans – or do we share it with other beings?

Ways of Being, James Bridle

Recent years have seen rapid advances in ‘artificial’ intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognized. These other beings are the animals, plants, and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge – just as the new technologies we’ve built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours.

“James Bridle encourages you to widen the boundaries of your understanding, to contemplate the innate intelligence that animates the life force of octopuses and honeybees as well as apes and elephants. We humans are not alone in having a sense of community, a sense of fun, a sense of wonder and awe at the beauty of nature. Be prepared to re-evaluate your relationship with the amazing life forms with whom we share the planet. Fascinating, innovative and thought provoking. I thoroughly recommend Ways of Being.” Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace

In Ways of Being, writer and artist James Bridle considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn, and many worlds to gain.

“James Bridle’s wonderful book will make you feel and think the power of knowing how like all other lifeforms we are. There is nothing more important.”
—Timothy Morton, author of Hyperobjects, Dark Ecology, and Humankind

Climate Change Podcast: Outrage and Optimism

Outrage and Optimism is co-hosted by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac who oversaw the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, and CDP founder, Paul Dickinson.

“We explore the stories behind the headlines on climate change, talking to the change-makers turning challenges into opportunities. We delight in progress, question greenwash and get to grips with the difficult issues – sharing it all with our listeners along the way.”

Future Tense; Who are the Beneficiaries of Climate Change?

It might be an uncomfortable idea for many, but in the short term climate change will produce “winners” as well as losers.
Some countries, companies, communities and species will actually benefit from a warming world. But in what ways and for how long?

Originally broadcast on January 29, 2023, ABC Radio National: Future Tense

Climate Equality: A planet for the 99%

The world faces twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality.

Oxfam Report, November 2023

“The richest people, corporations and countries are destroying the world with their huge carbon emissions. Meanwhile, people living in poverty, those experiencing marginalization, and countries in the Global South are those impacted the hardest. Women and girls, Indigenous Peoples, people living in poverty and other groups experiencing discrimination are particularly at a disadvantage. The consequences of climate breakdown are felt in all parts of the world and by most people, yet only the richest people and countries have the wealth, power and influence to protect themselves. With that power comes huge responsibility.

If no action is taken, the richest will continue to burn through the carbon we have left to use while keeping the global temperature below the safe limit of 1.5°C, destroying any chance of ending poverty and ensuring equality. The world needs an equal transformation. Only a radical reduction in inequality, transformative climate action and fundamentally shifting our economic goals as a society can save our planet while ensuring wellbeing for all.

Find all the underlying data on SEI’s emissions inequality dashboard:
Emissions Inequality

Author(s)

Publisher Oxfam International

World’s eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%

A Sign in Space: The Paradox of Presence and Visibility

First comes a (the) sign: Qfwfq’s pure intention to draw something, to leave a mark, precedes any desire to communicate any meaning, yet quickly triggers Kgwgk’s (the antagonist’s) reaction: like two graffiti artists, they start competing with each other, each trying to assert its own will or “style.” But whereas QfwfQ is trying to produce a sign, the equivalent of a signature in space, something clearly recognizable in time as its own exact mark, Kgwgk’s reaction is simply that of erasing or defacing QfwfQ’s sign. Annoyed, QfwfQ decides to adopt a different strategy: counterfeiting its sign, producing fake signs or fake copies of its original mark in order to elude the antagonist; but even these are erased by the indefatigable Kgwgk. The paradoxical nature of their competition (reading and writing each other out) gets even more complicated: QfwfQ notices that Kgwgk’s erasures begin to fade out, as their reciprocal constellations pass by the place where they left their marks (or counter-marks), with each galactic revolution. QfwfQ thus impatiently awaits for its first sign to return “to its pristine visibility” (“The Galaxy turned like an omelet in its heated pan, itself both frying pan and golden egg; and I was frying in it with my impatience”).

Yet, at this turning point in the story, something new suddenly emerges: where the original sign should have reappeared, other signs instead begin inexplicably to multiply, this phenomenon itself a sign that QfwfQ and Kgwgk are not alone any more in the Galaxy (have they ever been?). As signs grow thicker in space, and become ever more confused, it becomes clear that everything hides a sign, everything is a sign and being is nothing but mere meaningless self-referential “presence” (“gradually living among signs has led us to see signs in countless things that, before, were there, marking nothing but their own presence…”). Everything then explodes in a kaleidoscopic “unlimited semiosis,” where all signs are (mysteriously) linked to other signs, in a universe made of writing (and reading) where everything is writing and thus must be read or else remain undeciphered: “the badly inked tail of the letter R in an evening newspaper joined to a thready imperfection in the paper, one among the eight hundred thousands flaking of a tarred wall in the Melbourne docks, the curve of a graph, a skid-mark on the asphalt, a chromosome…”

Lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, all the values that Calvino will extol in his Six Memos, twenty years later, are already implicit in QfwfQ’s ironic quest for a uniquely consistent “authorial” style. Yet, this story ends on a provisional note: space is so saturated by signs, written all over, that there is “no longer any way to establish a point of reference” and QfwfQ’s original sign is thus irretrivably lost. Or worse: in a universe where everything is connected, an infinite net of (hidden) correspondences, “any point could be the point of departure, any sign heaped up with the others could be mine, but discovering it would have served no purpose, because it was clear that, independent of signs, space didn’t exist and perhaps had never existed. Thus, the empty space that triggered QfwfQ’s primordial gesture of creativity was just its inability to read what was already written there…
Massimo Riva
  1. (to quote Christiana Figueres, co-host of the Climate Podcast Outrage and Optimism, mediator of the 2015 Paris Agreement and former UN Climate Chief) ↩︎
  2. Quote from a climate change activist at cop28 whose name I scribbled down somewhere in one of five recent notebooks during a mind bending inspirational talk by… oh the author of “Ways of Being” JAMES BRIDLE (link above) whose name I will look up in a moment (or not), anyway I can’t find her name or the quote but it was brilliant. ↩︎
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