Solarpunk Naiveté?
Christina Christina De La Rocha Christina Christina De La Rocha

Solarpunk Naiveté?

In this post, Christina ponders the opposition that solarpunks face, both offline and online. Solarpunk opts for optimism—and action—over despair, but sometimes she wonders if we are just being naïve.

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Infrastructures of Violence
Ariel Ariel Kroon Ariel Ariel Kroon

Infrastructures of Violence

Solarpunk isn’t new to debates about violence, its pros and cons, whether it is a true reflection of the movement’s values or antithetical to its ethical commitments. I figured I’d give my own two cents’ worth here; I know I might be retreading old ground, but given this season’s focus on housing in particular and the built environment generally, I wanted to address this topic specifically.

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Climate change is a mental health issue
Ariel Ariel Kroon Ariel Ariel Kroon

Climate change is a mental health issue

The recent essays and articles that I read for my thesis had a fascinating overlap: they were talking about climate, but they were also talking about mental health. Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are a natural corollary of experiencing the climate changing. And this is something solarpunk can and should address now.

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Mashing Solarpunk and Cyberpunk to Wage War Against War in The Creator
Reviews Christina De La Rocha Reviews Christina De La Rocha

Mashing Solarpunk and Cyberpunk to Wage War Against War in The Creator

The Creator is a moving spectacle. And it felt new. Which is not easy to do, as anyone who has sat down to try to write sci–fi could tell you. Sci–fi is so far beyond the first flush of its youth, unless you're really good, that just about any story you come up with has been written several times before. Despite the clunkier aspects of the plot, whoever wrote The Creator is really good. This sci–fi movie broke ground.

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Christina Christina De La Rocha Christina Christina De La Rocha

Is Solarpunk the Hippie Movement Redux?

Christina here with a confession. Sometimes when people talk solarpunk, I can’t help but wonder if solarpunk is just this decade’s version of being a hippie. Solarpunks want to wear natural fiber clothing, listen to groovy music, eat organic food, grow their own veggies, shop at co-ops, and peace out in a world full of social justice, sustainability, and community gardens. It’s easy to think, well, how is this not just the 1960’s all over again? Or for that matter, how is solarpunk not just another resurgence of the same old ideas about alternatives to the prevailing society that have been going in and out of style since even before the Cynics of Ancient Greece?

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Eating Like the Ancestors (Some of Them, at Least)
Christina Christina De La Rocha Christina Christina De La Rocha

Eating Like the Ancestors (Some of Them, at Least)

All those years I stared at the huitlacoche galls on the corn and thought EW! What an idiot I was. I could have been eating this amazingness instead. Three cheers to the person who first got hungry (or curious) enough to give the fungal galls on maize a good chew. They're totally now my hero.

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A Self-Driving Auto Dystopia
Christina Christina De La Rocha Christina Christina De La Rocha

A Self-Driving Auto Dystopia

Never mind the autos of the future, the cars of today are already a privacy nightmare. As in, if your biggest fear of a self–driving car future is of the hacker who takes over and crashes the car you’re riding in, guess again. Our biggest fear should be of the car companies themselves and the future they're aiming to create for us. And the present they've already got us corralled in.

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Can Solarpunk Have Visions of Organized Religion?
Episode reflections Christina De La Rocha Episode reflections Christina De La Rocha

Can Solarpunk Have Visions of Organized Religion?

As an atheist scientist myself, I (Christina) assumed all scientists are atheists; my vision of a scientific, solarpunk future did not include faith.And yet, as I eventually realized, there are tons of religious scientists out there (of many faiths and traditions!), many of whom were my colleagues. I have no interest in becoming religious personally, but I wanted to hear for myself how self-identified religious scientists grapple with some of the issues that are deal-breakers for me.Maybe it is solarpunk to explore religion in our visions of a good future. Being so community-oriented, I bet solarpunks could come up with satisfying alternatives to organized religion. But what would that look like?

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Getting Ready to Get Rid of the Solarpunk Cave to the New Tunes of Lana Del Rey
Picture stories Christina De La Rocha Picture stories Christina De La Rocha

Getting Ready to Get Rid of the Solarpunk Cave to the New Tunes of Lana Del Rey

Today, because it was too dismal and rainy to finish digging the evil ground elder roots out of my strawberry patch, I started ripping the wallpaper off of the walls of the Solarpunk Cave. This meant saying goodbye to the cave paintings I started to make a couple of years ago, because they were exactly the sort of thing that belonged on the grungy old walls of the grotto.

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Season 2 Has Launched!

Season 2 Has Launched!

Is the solarpunk life all about peaceful living in harmony with your neighbors, your garden, and your chickens away from the thrum of the city, or is it all about taking up less space (by living in an apartment), helping out in the community garden, and riding the bus? Have a listen and let us know what you think on Twitter @SolarpunkP, or Mastodon @solarpunkpresents@climatejustice.rocks, or leave us a comment on this post or a review on your podcatcher of choice!

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