Is This the Last Dance Before the Lights Go Out?
Hope, but not right away
As I’ve said before both here and on the podcast, I really do believe that solarpunk is about looking around at the detritus of the early twenty-first century, then choosing deliberately to roll up one’s sleeves and get to work making a better world using the materials at hand, despite all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. However, moving rapidly away from negative feelings does them a disservice, and more importantly, may be doing solarpunk a disservice. Let me explain.
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.