>>40840https://medium.com/solarpunks/on-the-political-dimensions-of-solarpunk-c5a7b4bf8df4Engaging prose, meh content.
<It is a dark truth of environmentalism that wind farms, solar arrays, hydroelectric dams and other triumphs of sustainability require completely engineered landscapes. Building them means ripping up the ground and installing massive amounts of metal and concrete.I agree that's true but I don't see what's dark about it.
<In light of their power, overthrowing the mega-rich is a dicey project, and one perhaps left to a different kind of political aesthetic. Instead solarpunk can challenge the capitalist status quo by nurturing alternative economic arrangements at a community and network level. Encourage resiliency that insulates towns and neighborhoods from economic shocks. Forge mutal aid pacts that protect members from fiscal predation. If we can prove that we don’t need them or their money, the chokehold of the plutocracy will loosen.Without freely available land, how would that work? I don't need the landlord in the sense that I don't need that person to exist for the house to exist, but I must pay rent to a landlord and there is no practical way of sneaking out of this except for a tiny minority. The only thing that could do away with landlords is class struggle. There is a lot in the text about doing this or that in a sneaky way (growing food on land you don't own), all of these have to be niche activities or they cease being sneaky.
>debt jubilee>tax on extreme wealth>the regulation or even abolition of usuryNot gonna happen without taking state power.
<vertical farmsInefficient.
<As Vaclav Havel explained: “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” Havel, an artist turned activist turned statesman who led his nation out of a time of crisis, in many ways embodies the transformational power of Post too long. Click here to view the full text.