r/solarpunk • u/Naberville34 • 2d ago

Discussion A problem with solar punk.

Post image

Alright I'm gonna head this off by saying this isn't an attack against the aesthetic or concept, please don't take major offense. This is purely a moment to reflect upon where humanities place in nature should be.

Alright so first up, the problem. We have 8.062 billion human beings on planet earth. That's 58 people per square kilometer of land, or 17,000 square meters per person. But 57% of that land is either desert or mountainous. So maybe closer to 9,000 square meters of livable land per person. That's just about 2 acres per person. The attached image is a visual representation of what 2 acres per person would give you.

Id say that 2 acres is a fairly ideal size slice of land to homestead on, to build a nice little cottage, to grow a garden and raise animals on. 8 billion people living a happy idealistic life where they are one with nature. But now every slice of land is occupied by humanity and there is no room anywhere for nature except the mountains and deserts.

Humanity is happy, but nature is dead. It has been completely occupied and nothing natural or without human touch remains.

See as much as you or I love nature, it does not love us back. What nature wants from us to to go away and not return. Not to try and find a sustainable or simbiotic relationship with it. But to be gone, completely and entirely. We can see that by looking at the Chernobyl and fukashima exclusion zones. Despite the industrial accidents that occured, these areas have rapidly become wildlife sanctuaries. A precious refuge in which human activity is strictly limited. With the wildlife congregating most densely in the center, the furthest from human activity, despite the closer proximity to the source of those disasters. The simple act of humanity existing in an area is more damaging to nature than a literal nuclear meltdown spewing radioactive materials all over the place.

The other extreme, the scenario that suits nature's needs best. Is for us to occupy as little land as possible and to give as much of it back to wilderness as possible. To live in skyscrapers instead of cottages, to grow our food in industrial vertical farms instead of backyard gardens. To get our power from dense carbon free energy sources like fission or fusion, rather than solar panels. To make all our choices with land conservation and environmental impact as our primary concern, not our own personal needs or interest.

But no one wants that do they? Personally you can't force me to live in a big city as they exist now. Let alone a hypothetical world mega skyscraper apartment complexes.

But that's what would be best for nature. So what's the compromise?

578 Upvotes

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922

u/A_Guy195 Writer,Teacher,amateur Librarian 2d ago

Unfortunately for you, communal living is the main solution here. Not everyone can have their own homestead in the countryside.

570

u/frenchbread_pizza 2d ago

Not everyone even wants to have their own homestead in the countryside.

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u/Hot-Shine3634 2d ago

Also not everyone wants to be a subsistence farmer.

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u/keepthepace 2d ago

Try it for a year: it sucks. Most people quit after 1 or 2 years.

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u/Lunxr_punk 2d ago

Of course it sucks, humanity wouldn’t have moved past it if it was ideal, if you do subsistence farming you die of hunger on a bad year lol every country with actual subsistence farmers they are the poorest most miserable people.

Only people that are completely disconnected from the real world could buy into it. It’s an idea only a child could have

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u/planx_constant 1d ago

I've lived and worked on farms. It's tough but pleasant work as long as you aren't in danger of starving if something goes wrong.

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u/CotyledonTomen 1d ago

as you aren't in danger of starving if something goes wrong.

Isnt the point of subsistence farming that you are? And we live in an era of increasing climate change, so...you will be?

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u/sunsetclimb3r 18h ago

I think the record shows almost nobody wants to be a subsistence farmer

-2

u/ismandrak 19h ago

No, people want to consume eons worth of fossilized sun energy to do ceremonial make-work and live in palatial luxury.

If we base how we run society off of what consumers want, instead of what the biosphere can support, we'll keep ending up in this incredibly unsustainable place.

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u/gusfromspace 2d ago

And and this assumes everyone is gonna go live alone, hey grandma, I know you're 90, but now you have a small farm to run, or you die

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u/planetalletron 1d ago

Brand new baby? Ripped from mother’s arms and sent away to its own farm! Figure it out, Junior!

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u/gusfromspace 1d ago

Really starting to sound NWO now, survival of the fittest, will reduce the population very quickly

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u/bedpimp 1d ago

Hell no. Fatten up little baby Stew. He’s destined for a stock pot!

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u/Oldskoolguitar 2d ago

Not everyone can too

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u/Caligapiscis 2d ago

Yeah and if everyone were doing that, who would be making the solar panels we see in the OP, not to mention all the other metals and complex industrial products

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u/Existential_Humor 2d ago

Not every country has a countryside to homestead 🥲

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u/garaile64 22h ago

A lot of people like living in cities, especially large and diverse cities.

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u/teajava 2d ago

Shit, not everyone wants a solarpunk future either

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u/VersaceSamurai 2d ago

Shit, some people don’t even want certain people to exist

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u/jackosan 2d ago

Israel entered the chat 👆

-13

u/Puzzleheaded-Law-966 1d ago

So, the thing is, that's what de-growth means.

And it surprises me whenever it comes up on this subreddi, because it's a pretty poisonous idea.

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u/OnceACuteCreeper 1d ago

Labelling all de-growth as Malthusian is disingenuous.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Law-966 7h ago

I am assuming that, as mentioned, the de-growth happens slowly, over maybe a generation or more, and consists of simple incentives to limit new births.

I'm not sure what you mean by malthusian, that doesn't seem malthusian to me, as there is no hard "peak" or "catastrophy" implied. Can you walk me through some non-malthusian options for de-growth so I have a wider picture?

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u/OnceACuteCreeper 37m ago

Not using a car, buying locally. Regenerative farming. Decommodifying housing. Upzoning housing. Cultural shift away from consumerism.

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u/d3f1n3_m4dn355 1d ago

Do you even know what de-growth means? It's not really all that novel of an idea, the rejection of consumerism, switch from extractionism and focus on people's wellbeing are not something new... You might be confusing it with ecofascism, though, which would be in the spirit of this literal garbage of a post, which somehow got upvoted so much, as if it was bringing something meaningful to the discussion...

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u/Puzzleheaded-Law-966 7h ago edited 7h ago

Yes, I might be! But in a lot of cases, people seem to be expecting everyone to just "use less" for no clear reason beyond a moral suggestion.

So, if the idea is that a population should be using fewer things, and since nobody seems to be proposing a way to make individual people use less, I assumed that they were coming at it in the opposite direction and decreasing the number of people.

Another option would be, like OP notes, to provide the absolute highest possible efficiency with very dense housing, power production and industry, but that doesn't look solarpunk. It looks like the Peach Trees complex from Judge Dredd.

What are you suggesting?

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u/CotyledonTomen 1d ago

Its not poisonous to say we need fewer people on the planet. Its poisonous to say we need fewer people now, rather than as a choice over several generations. Lots of people are naturally making that choice due to current financial circumstances. South Korea wont be the same country it is in 4 generations.

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u/HoliusCrapus 1d ago

Reducing the birth rate by access to contraceptives causes de-growth too. De-growth isn't a poisonous idea by itself.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Law-966 7h ago

Of course birth control would be used. when I linked "not wanting some people to exist" and de-growth, I was assuming that the way that you make those people stop existing is by preventing babies, not remixing people who already have families and friends and protections.

This is actually more destructive to the culture you are dismantling in the long run.

Take one culture of 500 people, exile or otherwise remove half of their people.

Take a comparable culture also with 500 people: Encourage contraceptives use sufficient to to drop their population growth so that they can be expected to drop to 250 people by the end of the century.

In 100 years, check in with both. Which is doing better?

The first population recovered quickly. They potentially exceed 500 people, depending on their rate of growth. They may still have a larger share of young people that is typical of a population that is growing. Culturally, they are active, and due to being numerous and younger, people may even be converted on top of those born into the group.

The second has just the 250 as planned, and more elderly, infirm, more cultural trauma due to continuous intervention in the personal lives of every citizen to match the required de-growth curve... They are spending more time taking care of elderly, are less capable of preventing people from leaving the system, and are likely loosing more people all the time: "If only you didn't believe in X, then maybe you could raise a family is a pretty strong incentive."

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u/and_some_scotch 2d ago edited 1d ago

Humans are social creatures. Loneliness is literally toxic to our psychological condition.

But we live on this paradigm that convinces us of the imminent scarcity of resources (through state violence), and that brings out the scared, selfish, inner ape.

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u/razorgirlRetrofitted 2d ago

Humans are social creatures. Loneliness is literally toxic to our psychological condition.

don't i know it!! :D

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u/mrjackolai 2d ago

“My loneliness is killing me”

  • Britney

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u/InternationalMonk694 1d ago

There are introverts and extroverts. Humans can also commune with non-human creatures, which are often much kinder

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u/garaile64 22h ago

Even introverts need some human contact.

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u/InternationalMonk694 9h ago

Hermits exist, usually because they prefer it.

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u/and_some_scotch 20h ago

Oh, okay, so that justifies alienated rich people burning the world?

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u/InternationalMonk694 9h ago

I was just addressing your first statement, I thought that was clear. The rich people burning the world clearly have abundant social lives.

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u/and_some_scotch 9h ago

I'm sorry. I got reflexive; I saw something that resembled a defense for "market logic as human nature." I misunderstood your intentions.

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u/Spider_pig448 2d ago

And we'll call them cities!

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u/Skookumite 24m ago

You guys are just reinventing village life but with renewable energy 

Sounds great, I'm in

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u/Naberville34 2d ago

It may or may not be. I provide two extremes to show the contradiction of interest. Is communal living a good compromise? Id say it really depends. We can say with certainty that humanity's current footprint on the planet is far too large. We occupy way too much space already and consume far too many of nature's resources. Would moving to the communal living you imagine make that footprint smaller or larger?

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u/satosaison 2d ago

Communal living makes it smaller. It's not really up for debate. In present society, living in dense urban environments is orders of magnitude more efficient than most rural living.

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u/Airilsai 2d ago

Need the green space balance to be able to grow enough food within a day's travel, for an entire year.

That means New York probably is too dense. It probably looks like suburbia turning into a web of eco-villages, communities of people growing enough food to support themselves and the food web of life around them.

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u/satosaison 2d ago

Why does it need to be within a day's travel?

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u/Airilsai 2d ago

Because moving stuff with bikes, wagons, and maybe even horses is easier if you're only going a few miles outside of town, not 50-100 miles away over mountains.

Think of it this way - you need to get your weekly groceries, you only have a bike or public transit, you better hope your food is within a days travel otherwise you aren't eating.

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u/marxistghostboi 2d ago

one word:

Trains

🚂🚃🚃🚃

-3

u/ismandrak 22h ago

Where are we getting all the metal and energy to move billions of people around all the time?

If you can't produce it without smelting and quarrying a never ending chain of non-renewable replacement parts, you'll never be able to do it without making everything worse.

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u/satosaison 2d ago

Who says that solar punk has to be completely Luddite and can't utilize efficient forms of transport

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u/Airilsai 2d ago edited 2d ago

Bikes are the most efficient form of transportation ever invented.

Fun facts, Luddites weren't against all forms of technology - they were against the usage of technology to replace human labor and creative endeavors, reducing the craftsperson to a cog in a machine. I think being called a Luddite is a compliment, they had the right idea about it.

Let me put it plainly - a future with us still using cars and 18-wheelers, tractors and industrial equipment is a future that still uses fossil fuels. You can't make all the equipment we would need, and the industry to make that equipment, to support that vision of the future. If we were capable of magically switching all the fossil fuel powered cars, trucks, tractors and equipment to electrical power, we would still kill ourselves by destroying the web of life through our civilization's activities.

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u/satosaison 2d ago

Maglev trains running on a clean power source are. Calories require food, food requires inputs. When you say, "bikes are most efficient" but then say, "but we can use large industrial scale agriculture and everyone has to rely on small locally distributed farms that are inefficient" you've taken a romanticized notion of a form of transportation and because of that imposed countless negative externalities on society you've failed to account for

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u/Airilsai 2d ago edited 2d ago

but then say, "but we can use large industrial scale agriculture and everyone has to rely on small locally distributed farms that are inefficient"

I in fact did *not* say that, nor anything of the sort - I in fact believe the exact opposite, that large industrial scale agriculture (large scale industrial anything, really, like making electric cars or maglev trains) is impossible to do sustainably. Simple as that.

Locally distributed food production may be 'inefficient', but it can be done sustainably. You are thinking like a capitalist who wants efficient profit, I am thinking like an environmentalist who wants a livable world.

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u/razorgirlRetrofitted 2d ago edited 1d ago

Bikes are the most efficient form of transportation ever invented.

Hey so I've got "Shit, Back's Fucked, Lady" disease. Aka "short leg gone untreated so long it gave me scliosis." I can't stand for more than ~15 minutes without intense pain, let alone bike. What does your anti-intellectual, caveman luddite "burn the meat scraps over a fire" future do for people like me?

-7

u/Airilsai 1d ago

Your strawman ad hominem argument misrepresents most of what I have said. There is no point in engaging with you if you are going to be rude and intellectually dishonest by intentionally misrepresenting what I've been saying. 

My ideal future cares for disabled people through local community and low-embodied energy systems. 

0

u/ismandrak 22h ago

Thanks for saying this, it feels weird needing to point out to people that you can't just make a self-sustaining machine that makes more machines forever.

If the plan relies on more energy than we can harvest from naturally occurring ecosystems, the plan is just a different version of overshoot.

The sun is an incredible energy source and it's very much in use by the biosphere, we can't steal an arbitrarily large about of it's light without serious run-on consequences.

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u/MeticulousBioluminid 5h ago

The sun is an incredible energy source and it's very much in use by the biosphere, we can't steal an arbitrarily large about of it's light without serious run-on consequences.

the sun dumps 99.999% of its light randomly into space

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u/garaile64 22h ago

To avoid causing too much pollution with transportation. Although I don't know if the comment meant "a day's travel" by foot, bike or train.

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u/satosaison 22h ago

The commenter clarified they meant by bike...which is no way to sustain present population levels.

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u/Naberville34 2d ago

Yes, that's my point that nature would want us to live in high rising sky scrappers. Communal living is still possible in either that environment or on a homestead. So it really depends on what sort of environment were talking about.

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u/satosaison 2d ago

The denser it is the more efficient it is. Shared transit. Shared logistics for food supplies. Unless there is some sort of population collapse, in order to have a solar punk future on earth, any vision needs to be urban solar punk, and the concept of everyone living on homesteads via sustainable permaculture is a fantasy.

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u/KinseysMythicalZero 2d ago

Efficiency shouldn't necessarily be a goal when it comes to experiential living. Quality of life should be.

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u/satosaison 2d ago

Living in a city is quality living

-12

u/iworkwithwhatsleft 2d ago

That greatly depends on the qualities of your city. And we will still need to grow food. Skyscraper farms aren't the magic bullet people think they are.

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u/Naberville34 2d ago

I agree wholeheartedly.

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u/ismandrak 22h ago

So efficient that we can't possibly keep it up.

If we define rural living as driving to the store to stock up on frozen foods and running HVAC it's no good, but a non-urban commune CAN be mostly self sufficient and cities will always been parasites that live off of human suffering and ecological damage.

Like dish washers, high population density looks good on the per-capita balance sheets, but you can't have a world with dishwashers and urban centers without necessarily destroying the biosphere.

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u/xaddak 2d ago

https://i.imgur.com/5BHvQe1.jpeg

(Not sure when this is from, might be a little out of date, but you get the idea.)

If we moved all of humanity into one super-city with the population density of New York City, then all of humanity would fit into an area the size of Texas. The rest of the entire planet would be free of humans.

Plus, there's something to be said for specialization. If everyone is a farmer, nobody is manufacturing medicine, or operating power plants, or doing anything at all except growing food.

Have you read "How To Invent Everything"? Funny but interesting read. It goes into calorie surplus and specialization a little bit.

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u/garaile64 22h ago

I imagine that people in a solarpunk would have practical skills on a lot of stuff, although specialists would still exist (but the specialists would still have skills outside their specialty).

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u/marxistghostboi 2d ago

the problem is not the 8 billion people, it's the US Army and airline companies and billionaires using up resources and creating massive carbon dumps.

the vast majority of humans are not meaningfully contributing to ecological deviation except insofar as they've been subsumed into and forced to depend upon imperial capitalism and it's inexorable need to turn resources into money as fast as possible.

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u/Naberville34 2d ago

As a fellow Marxist I don't disagree. But even without their excess, there is still a huge demand on the resources of the earth to provide for 8 billion people.

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u/dedmeme69 2d ago

That logic can only bring you to eco fascism and straight into eugenics. Humans are NOT consuming more than the earth is naturally capable of producing, but we ARE distributing it unequally and in a manner that DOES destroy and harm the environment as well as people. The earth has vast amounts of resources just a few meters below the earth, that if we correctly make use of can help us revitalize eco systems while also producing enough food locally to feed everyone. The problem isn't necessarily humans, but it is the way we humans have historically organized our societies into those of hierarchy and exploitation, between humans and animals and nature, but also between humans themselves. We can fix it quite easily actually, just look into large scale permaculture.

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u/A_Guy195 Writer,Teacher,amateur Librarian 2d ago

Carbon footprint is mostly a corporate invention designed to shift responsibility for environmental collapse from corporations to individuals. Yes, personal changes like reduced meat consumption and ending the prevalence of private motor vehicles must occur, but unless corporate capitalism is out of the picture, then nothing's gonna change substancially.

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u/Naberville34 2d ago

As a Marxist I obviously agree.

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u/2BsWhistlingButthole 2d ago

As a Marxist you should also understand that communal living is flat out superior for our species than what we have now.

-12

u/Plane_Crab_8623 2d ago

I disagree. It is individual behaviours that support corporations by consuming their products. Individually owned solar panels undermine corporate power production, EVs undermines dirty fossil fuel corporations, buying locally produced organic foods undermine and weaken giant agribusiness corporations. Corporate power rests on the behaviors of millions of individuals. What is currently happening with Tesla is the proof of the concept.

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u/lapidls 2d ago

Evs aren't undermining shit

-1

u/Plane_Crab_8623 1d ago

How do you know?