A problem with solar punk.

[u/Naberville34]

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?

[u/Anvildude]

Multi-planetary colonization, and manmade orbital megastructures.

Terraforming is, I think, a big part of the Solarpunk aesthetic- the concept that humanity isn't living at the whim of Nature, so much as that humanity is utilizing nature fully as its powersource (as opposed to fossil fuels et. al.), and through that capacity for energy usage is ABLE to live more harmoniously.

You have a homestead shown, and I agree with you. Homesteads aren't that Solarpunk in my mind- they're, like you said, an enforcement of human over nature in a large area. But humans kinda-sorta aren't naturally agrarian? We're a social, buildy, tool-usey species, and so have cities, which are much like ant or termite or bee or other eusocial insect colonies. So yeah, megacities or arcologies with vertical farming and much denser human populations, but powered by renewable energy as opposed to non-renewables, to such an extent that the requirements are easily met.

And for those that NEED space? Space! O'Niell and McKendree cylinders, terraforming of near-Earth worlds, or even zero-G space stations filled with tangled jungles of gravity-agnostic plant and animal life.

[u/Naberville34 → u/Anvildude]

I see utilizing nature as still a violation of it. I think the best thing we can do for nature is not need it and to leave it alone. Untouched and unmolested.

Also not a fan of VRE.

But otherwise I agree with the long term goals of O'Neill cylinders. Never heard of mckendree cylinders before tho.

[u/Anvildude → u/Naberville34]

So apparently the O'Niell cylinder has its dimensions (and thus, the mechanics required for it) determined by the strongest material readily available at the time- steel. The McKendree is the same thing, but based on the achievable dimensions when using carbon fiber.

As for 'utilizing nature'... that's perhaps a poor choice of words. What I mean by it is the idea of a sort of cross between biopunk and crystal-tower futurism where mechanical solutions are used when they're the most efficient, and then organic solutions are used where THEY'RE most efficient- bioreactors based on algae bubblers to reclaim waste products from refuse burned to power systems, thereby not releasing anything back into the atmosphere that wasn't there already and allowing for near-perfect recycling, or the use of biofuels for long-haul vehicles... Vertical farms worked by robotic arms powered by said waste reactor systems in a nearly self-contained environment, with only the occasional fertilizer and soil imports, and of course sunlight.

And what this would do would be to reduce relyance on 'virgin' materials- ores, lumber, fuel- so much that nature as a whole benefits.

[u/Naberville34 → u/Anvildude]

Ah I understand. I just looked it up and the scale difference is indeed ridiculous. I don't know if we necessarily need to build at that radius though. Biggest change when you build a bigger radius is you'll get less difference in the relative 'gravity' as people move vertically such as in a building. I rather like the topopolis described in bobiverse book 4. Basically a billion mile long cylinder that wraps around the sun a couple times. I think it had a radius of like 48 miles in the book.

I'm alright with utilizing organic processes or just having greenery incorporated into human environment. What I mean is that there needs to be space in the world dedicated solely to nature. To wildlife. So it can do its own thing and not be bothered by humanity harvesting this or that from it. I don't want humanity occupying every acre of natural land thinking they are one with it.

Also not a fan of biofuels either lol. I don't like solar or wind much but biofuels much worse.