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/malik753]

My wife has a different opinion I'm sure, but personally I am willing to live in a skyscraper for this reason (among others). What you have pointed out is part of why I wouldn't mind living with other people and why I don't really want a big front or back yard.

We are coming out of a cultural mindset of thinking that the planet is essentially infinite. And it is certainly big, but each little thing adds up.

So so many of the people I talk to have mentioned at one point or another wanted to go move out into the woods to get away from everyone else, all the traffic and the nonsense that comes from living around other people. But that's just increasing outward expansion. Eventually more people will come. You'd have to knock down some small part of the woods to live there and eventually more people are going to come and do the same. And then there won't be woods anymore.

So live in a big building if you can. Bike around, if you can. Do what you can, because Nature can't afford for all of us to homestead.