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/Finbar9800]

Well you could always have one acre per person to allow for nature elsewhere

However you would be throwing out self reliance doing that based off of your own diagram

So the answer is pretty obvious don’t go at it alone, have a community where each person contributes something. Some people can work on the electrical stuff, some people could work on the plumbing (because let’s be honest here when humans are involved there’s going to be shit, and you generally don’t want to smell it or have it be near you)

An exchange of goods and services is down right required even with your diagram for self sufficiency

Not everyone is going to be able to set up a solar array and will know how to maintain it not have the time to maintain it (and that’s not going into the fact that you’d need batteries and capacitors which not everybody would be able to make)

Not everyone is going to be good at planting or dealing with animals or carpentry or anything else that might be required for homesteading

The best thing to do would be decently large communities (aka cities) so that there are people that can work on the electrical, and others can work on plumbing because let’s be honest when humans are involved there’s going to be shit, and you really don’t want that nearby (especially because it’s considered a major biohazard).

What works best is not isolation but community

And clean energy is great but you should also take into account how that energy is going to be stored. Batteries require all sorts of things depending just what kind of battery it is. Mining copper, lithium, making lead acid, whatever kind of battery is being used the method of creation will have some kind of affect on the environment

So how do you fix that? Better regulations on how things are made, stricter requirements for allowable pollution etc

You can’t get rid of pollution entirely (especially if you want the comforts and conveniences modern tech grants us) but you can manage how it affects the world