Most of us are familiar with “cyberpunk” as an art and literary genre, filled with tropes of technology gone awry and the world on fire. With this storyline, it’s hard not to shut down and give up when everything seems f*cked. 

Now that we’ve seen what could go wrong, we introduce cyberpunk’s more optimistic sister, “solarpunk.” Solarpunk is a cultural movement that envisions a non-dystopian future where we wield technology to live more equitably with nature and each other.

Our planet is in crisis, and we refuse to give up. We only have ten years left to move away from fossil fuels before it’s too late for tens of millions of our most vulnerable people, or the collapse of our coral reef systems.

The good news is that it’s NOT too late and there’s a plan of action. Check out resources below to learn:

• How electrification (retiring fossil fuel machines ASAP + tripling renewable energy generation) can be a viable path to meeting our climate goals of reducing carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 (“the point of no return”)

• The role distributed energy resources (DERs) like community microgrids play in increasing our energy resiliency and keeping money (and jobs) circulating locally instead of going to a small number of oil + gas stakeholders. These funds can be put to good use like schools, healthcare, vocational training, or the arts instead.

• “Solarpunk” as a literary and art movement that inspires regenerative practices for a sustainable future 

Combined, these pillars lay the foundation for how we can use our superpowers to move away from our monolithic petrol-industrial complex and create more community-centric distributed clean energy solutions.

By using culture to test & advocate for these new power paradigms, we can concretely reduce global emissions in time and collectively design the future that we want to live in.