The problem with solarpunk is right there in its name: Nearly everything that gets labeled solarpunk is simply not punk.
Punk music was born as an expression of the cultural and economic alienation of youth in Thatcher's UK. Cyberpunk was the extrapolation of this into a world defined by the trends of the 1980s: accelerating technology that dehumanizes, unchecked globalization, runaway capitalism that leaves a permanent underclass to make do with the castoffs of the elite. Its enduring popularity is no doubt due to the fact that these trends are very much with us today.
Offshoots adapted this to the fears of other eras: Steampunk replaced accelerating solid-state technology with industrial-revolution mechanical technology. Dieselpunk traded it for the terrifying innovations in mechanized warfare of the early 20th Century.
Egalitarian societies living in clean cities powered by sustainable energy are not punk; they are worlds that would lack the need for a punk subculture. They are hopeful, utopian visions – and just as dystopias warn, the value of utopias is to inspire.
Maybe "solar utopianism" doesn't sound as cool as "solarpunk." But calling it what it is will let us appreciate it for what it is.
I think the article is working with an extremely wide and weak definition of the term, which indeed runs into that problem. But I think that's a problem with the term being applied to anything "green and hopeful".
The point of the -punk label is that actively working towards a solarpunk world is pretty much punk because it's not where the powers in society want to go. E.g. a lot of it has an anarchist tendency because of self-reliance and independence ideas, it emphasizes slow down/simplicity vs corporate green high-tech projects, ...
The cliche solarpunk story is IMHO more "groups of people that break out in small eco-friendly communities" than "Singapore with more green".
I would put Solarpunk rather in the accelerate/anti-auth corner of a chart with axes for (anti)authoritarian-iness and pro-/contra-progress as I saw it on Twitter once.
Slow-down/anti-auth is primitivism (think: subsistence farming, no computers, ... ).
Cyberpunk is definitely accelerate/auth (like it or not but we seem to be heading into this direction).
technologically yes (although not as fast), but I think at the same time the assumption often is that the anti-authoritarian move also leads to an intentional "enlightened" slow-down of society (compared to the capitalist rat-race of cyberpunk), reduced nature impact that way, ...
For you, growing up there and then. For us in the US in the 80s, it was similar. But both showed other cultures it was ok to say No to growing up to be part of the machine your parents accepted. And it is just as much punk to now give you the finger as it was when we did too. No one owns it and trying to do so is very much gatekeeping and Not Punk.
Do I want to puke when some teenager wears a Dead Kennedys shirt they bought at Hot Topic? Sure. But it may be they’re a better person than me, kinder or nicer or harder or whatever. Let them be punks too. Because god knows we need them.
punk also has forever been an alternative and largely self propelled culture, from zines to food not bombs if the solar punk is sustainable societies built separate from mainstream destructive society i don't see how it isn't punk.
Punk music predates thatcher and was born in NYC (even if political punk did originate the year thatcher took over the Conservative party.) It was inherently a rejection of the artists of the British Invasion (in the case of the Ramones, the first true punk band) and how corporate music in America had become. Also proto-punk goes back to the 60s.
I feel like that boat already sailed: steampunk, as best I can tell, already divorced 'punk' from any negative consequences of progress and replaced it with whimsy.
Punk music was born as an expression of the cultural and economic alienation of youth in Thatcher's UK. Cyberpunk was the extrapolation of this into a world defined by the trends of the 1980s: accelerating technology that dehumanizes, unchecked globalization, runaway capitalism that leaves a permanent underclass to make do with the castoffs of the elite. Its enduring popularity is no doubt due to the fact that these trends are very much with us today.
Offshoots adapted this to the fears of other eras: Steampunk replaced accelerating solid-state technology with industrial-revolution mechanical technology. Dieselpunk traded it for the terrifying innovations in mechanized warfare of the early 20th Century.
Egalitarian societies living in clean cities powered by sustainable energy are not punk; they are worlds that would lack the need for a punk subculture. They are hopeful, utopian visions – and just as dystopias warn, the value of utopias is to inspire.
Maybe "solar utopianism" doesn't sound as cool as "solarpunk." But calling it what it is will let us appreciate it for what it is.