“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
―
After my son Noah was born in the mid-2010s, I experienced a profound and cumbersome eco-grief. This wasn't the first time in my life when the global future elicited terror instead of hope, but the news at the time was especially dire—rising temperatures and sea levels, catastrophic weather events as the new normal, and a general sense of unease and mistrust about what was coming.
It was widely recognized that the wealthiest countries, companies and individuals were driving the bulk of the damage, and they were also the only ones with any real power to change the narrative. Would they? Well...Elon Musk has since distracted himself from Martian indentured servitude by turning Twitter into a zoo for our worst humans; Jeff Bezos has pledged to donate millions but towards what is still TBD; and it seems that billionaires, as a general class (sigh) tend to avoid environmental philanthropy (double sigh). It's become fashionable for us plebes to murmur "eat the rich" as we scroll through the news, but since wealthy idiots seem to think that interplanetary exit is a sane and viable retirement plan, that leaves the rest of us earthbound morons mired in brain-meltingly hot temperatures. I mean this truly when I say: I hope Mars is terrible and very boring! Go there quickly and forever!
While I know that I and my descendants will likely be insulated from the worst of any looming climate changes—a gift of geography and the luck to be born in a wealthy country—I cannot pretend that we will be unaffected. I know the summers are getting hotter, the storms off the lake more intense. There is nowhere on earth where the rainwater is still pure. It's coming for us all.
When things are that bleak, what can we do?
It's hard to live when you're stuck in shitty feelings, but there are techniques to soothe. My friend Terran shared her practice of radical optimism, which is helpful. I also started gardening at the beginning of the pandemic, which gives an illusion of control (at least until the tomatoes are blighted), and have several Pinterest boards devoted to an optimistic prepper vibe.
I have also, personally and as a coping mechanism, developed a few aesthetic antidotes to this whole end-of-the-world experience. Like, do you have a moment to talk about Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, my current TV obsession about a post-apocalyptic world where mega-mutant animals roam wild and humans have been driven underground, but it's hilarious and queer and hopeful and also the soundtrack is full of absolute fucking bangers? Or the Nsibidi Scripts book series, which explores magical-realist Nigeria and is a smart and solid rebuttal of the unrelenting Eurocentrism of most wizarding coming-of-age stories (ahem, Harry Potter)? Or my ongoing interest in solarpunk, the alternate-future visioning exercise that is giving me some modicum of hope in these troubled times?
At its simplest, solarpunk imagines a world where the internal-combustion engine and fossil fuels have been replaced with green energy sources: windmills, hydroelectric dams, and solar panels. The images of solarpunk are often filled with greenery and brilliant blue skies. Unlike dieselpunk or steampunk, which creates alternate histories that feel dirty and individualist , solarpunk is clean, clear, and collective: a world where everyone has enough and our human relationship with Mother Earth is less, uh, extractive than it has been to date.
The first solar panel was invented in 1883, a fin-de-siecle experiment that managed to convert the sun's energy into electricity at the rate of about one percent. The first commercially viable panels hit the market in the mid-1950s, costing a whopping $300 per watt generated. These days, an Ontario homeowner willing to invest about $20,000 into a home array—the kind we see installed on roofs—would be able to receive all of his electricity from the sun rather than the local hydro company. Solar panels have evolved from bulky, inefficient contraptions to semi-ubiquitous installations that are nearly standard for a certain type of homeowner—maybe an eco-geek, or a luxe hippie, or a libertarian.
The solar panel isn't a poetic generator: it doesn't belch smoke or produce soot or feel warm to the touch. It doesn't have the romance of woodstoves or coal. It's also not haunted by the ghosts of failed solar panels, the way we have avoided nuclear in a post-Chernobyl world. They are silent, easily integrated into our everyday landscape, and small enough to be carried to a campsite or installed on a family rooftop. They have a bit of a beep-boop robot feel, but solarpunk's luscious greenery balances out the sterile feeling. The technology is improving every year, and prices have continued to come down. Green energy always has its challenges and detractors, but we desperately need to wean ourselves off cheap, destructive fossil fuels.
I have a Tumblr post saved on Pinterest that reads "Before we can live in a world of vertical gardens covering stained-glass skyscrapers, we need to build a world of backyard garden boxes made from reclaimed wood. Before we can cover every rooftop with solar panels, we need to equip every home with solar smokeless cooking made of scrap metal. The appeal of those green cityscapes in the pretty pictures isn't just that they're high-tech and clean, it's that they sprout from a society that values compassion, the environment, and human lives more than it values profit. We need to build that society first, and we need to build it from the ground up from what we have available."
I believe this to be true. We know that corporations and the rich people who run them will not take care of the planet the way we desperately want and need them to, so it's up to us to cultivate our optimism in whatever ways we can. I envision buildings dripping with atmosphere-cooling greenery, so I start in the garden. I envision electric cars in every driveway, so I start by riding my bike. I want solar panels on the library, so I start by reading about solar dehydrators. I want a different future, so I start by dreaming.
