Solarpunks - more diverse than you think

From veganism to tree-towers a survey of solarpunks shows we are a more varied group than you might think

[The Chobani solarpunk commercial divides opinions IMAGE: The Line]

When looking at the majority of comments going on certain online forums you can end up thinking that the vast majority of solarpunks all think the same way on certain issues.

Whether it’s plant-based diets, or the role of traditional media it can seem like 80%+ of the people are in agreement, sometimes very strong agreement and denounce alternative interpretations as not solarpunk at all.

This is why the pioneering research by Benjamin Maldonado Fernandez is so interesting. As part of his studies at the university of Leiden he conducted a survey of people in the solarpunk scene which gained 571 respondents, making it one of the largest, if not the largest so far. It had a wide range of questions which you can see all of in the published results here.

We interviewed Benjamin to unpack some of the findings of the survey.

Alex Holland from SolarPunk Stories: A privilege and an honour to talk to you today Benjamin. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and why you did this research?

Benjamin Maldonado Fernandez: I'm from Chile, born and raised here, but for the last three years, I've been studying cultural anthropology in the Netherlands. Before I made it part of my studies I was already obsessed with solarpunk. So much so that my girlfriend was just like, “Dude, after your theses, we’re not going to talk about solarpunk ever again.”

Alex: For those who haven't seen the survey results can you explain the essentials, like the sort of geographical spread and things like that?

Benjamin: The survey was distributed among different platforms in which solarpunk is popular. So solarpunk.net the Solarpunk subreddit, SolarPunk Stories and the podcast Solarpunk Presents.

Results came in from all over the world from Afghanistan to Argentina, though unsurprisingly most of the respondents were based in the U.S.

Alex: I was surprised that the second most popular after the U.S. was Germany. There were four or five times as many people there than the UK for example. Any idea why that was?

Benjamin: I don’t know. If I had to guess I’d say it’s because lots of solarpunk-style solutions are already in place in different cities and places there, so solarpunk ideals resonate with them.

[Solarpunked Berlin IMAGE: Alex Rommel]

Alex: You’ve said there's loads more information that, for the sake of readability, didn't go into the publicly published survey results. Is there anything that you'd like to share?

Benjamin: The thing I found most interesting after publishing the survey highlights was the association of two groups of results. People who consume a lot of solarpunk media are less likely to believe other solarpunks don't contribute enough and more likely to say solarpunk has made them hopeful in their everyday lives.

Many of the people who said they strongly agree that solarpunks do not contribute enough to the movement are also amongst those who engage with the solarpunk media least.

It's not causation, but it shows a correlation.

This could be for many reasons. Maybe solarpunk media doesn't resonate with them, or perhaps they misunderstand its scope. They might see it solely as science fiction and not a social movement, so of course, they wouldn't think solarpunks contribute enough. Regardless, it's interesting that those who consume more solarpunk content are also more likely to believe people are actively involved.

Alex: That is interesting. Were there any other key takeaways you wanted to share?

Benjamin: This is definitely the most interesting finding because it highlights a clear disagreement within the community. Looking at other graphs, it's evident that some believe solarpunk should be more ‘punk’ and less mainstream, while others see it as beautiful and a positive force for change.

Alex: I think the diversity of opinions within the Solarpunk community is fascinating which is why we wrote our deep-dive on the different shades of solarpunk. While online forums can give the impression that everyone agrees, your survey shows a much wider range of perspectives.

So many of the answers and opinions are actually pretty diverse and relatively evenly spread in many cases.

It’s not a surprise that the people who are loudest on online forums are not necessarily representative of the movement as a whole. I think what's great about your survey is that this has actually provided some evidence to show people who call themselves solarpunk hold a much greater variety of opinions and positions

Benjamin: Absolutely. There's a lot of passion and strong opinions, even if they differ. I was surprised by how many people wrote really long, detailed responses to the survey, almost like essays.

[How solarpunk are tree towers like the Bosco Verticale?]

Alex: Yeah, it's clear people care deeply about Solarpunk. Okay, now on to one of the most controversial issues - are tree covered buildings solarpunk?

When we posted this question on an online forum for a Substack we were writing about it, about 90% of the commenters said they definitely weren’t and that it was just greenwashing. What’s so interesting from your survey is that the majority of respondents (59%) said they were. Even more interesting was that you said you got lots of comments with people saying this is not a yes or no question, because it heavily depends on the environment, policies, how it is done, etc.

Another interesting question you asked was did people think we need for a big movie or TV series to mainstream solarpunk. It seems that people were pretty evenly spread for and against that too. Some people think I’s just what we need, while others worry about corporate takeover.

Benjamin: It’s a complex question and I can see both side of this debate. On one hand solarpunk seems to have been growing really well so far with just short stories and imagery. But on the other it seems really weird that our biggest piece of media is a dairy commercial.

Alex: The Chobani advert!

At SolarPunk Stories we think all of the people who've created quality solarpunk art, and fiction are brilliant. My main issue is that we are under a certain amount of time pressure to avoid runaway climate breakdown. We need to motivate a lot more people, especially politicians much faster to take the necessary actions to create a deliciously sustainable world.

Form that perspective we massively support the creation of a Blade Runner or Star Trek for solarpunk – a big breakthrough film that brings it to the mainstream. When people had become aware of solarpunk through that they could then go on to discover all the other underground art and short stories out there.

Benjamin: I can see the value of a Blade Runner for solarpunk. Blade Runner 2049 is my favourite movie, which is funny given I love solarpunk so much.

Alex: It’s a great film with an engaging story. Another thing I found interesting from the survey was quite a lot of people did not feel veganism was that solarpunk. I found that quite surprising as I thought the vast majority of respondents would be.

Benjamin: Yeah, those who left comments at the end said they weren’t so keen on veganism because they said that locally produced food was more important than having a 100% plant-based diet.

Alex: There’s this thing called the ‘climavore’ diet which emphasises minimising environmental impacts even if that includes eating some animals. For example farmed mussels are net positive carbon wise and help increase biodiversity.

[Climavores are cool with flesh under specific conditions IMAGE: Huffington Post]

Benjamin: I’m eating a mussel empanada right now.

Alex: Hilarious. One last thing was that lots of people mentioned video games, but that wasn't a category. You said if someone were to look into this again it’s an area to research.

Benjamin: Yeah, I know! It's a shame I couldn't include that in the survey. It's definitely an area worth exploring.

Alex: Benjamin, thank you so much for doing the survey and this interview.

Benjamin: You’re very welcome.

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See you in the sunshine,

Alex Holland

Founder, SolarPunk Stories