Season 2 Introduction

Hello world, I'm Tomasino.

Welcome to Solar Pump prompts.

In this podcast, we discuss Solar Punk, a literary,

artistic and activist movement that imagines a world where

technology is used for the good of the planet.

It is a genre of hope and optimism for our future with a

central theme of communities and harmony with our

environments.

In its literary and artistic expressions,

we are trying to conjure that future vision into the public

consciousness.

Our stories and our art show us what could be,

and through activism, we seek to make it a reality.

In our first season,

we explored the basic ideas of Solar Punk through 15 unique

story prompts.

These prompts let us talk about our future through

different communities around the world,

facing a variety of challenges and opportunities.

We looked at current events and developing technologies and

how these might influence the world to come.

In this season, we will push even further,

expanding our understanding of what could be and how it

could come into being.

Through these next 15 story prompts,

we will dive deeper into themes of transition and

continuity.

The Solar Punk future is not a distant utopia.

It is not a fantasy or a magical land.

It is not created for nothing.

It is an optimistic act of non -conformity.

It is a future that we build of many little decisions today

and tomorrow, bringing us toward a better place.

As we discussed through season one,

solar punk stories are ripe for drama and conflict.

They can be dynamic stories of change,

action -packed journeys of rescues, subtle character plays,

and a thousand other interesting narratives.

They can be epic in scope, spanning the whole world,

or they can be a single home in a neighborhood.

It's a genre of new opportunities.

A common question people have about solar punk is,

what makes it punk?

If your current image of the genre is windmills in little

green hamlets, that's totally understandable.

So what's in the name?

Solar Punk,

coined by the pseudo -anonymous Republic of the Bees in

2008, borrowed its name from Steampunk.

Steampunk.

coined by the author K.

W.

Jeter in 1987, in turn borrowed its name from Cyberpunk.

And Cyberpunk, coined by Bruce Bethke in 1982,

built its name from a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk

music.

Although punk can mean many things,

that genre has some recognizable characteristics.

Nonconformity, anti -authoritarianism, anti -corporatism,

a do -it -yourself ethic, direct action,

and not selling out.

The punk part of the term,

which made its way into cyberpunk and onward into

solarpunk,

has to do with the rebellious spirit and a do -it -yourself

attitude that goes hand in hand with innovation.

Steampunk sought to ground that sense of innovation in a

retro -futurism that imitated the speculative fiction of

the Victorian era authors.

Comic book author and art director Rob Sheridan once said,

classic cyberpunk is anti -capitalist, anti -establishment,

and not tech -photosistic,

but rather skeptical of how technology is used by systems

of power to further oppression.

Likewise,

solarpunk shares many of these anti -capitalist sentiments,

but rather than representing the anxiety of the technology

of oppression, it focuses on the hopefulness of technology,

enabling a future of ecological harmony and social

equality.

That same do -it -yourself attitude still drives the

changes in innovation, and that's pretty punk.

The scope of moving from today to that eventual good and

hopeful place of the future is entirely within the bounds

of solarpunk.

One might subdivide the genre with these notions of time,

pre -solarpunk, solarpunk, and modern -day technology.

and post -Sulipunk, for instance,

which might map to ideas like pre -revolution or the now,

revolution or the struggle,

and post -revolution or that Evtopia or good place.

Any or all of these phrases of that transition are valid

for story exploration,

though it's unlikely that every place in the world will

encounter the same milestones at the same time.

The process may not be entirely linear either.

Your stories of moving toward a hopeful future may

transition through several little hops over the course of

generations or experience innumerable setbacks.

The important thing to remember is that there is a

continuous line between now and then.

Whichever future we find will be filled with the cultural

heritage and baggage of today.

Be that in art and music or the debts left from our

previous ways of living.

Tethering our solar -punk vision to this type of continuity

is essential.

This is more than a literary exercise after all.

This is a future we want to see become reality and in a way

our fiction becomes a blueprint for our activism.

This is a podcast for inspiration.

We hope to inspire a host of new stories and build the

genre and the minds of the public.

But we hope to inspire you even if you're not a writer.

We are all storytellers whether it be by profession as

authors, artists,

video game creators or educators or in our personal lives

with friends playing a tabletop role -playing game or

sitting around a fire.

Stories make us human.

By joining me here you're already participating in the

story of solar -punk.

We are often asked what can I do today and for those who

feel called to join in the activism of the genre there are

some normal suggestions.

Find or found community organizations with goals of

ecological and social harmony.

That might be an NGO or it might be a neighborhood cleanup

and garden share.

For me personally my action was to create a podcast and

inspire others to tell solar -punk stories.

So if you want to do something tangible to make the world a

better place right now consider National Novel Writing

Month.

An annual challenge to write 50 ,000

words of a novel in 30 days.

Maybe you could give one of these prompts a try and write a

story or two or just share the ideas with your friends over

coffee.

Help us paint that picture in the minds of the world and

when you do remember our three little guidelines.

In solar -punk the community is the protagonist.

There's no superheroes here.

Our infrastructure is sexy because there's no easy

solutions.

Everything is grounded in the human environmental context

but this isn't man -first nature.

Help us all imagine a world where technology is used for

the good of the planet,

where our little decisions lead us step by step into that

good place.

Until next time, I'm Thomas Suno.

I hope you'll join me for this season of Solar Punk Promps.

Music in this episode is The Roche Limit by State of the

Music in the background You

Music in the background You