The Experts

Hello World, I'm Tomasino.

This is SolarPunk Prompts,

a series for writers where we discuss SolarPunk,

a movement that imagines a world where technology is used

for the good of the planet.

It seeks to answer and embody the question,

what does a sustainable civilization look like,

and how can we get there?

In this series,

we spend each episode exploring a single SolarPunk story

prompt, adding some commentary, some inspirations,

and some considerations.

Most importantly,

we consider how that story might help us to better envision

a sustainable civilization.

If this is your first time here,

I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first,

where we talk about what SolarPunk is, why you should care,

and why this series came into being.

Today's prompt is, The Experts.

There's a community of very specialized experts.

Only a handful exist in the whole world.

There are normally hermits focused on maintaining long,

forgotten infrastructure,

but their community exists across the internet.

They consider themselves a family,

even if each of them speaks a different language and comes

from a different culture.

But once in a blue moon,

they can even physically visit each other.

Over the last three years,

many of us have faced some level of undesirable isolation,

and with that, barest taste,

we can start to imagine the great sense of loneliness felt

by those who work alone for weeks, months,

or years of the time.

you These people exist in our world today.

Jesse Panazolo was a 26 -year -old conservationist with an

honors degree from Adelaide University who had been working

in conservation since she was 14.

After a particularly difficult six -month assignment,

she returned home distraught, alone, and defeated.

While having drinks with another friend from the

conservationist community,

she found a 300 -spirit suffering in the same ways.

She thought,

if I'm a lonely conservationist and she's a lonely

conservationist, how many are out there in the world?

And so she started a blog.

It's called The Lonely Conservationists.

And in that first year, it brought in 2 ,500 new members.

One member called it a global group therapy that you can

always access.

They share job postings, memes, mental health posts,

and support.

In a career of passion work, often for little to no pay,

with grueling work sometimes in harsh conditions,

these people provide a vital service to underfunded NGOs

the world over.

Their staying power is built upon their compassion,

and their personal drive, and the belief in their work,

but even the most passionate person has struggles and

doubts and experiences the draining loneliness of

isolation.

So communities like Jesse's are not just a place to relax

or to talk about their work,

they're a vital piece of the infrastructure of that domain.

They're a scaffolding that allows connectivity to the

unconnected.

Catherine Woodward writes from the Leonard Island light

station near Tofino, British Canada.

Here's a small excerpt from a piece she contributed to the

globe and mail back in 2020.

Since 2008 I've been paid to watch clouds,

among other things,

and the criteria for my reports are precise.

Clear, partly cloudy, cloudy, overcast,

partly obscured or obscured.

No mariner or aviator needs to hear about the white horses

flying as high as the stars,

or the grumpy giants I see in the Sirius and Cumulo Nimbus,

or to know that I heard the first sa -sin, nu -chan luth,

for hummingbird, among the Salmonberry blossoms yesterday.

I file weather reports to Prince Rupert Coast Guard radio

every three hours based on the state of the sky, the sea,

the wind, intensity of rain, density of fog,

and the possibility of showers glowering on the horizon.

But if we didn't have access to the internet I could not

write and work at a lighthouse in the 21st century.

That's my deal breaker.

She's the author of Light Years,

Memoir of a Modern Lighthousekeeper,

a book you didn't know you wanted to read until this very

moment.

There are others.

Rangers, anti -poaching activists,

and so many more who live their lives in the fringes of

society set apart alone,

and for more and more they're finding new kinships and

community within the internet.

The heart of this prompt isn't the isolation of these

experts,

but the way that they've created a new type of family

across vast distances and in spite of differences in

language and culture.

In a science fiction setting we hear the word isolation and

we think anti -weir.

We think of the Martian or Project Hail Mary and how

science triumphs in these lonely settings,

but I caution you and remind you of our first guideline for

Solar Punk.

community as protagonist.

You see,

community is community whether it's around a campfire or

across a terminal.

The opportunity for us as writers is to make that something

the reader can feel.

How do you feel close, intimate even,

with people who rarely if ever see each other's faces?

We can look to the gut wrenching personal blog post on

lonely conservationists, sharing mental health challenges,

eating disorders, financial struggles, and more.

These posts are not just stories, they're counseling,

they're therapy.

They give each other hope or cry together and in some cases

survive because of one another.

It's the shared challenges that unite them and the shared

experiences of hardship.

When we take that into a solar punk context and think about

how this might be told,

there are a few hooks that stand out.

Any work that these experts are doing,

which is oriented toward making humanity live in balance

with their ecosystem, is totally on theme.

If they're establishing or maintaining infrastructure vital

to this mission,

then we see a direct illustration of our second guideline.

Infrastructure is sexy, but there are no simple solutions.

Like Caroline, you too can bring the poet to the machine,

show the reader the sublime beauty in that work,

in the mundane and in nature,

and in their struggles we will see that cost willingly

paid.

The aspect of the story which holds the most potential

though, is that internet community.

Play it straight and explore the house of the connectivity

or the origins of why.

Was it developed for something else,

but now has been converted to this purpose?

There's so much to explore.

Or alternatively,

we can play with our reader's expectations.

Perhaps our future lightkeeper is leaving notes for the day

shift,

only for us to find out much later that the day shift is

4000 miles away.

How does that community empower the individuals?

How does it feel to be a part of it?

Thanks for being a part of my community and joining me for

these episodes.

How are they affecting you?

I'll talk to you soon on the next SolarPunk Prompts.

Music in this recording is Twin Dragon,

hidden in brightness, from Global Patterns Compilation,

Are now!

Are now!