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Dental Hygiene on Orbital Station #57, by Meg Murray

Help make the first annual Utopia Awards & Climate Fiction Conference a reality!

Solarpunk Now! is a science/tech and politics podcast highlighting radical ideas, projects, and theories for a brighter future.

The first annual Utopia Awards & Climate Fiction Conference, #CliFiCon22, presented by Android Press, has been announced!

Song For Cantalagua is a Mexican solarpunk adventure webcomic about Nila, a girl who sets out on a quest to solve an ancient mystery in her hometown.

it’s possible that if we keep building renewables the way we’re projected to over the next decade or so, we might end up with access to way more energy than human beings have ever had to work with

My mind was made up. I was going to join the historian-witnesses. My guides had tested my resolve. They had spoken truthfully to me all day.

From community and stewardship of the natural environment, to radical acceptance, hope, and the central theme of solutions to climate change and environmental damage, Fraggle Rock is without a doubt the most solarpunk show we currently have on television. Whether you’re a young kid or an environmental and socially conscious adult, this show will bring a big smile to your face.

Roberts debut novel kept me glued to the pages—a smart, well-crafted, and action-packed military science fiction story that deals with the horrors of war through a trauma-informed lens.

The poems aren’t in any way science fiction or speculative. But Mr. Madrigal, whether he knows it or not, is solarpunk AF with his nourishing of people to build up their communities and better their worlds.

It’s too easy to imagine the end of the world. Much easier, sometimes, than imagining a pathway to a better world. That’s why Solarpunk Futures was created.

Empty lots and poor people’s homes were fed into one end of the market, high-rises were spat out the other. But parking garages, in all their brutalist invincibility, were hard to tear down or retrofit. That’s when Derby gangs like us rolled in. We squatted and tagged, built planter beds, and from the broken glass and cigarette butts birthed the totally novel institution that is Doomsday Derby. 

If only her ancestors had witnessed the arrival of the age of milk and honey.

As the saying goes, conflict makes a great story. I believe having a society grow and evolve as much as the characters give more interesting layers to it.

Our editors-in-chief recently joined a couple of the hosts and talked all things Solarpunk on the “If This Goes On” podcast.

Join us for our Issue #1 release and launch party! Streaming live from YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and Facebook. Tuesday January 11th at 6pm GMT.

Solarpunk has a lot of dreams for a future we’d like to live in. Cultural and racial diversity; dignity, prosperity and a high quality of life for all; and urban greenery, artisanal everything, and solar panels galore. But what about the government? 

Here are the winning stories from December’s Solarpunk Micro Fiction Contest.

The Matrix Resurrections creates what is—at least in my estimation—a decidedly lunarpunk world and brings the budding aesthetic and subgenre to the big screen, if not for the first time, then at least in the most high profile example to date.

A film about how hilariously absurd our collective mass climate denial has become.

Regardless of what form the revolution that upends the current system takes, we can’t help but see how punk it truly is to imagine and dream of solarpunk futures.

Edited by Rhonda Parrish, this third installment of her “Punked Up Fairy Tales” series more than lived up to my hopes and expectations, and left me craving more cyberpunk stories.

Our submission windows are no longer issue-based, and we announce three themed issues.

The Solarpunk Futures card game let’s players solve problems and build utopias together through collaborative and cooperative storytelling.

Join Solarpunk Magazine on Patreon for all kinds of bonus content!

Solarpunk Film Screening Join Solarpunk Magazine on Saturday December 18 atContinue reading “Upcoming Events for December 2021 & January 2022”

It’s easier than you think because conflict is through character. If you start off by creating a solid character then conflict will automatically grow. Secondly just because you have a Solarpunk or Utopian world doesn’t mean there are no conflicts.

The Municipal Eco-Resiliency Project is combating climate change with urban farming, community resiliency, direct action, education, building coalitions, and organizational development through critical input and feedback by participants.

The closer we run out the clock on the changes we need to make to avoid catastrophic climate change and a total collapse of ecosystems, the greater our climate anxiety spikes, paralyzing us into not taking action. You could call it a death spiral. If we let it occur, that is. Here then perhaps is the book to kick us in the kiester with enough positive thinking to get us moving.

Recognizing that animals are people too, and treating them as such, is solarpunk AF.

Climate change is our present and our future. Writing Climate Fiction in the Age of Climate Disaster is a six session creative writing course that focuses on writing stories that center climate and climate change.

The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes. But that long answer comes with a number of qualifications that will be highlighted in this article.

This is a movie that lived in dystopia, but it didn’t end there. It ended with optimism, hope, and a beautiful, new, utopian world.

I wanted to be able to call this film solarpunk. I wanted to like this movie and come away from it excited. Unfortunately, neither ended up being the case.

Just a few dozens of miles north from where I sit here typing away, a group of solarpunks is reimagining the state’s only big city through a series of proposals for metro-wide transformative infrastructure projects.

How do we build harmony between humanity, technology, and nature?

When I first came across these folks online I was immediately drawn in by their catch phrase, or motto if you will: “Do Good, Be Good.” Yes, exactly! Building a better world is nothing if it isn’t about doing good, and being good.

How do we ensure the utopian worlds we are building aren’t, in fact, dystopian nightmares?

Struggling and rebelling against the boss is solarpunk af. This is especially true in our world today where 70% of climate change emissions come not from our homes and individual habits, but from the bosses, their companies and corporations, their institutions of power.

What if humans came together to solve the climate crisis? What if people from marginalized groups all felt safe in society? The solarpunk genre imagines creative answers to these questions.

Grab your laptop, kick back on the couch, put on some chill, ambient electronic music, and get lost in this new rewilding world building game.

Utopianism doesn’t have be to pie in the sky and impractical. It doesn’t have to be unachievable. Real utopia can exist. We can imagine a better future and create a new world for the next generations.

Rather than looking to the past and reimaging history into alternative futures, solarpunk looks directly into the future in search of something brighter.

If the futures we imagine aren’t accessible, and if they don’t go out of their way to include and make space for these communities, then the worlds we are building can’t by any right be called utopian.

In a moment where rightwing extremism continues to boldly rear its ugly head, books like Recognize Fascism are vital and welcomed additions to our cultural conversation.

The high price tag of going green—not to mention the unrealistic expectations that we can all live up to the purity tests involved in focusing on individual solutions—is one reason why the spotlight solarpunk places on community values and collective solutions is so valuable.

Given the moment that solarpunk is currently enjoying here in the present, it seems like an good opportunity to examine nine reasons why we believe solarpunk is, in fact, the future we are both waiting for and creating together.

It is not too late to ensure a future for many generations to come. We must take responsibility for the environmental choices we make and the destructive systems we create, and understand that it is action on our part that will lead to positive, sustainable change.

community and individuality aren’t opposites. They don’t need to be in competition. They don’t have to be, and we can’t allow them to be at odds with each other. We can create healthy local communities rooted in democracy and diversity, composed of individuals whose self-reliance and DIY spirit contribute to and make the community stronger, communities that are spaces where those who might need more reliance on others, for any number of reasons, can also contribute and thrive.

Lunarpunk is a relatively new and still underdeveloped subgenre born, or rather in the process of being born, out of solarpunk as well as science fiction and fantasy more broadly.

Solarpunk is an excellent example of a space where speculative literature and art come together with present day, real-world activism in a shared purpose to build, create, and be disruptive.

We just posted the third episode of our Solarpunk FuturesContinue reading “Solarpunk Magazine Launch Update #9”

Wow, wow, wow. The last two days have knocked usContinue reading “Solarpunk Magazine Launch Update #7”

Here. We. Go. Our Kickstarter has launched! Check it out.Continue reading “Solarpunk Magazine Kickstarter Launches!”

Solarpunk Magazine envisions a new world through fantastic speculative fiction.

Solarpunk Magazine envisions a new world through fantastic speculative fiction.

Solarpunk Magazine envisions a new world through fantastic speculative fiction.

Solarpunk Magazine envisions a new world through fantastic speculative fiction.

Solarpunk Magazine envisions a new world through fantastic speculative fiction.