#solarpunk technology

I was born well before the internet and smartphones but there’s just something about seeing a little machine roughly the size of my dogs so perfectly part of the landscape that animals aren’t even afraid of it. They’re so sensitive to touch now I’ve seen it bump into a hedgehog and stop.

In this episode, Christina talks with hacker and enthusiastic solarpunk Paweł Ngei about the power of solarpunk narratives to open our eyes to the ways in which we do things and invite us to critically examine them. Why is tech built this way? Who are we disenfranchising by not having more or different designs for things? Who are we handing over too much power over our lives to mindlessly letting them thrust their tech into our lives without us knowing how it works?

For more info about and thoughts from Paweł, can check out his blog (https://alxd.org/), be inspired by his podcast (https://podcast.tomasino.org/@SolarpunkPrompts), read his short story about a disabled inventor at https://glider.ink/, or read his review of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (https://alxd.org/ministry-for-the-future-review.html#ministry-for-the-future-review).

In a solarpunk world, shoes could be custom 3D-printed to fit each person’s foot - which would be really useful for people with hard-to-fit feet like me. (I have extra-wide feet and need a lot of arch support, so it’s near-impossible to find shoes that fit me at all, let alone ones that also fit my style.)

There could also be color-changing shoes that can change to match people’s outfits. 

Join us for the final interview of this season, as we talk with Michael DeLuca, publisher of Reckoning, a yearly journal of creative writing on environmental justice, and author of The Jaguar Mask. Michael, impressed by the creative uses of cast off technology in the Global South, would like us to also adopt old tech. He recommends that we follow their lead and adapt old tech to suit our needs, as well as find creative new uses for old tech. We should do better than just be passive consumers of the tech that is sold to us more to the needs and convenience of the companies that produce it than to ours. 

You can follow Michael via his website (mossyskull.com), Mastodon (@[email protected]), and Bluesky and X (@michaeljdeluca). 

Here are some links relevant to our discussion...

...about the hand-cranked laptop

...concerning the (reindeer) who ate all the food on the island

In an oft-cited thought experiment, Robin Chase, co-founder of the car-sharing company Zipcar, offered two scenarios for how the self-driving revolution could unfold. She calls them “heaven” and “hell.”

In “heaven,” drawing on and expanding Chase’s vision, AVs usher in a new age of personal and civic well-being. Traffic deaths are eliminated; an 8-year-old child can bike to school in a major city without fear. As outdoor activity becomes safe and popular, public health outcomes improve. Urban dwellers rely on shared AVs and expanded public transit to get around and are largely freed from the financial burden of individual car ownership. Cities repair some of the damage done in the highway era. Massive surface parking lots are no longer needed, for example, and that space is repurposed for parks or desperately needed affordable housing. In a boon for the climate, AVs run on zero-carbon electricity. While some workers lose their jobs in the transition—such as bus drivers, truckers and delivery people—social policies like universal basic income help ensure a safety net.

In “hell,” however, AVs further entrench Americans’ already dysfunctional relationship with cars. Social isolation, congestion and inequality increase. Less concerned about long commutes, people sprawl across the countryside, eliminating farmland and establishing elite and exclusive communities far from the masses. The total number of miles driven increases exponentially, along with urban congestion. AV owners order their empty cars to cruise the city all day to avoid paying for parking. Buses are mired in heavy traffic or simply discontinued as public support for them erodes, leaving lower-income people stranded. The transition to AVs doesn’t coincide with a transition away from internal combustion engines. Passenger cars and trucks, already the source of roughly 15 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, increase their footprint dramatically, broiling the planet.

Right now, it’s unclear which direction we’re headed. But we are at an inflection point. The auto industry is pushing Congress to greenlight not only the testing of self-driving cars, but also sale to the public, currently lobbying a handful of Democratic holdouts in the Senate on a bill that would do just that. What’s lacking is what’s needed most: public oversight.

The “heaven” scenario is very solarpunk. The “hell” scenario, not so much.

Hi punks!

I’m working on plunking out some super secret stuff for our Solarpunk Press Oct. edition zine marginalia, and I need some ideas for technology to write about! Right now I have algae lamps and solar fabric. I tried searching “solarpunk technology” but not much came up. Anyone have any ideas?

Thank you!

Roses