In response to this saturation of despair, over the last years, a new genre is trying to come up with a different kind of storytelling. Known as solarpunk, this subgenre – as it is still a type of speculative fiction – deals with the reality of the climate crisis with a different approach. Instead of trying to foresee how the world might end, it tries to imagine different continuations.

The main shift for solarpunk is leaving the collapsing stories behind and focusing on what would happen if human societies learned somehow, how to live peacefully within the ecological limits. Now, this may not be confused with stories set in perfect worlds, there is conflict in the stories. But the basic assumptions in which these get built and developed are different: sustainability is possible, community and collective living are given, progress does not come at the expense of the environment. The stories are compelling because they are not centered around grand travels or epic, heroic interventions. The focus goes to daily life, how people grow their food, share their resources, how relationships are built and how they exist and coexist with their surrounding environments. What makes solarpunk groundbreaking is the reimagination of what living well and progress mean. The idea that the future is not something to prevent, or to survive, as cli-fi does, the future is something to look for, something that can be worth it.

A gentle example of this genre would be A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers [3]. This book is set in a world were humans transitioned to a more sustainable society after robots “disappeared” into the wilderness. The story does not revolve around saving the planet. The main character is the tea monk Dex – a mixture between a nomadic bartender and spiritual guide, let’s say – that feels a little bit dissatisfied with his life, and has two hopes: to find what is missing, and hear the crickets (that have gone extinct in most of the planet) someday. While he is traveling, Dex meets Mosscap, a robot that asks him a simple question: What do people need?

The story does not lead to any dramatic revelation or plot twist; it just goes on in simple dialogues and reflections while these two reflect about life. There is no heroic journey, no moment of transformation. That is the compelling strength of solarpunk. The contrast of the quite moments of daily life reflections put against cli-fi urgent dystopias. Dex’s search does not end up with a discovery, but with the acceptance of the fact that simply being, existing and enjoying life may be enough. The idea has a subtle but very deep implication. In our current worldview, our relationship with the world – socially and ecologically – is shaped by productivity, achievements, our impact in the world. We have to be productive, our purpose has to be larger than ourselves, we have to validate our presence. Environmentally speaking, our relationship with Nature has been defined by use, extraction, controlling the Nature. Even our efforts to protect it are quite often presented in terms of “what nature provides to us”. The mere consideration of our existence being just that, a quiet existence that does not need to be productive, is already challenging to the current worldview.

The image of Dex and Mosscap being happy and content “just by” drinking tea while finally being able to listen to some crickets becomes much more. They do not need to be productive or to change the world, all they need is to marvel at something they are part of. Sci-fi, in its evolutions from dystopian cli-fi scenarios to these calmer solarpunk possibilities, shows how important narratives are to us. We need the warnings, yes, but also stories that allow us to imagine a better way to live, not heroically but simply. Because maybe the most radical idea from these stories is not how to save the world, but how to belong to it.

Cover image: Tram circuit colonized by grass. Photo by goodguyale from Unsplash