Poor countries in the global south. They are likely to have revolutions and build a new society the soonest due to decreasing material conditions and a lack of alternatives. Wealthier countries will be able to use their money and power to maintain the status quo for much longer imo
Edit: I forgot I also wanted to mention Rojava, they have already begun building a society based around liberation and ecology. Their ideology is based off of Democratic Municipalism as imagined by Abdullah Öcalan and Murray Bookchin. This is a good start but obviously not an ending point for a “solarpunk” society
The Netherlands maybe? They already got the bicycle thing.
Definitely not the Netherlands, we’ve got a terrible case of American-style individualist brain-rot
Union membership rates in the Netherlands are like 10% only. Ever since the end of ‘Pillarisation’ we’ve been mostly individualist. The only real exceptions are religious communities and local sports clubs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation
We’ll need a massive cultural change first to make people care about their fellow citizens again. We’re too alienated.
I think Denmark has a much better chance, because their society favours collectivism a lot more. But then again Danish society has its own issues of course
I didn’t think Dutch individualism would be this much visible when I went there, I still think they do a lot of great things (especially in transportation or in urbanism) but yeah, I didn’t like the vibe at all.
What do you mean by solarpunk being a reality? That is really important as solarpunk is utopian and that somewhat litterally means no place. So you have to draw the line of what makes a country solarpunk enough to count. That basicly is a question of what your values are. Anyway some of my ideas are:
First of all technically speaking there is a massive problem of providing a high quality of life and no breaking planetary boundaries. Basicly rich countries provide the quality of life for nearly everybody, but break planetary boundaries, whereas poor countries do not break planetary boundaries, but do not provide a high quality of life. I really like the Happy Planet Index, which basicly takes how long a good a persons life is and divides its by the enviromental footprint. The regions which do the best in it are Latin America and then a bit worse is Europe. However some Asian countries do well as well. However those places are also more likely to just reform to the point of decent sustainability, as the cliff is not as bad.
If you want to see new organizational systems, you have to look at the most disadvantaged places in the current system. So places like Rojave and Zapatistas in Mexico are examples of that. However Subsaharan Africa is propably the most likely place for other new systems being born, given the current situation. If you have little to loose, taking risks is just a prudent move. So Europe for example is not going to try something like that at all.
The non-Catholic areas of Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia. Maybe Paraguay (I’ve never been there but heard good things).
Laos. There’s actually a sustainable tourism initiative I’m waiting to get more info on.
Some places in West Africa.
We could probably get it going here in Australia. We’ve got an awful lot of land not good for much other than solar arrays. We may need them to run desalination once all our natural water sources dry up. We already have communities living underground.
I’d love to think so, but I’m struggling to imagine what could initiate that sort of cultural change in the rural communities responsible for food production since the referendum has shown that the sorts of attitudes needed for a solarpunk society is missing from a lot of those areas. I’m sure climate change will soon make sustainability a priority for rural areas but that alone won’t change most of the other values
time for a Sixth International?
- Vietnam
- Naxalites
- Rojava
- Sankara’s Burkina Faso
- CNT
- Cuba
- IWW
- EZLN
We all have to share the same atmosphere. So what’s the point to have some eco-topia in just a few countries ?
Because it shows that it works in the real world and is not just wishfull thinking. It is much easier to say that you want Swiss railways, Dutch cycling infrastructure, with Sikkims agriculture, Rojaves political system, Costa Ricas reforestation policy, Bhutans electricity grid and so forth. The fact that it works somewhere makes it more likely to work in other places as well.
Yes I like those things, what bothers me about the original question, is the implication that for many countries it would never be “realistic”, in that case no good futures are realistic anywhere in the world. So, maybe the question should be adapted slightly, by adding “first” before the ? ?
It’s better than no place becoming an ecotopia.
India is becoming an Hinduvata hellscape, but the Kerala region has a centuries-old multifaith and multicultural ethos, boasts the highest literacy rate in all of India among other impressive human development indices, and #PoMoneModi frequently trends on Kerala’s language’s Twitter. This is all the more impressive and solarpunk due to Kerala’s deeply agrarian culture and industry.
It is my understanding that solarpunk inherently emphasizes local communities.
So I think, you have to look very closely on the circumstances in your local community. And that, you can only do from up-close. So you can’t tell in general.
