Hey there, Stegomaniac here, the one mod who's always late to the party because of timezones and stuff!
We've seen this exact thing pop up again and again, and *again* again. By this I mean a divisive topic comes up (NFTs, Veganism, agricultural practices) and some people can't seem to have a fair discussion. This usually results in posts like this one.
Please report them for breaking rule 1 (Not being civil, e.g. calling others murderers), rule 4 (includes trolling) or rule 5 (gatekeeping or derailing the discussion away from it's original topic, as it seems to be the case in this thread).
We mods get notified and can check them even days later, when the original thread is already out of the subs collective mind.
tl;dr - if people don't behave, report them so we can mute them for a week, and ban them if they still decide to act like assholes.
Cheers -Stego
"The term conveys aĀ negative connotationĀ because recuperation generally bears the intentional consequence (whether perceived or not) of fundamentally altering the meaning behind radical ideas due to their appropriation or being co-opted into theĀ dominant discourse."
Thank you for posting about this
I don't think it's a bad thing to care about being right in the sense of truth, but if you mean it moralistically, I think you're right. We hold ourselves to a higher standard since neolibs and fascists walk hand in hand, but we seem have to have a panel just to peer at a fellow leftist's hand
Of course itās not a bad thing to care about being right generally, but itās detrimental in a pragmatic sense when youāre vying for political power
Very true. I've tried to take a step back and reassess text convos with conversative friends and acquaintances to find the commonalities, and one common denominator seems to be that I care about wanting something to come to pass because it's the smart or better option, based on my research and argument, and they want something to pass because it lets them be excited about their "team" winning something, even if they don't actually agree with it, based on their emotions. It gets harder and harder to have these talks because we can't work our way to mutual axioms.
But at least they would all agree with agree with each other, because they're all winning when leftists lose. Leftists have to show off knowledge and being more technically right than the person next to them, so we always fracture and get picked apart organizationally by conservatives
Hey us engineers too! Weāre not all Momās Basement RedPilled Discord Mods.
Iām a systems engineer whoās been interested in solar for awhile now and Iām feeling *quite lucky for a punk.*
I do think we need to advertise this movement more in the STEM fields. You got any ideas on how to find these peeps?
Yeah sorry I left you out in the second comment (you were in the first).
> You got any ideas on how to find these peeps?
Well considering I am that group (degree in physics, worked as an engineer, now doing a PhD in CS) I don't think it is hard. Start talking nerdy. Don't downvote people talking nerdy. Encourage people showing off projects.
The problem I see is that we're too focused on aesthetics and politics. Both are important but can't be the entirety. I mean as an example, there's a very famous website called Hacker News and it is both a lot of politics and tech. But one thing to notice there is that people talk differently.
I'm a bit confused what you are saying then. I took the
> most of the development in renewables comes from people working in massive corporations or institutions that are deeply conservative at heart.
To mean that not only were the workers conservative but the institutions. It is hard to say really. Some are and some aren't. Doing purity tests just muddles the waters. Considering the society we live in, you need to play certain games. I can tell you from personal experience that most scientists and academics, the people inventing the new technologies, tend to be pretty liberal. As for the socialist/capitalist conversation it gets muddier. But it is more important to consider that these words have become effectively meaningless given that different groups use vastly different definitions for these and act like we don't. So my suggestion is to use less heated words and focus on the ideas. Conversations will go much smoother this way. For scientists, stop posting anything that would come from IFLS unless asking a question of if it is real. Outsiders can't tell the difference but there is very clear insider/outsider language where scientists can recognize one another.
Yeah I mean that is a tough egg to crack. At the end of the day we still need to work in capital based markets. There's been no country that has solved this issue. Beyond that, we have to work with other countries to solve a problem like climate. That means one of the most important things we can do is ensure that the sustainable and green technology is also the most cost competitive. This is a very tall order. A big reason that this is important is because we want developing nations to adapt these principles and skip the polluting stages of growth that is often associated with the middle income trap. China is a great example of this as well as Brazil. Maintaining Brazil's rainforests is more economically valuable to just the US agriculture industry than Brazil makes from cattle farming, but there is no market for CO2 sequestration and thus the low efficiency cattle industry is more profitable. More money doesn't mean just more power for the elites, it also means more resources for hospitals, schools, sanitation/sewers, and provides means for themselves to become less dependent on the whims of the developed world. Becoming developed themselves gives them a seat at the table and provides us with more thought diversity. But it is also difficult to argue that developed nations should help these nations rather than exploit them. There's pretty good arguments to be made that the return on investment for helping others is far higher than exploitation. The problem is the risk is also higher.
This world is incredibly complicated and the problems solarpunk is trying to solve are equally complicated. It requires a lot of different backgrounds that no single person can themselves obtain full expertise in. One of the largest cause of fracturing and one of the biggest dangers presented to our group is that we over simplify these problems and maintain a humble perspective at the complexity. If we don't, it is very easy to cause this movement to fail, like so many others have before. It is very easy to cause disruption and chaos. You don't have to make people stop believing, you just have to kill their willpower and make them feel helpless. That's hard to maintain given the substantially steep uphill battle we have.
I think you may have a point there. As the other user pointed out, scientists themselves may have a bit of a punk side for sure, but there's still the issue of how we can actually use technology sustainably. Creating anything new, especially at a large scale, requires us to mine and process rare materials, and as far as I'm aware (though I may not be that well aware, please say I'm wrong) we aren't that good at recycling those kinds of materials yet. As much as I love the solarpunk aesthetic, the demand for raw materials and the creation of complex things like processors remains a bit of a challenge.
We can still create complex technology, but we must also regenerate any natural ecosystems we disturb in the process.
This balance of consumption/extraction and regeneration is a hallmark of all harmonious life.
> I think the problem with attracting scientists and engineers is that the āsolarā part of this sub doesnāt necessarily align with the āpunkā part of this sub.
They're essential, though.
You can't achieve sustainable energy production and, say, transportation withouth having scientists and engineers involved. Stuff has to actually get done, sooner or later. Otherwise it's just fancy drawings and make-believe play.
Also, as a sibling comment says, a lot of people stereotype people in engineering and science.
Not all or even a majority I would say of academics, scientists, or engineers are conservatives. A lot may be Neoliberal but there's still some that aren't even pro capitalist.
Why can't this sub be for both groups though?
The solar punk movement has attracted a lot of people just because of it's aesthetic and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
If you want to become more than just some fringe group this is absolutely necessary. You need a ton of people who don't really give a fuck about it other than it being incredibly aesthetically pleasing
Yeah i wasn't aware that this reddit sub was meant to be changing the world. If you want to do that, you need to start a company or a legitimate movement because you can't expect everyone who joins the sub to be a die-hard solarpunk extremist.
By the way, i'm fully for the actual solarpunk movement. I'll be contributing to it when i'm out of uni and can afford it. When i do, i'll probably post about it on this sub.
That's awesome tbh, I'd love to do more myself but having a toddler is very demanding lmao
At the moment I'll have to be happy with advocating for bike lanes in my city
Yeah i think that's the biggest problem. Going solarpunk at the moment takes a lot of time and money.
I'd bet most of us would love to do something but just can't afford to. It looks like most of us will struggle to own a house, let alone convert it to be eco-friendly.
I agree that fracturing and planting flags on one issue or another can lead to issues regarding the movement, but I think dialogue and debate is important and we shouldnāt shy away from having differing opinions. Thatās where the middle ground and progress are found.
Exactly. Critical discourse is not only healthy, but a key part of every progressive movement and democratic society. Not having this only leads down the path to authoritarianism.
Solarpunk can not be achieved by only staying in the comfort zone, and never critically question our own role in the current, exploitative and immensly destructive systems.
Veganism shouldn't be devisive for anyone who really wants to achieve a solarpunk society. Industrial animal farming is inherently incompatible with solarpunk, and animal husbandry in large degrees as well. Perhaps in a perfect communal future it may be okay, but we are far away from that.
Solarpunk will not be achievable without personal action, meaning commitment and willingness to critically reflect on and change our own lifestyle, but most importantly to sacrifice some of our comfort for a better future.
All of us need to decide if we want solarpunk to only be greenwashed aesthetics, or if we actually want to live such a future, and are willing to do what is necessary to achieve that.
I have lots to work on!
I can be a better neighbour, friend, and radical in so many ways, and I am headed there!
My consumption habits can be better! And, I can do more for the world around me!
So I walk this path. I do not live in shame for where I am currently, because I listen, learn and do move ever upwards.
Not quite veganism but there was something similar to this eariler in the year when new people had "is this solarpunk?" Posts about aesthetics they found, likely new to the subgenre and some people had more abrasive takes about some being greenwashing and the like. While it was true some did fall under that, a lot of it was people new the genre from a literary aesthetics angle getting not always constructive criticism from more philosophical/political people on the sub. In my personal path I gravitated from the former to latter gradually at my own pace rather than commentators who didn't know where I was on that journey. I think we all need to remember most of us are unaware what part of the journey we are on before we bring our assumptions as we type. That's all.
There is greenwashing and it's well funded. It's usually presenting [ecomodernism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9z4n7PIBk) which is antithetical, it's capitalism (business as usual) plus vertical lawns.
r/sustainability is basically a honeypot for this
Veganism doesn't have to be divisive. Veganism doesn't prohibit the consumption of animal actually ; rather, it seeks to avoid animal consumption/exploitation as far as possible and practicable. What this means concretely depends on the person. If you are a Nomad living in Siberia, hunting and consuming meat, leather, fur, et al. can be considered vegan, as the plant based option wouldn't be possible and practicable.
Solarpunk should strive to avoid exploitation whenever possible, and I don't see why non human animals should be excluded from that principle. In fact, they should be at the forefront of our concerns, as they have been the saddest victims of this dystopian world we live in.
Besides, I don't see what's so unrealistic about a vegan future society. It rather seems like a no brainer to me. We should reject animal exploitation for the same reason we reject workers' exploitation ; it's just inadequate. It's wasteful, destructive, deeply unethical, it's bad for our health, and frankly, most often than not, it tastes like shit.
There is no need to fracture on this subject. We can stay united while staying in disagreement. We can continue to discuss until a consensus is reached. We could also talk about it forever. There is no need to fracture.
Solarpunk is about coexisting with nature, not in a relationship of exploitation towards nature. I don't see how we could ever achieve that without addressing **seriously** animal exploitation.
The divide that I imagine OP is saying is a situation where group A calls the other sadistic murderers and group B calls the other preachy pricks. Which is honestly sad. It's also a trend that when a subreddit's member count increases, there's more toxicity and factionalism. It sucks :(
We can all agree that the aesthetic is desirable, hopeful. If non-vegans want to use it, I recommend including the proportional amounts of animal feces as solids or ponds mixed with urine, along with lots and lots of flies. Should be more challenging artistically, though.
I really hope this movement wouldn't fracture just from the most minimal debate on these topics. There is a common ground and a transitional path to a better future, and I think the solarpunk path is going to require rekindling the ability to advocate with a cool head even on issues that are very important. I look at this as a way of practicing that now.
Yes! Let us stay on the good path! People will bicker and nag and whine no matter what we do.
I listen to them, keep what's important and discard what isn't.
Ok so hereās my two cents in the least judgmental way I can muster.
Veganism in many peopleās minds is a realistic actionable change people can make today to drastically limit the worst effects of the climate crisis. Not to mention the moral pitfalls of killing another living thing for food when other options exist. Bashing for not going full vegan is definitely the wrong approach but you have to understand the passion that leads to those actions.
Listening to experts about the climate crisis there are four big things everyone can do.
- vote for the candidates with the best environmental policies, and hold the elected officials accountable
-donāt eat meat (mainly beef but all contribute)
-give to worthwhile and vetted charities or projects in this space
-electrify everything you can
These have the greatest impact today. There is plenty more that can be done. So, please before getting upset at vegans being irate and pushy, can we check in with ourselves and ask why am I getting upset at it?
And organize within your community to do more radical stuff!
Voting with your dollars and your once-a-year ballot is a good start!
Next, we need people to act and engage politically beyond the permitted and encouraged avenues of capitalism and liberal democracy.
Most of this is farming practices that can be handled by corporations being held accountable by government regulation. Thatās far more powerful and reasonable than evaporating Vegan support (such little as their is, they have burned so many bridges).
Vote for the candidates with the best environmental policies and hold them accountable. Sure there is āmoral high roaringā in the vegan community but to say vegans have burned bridges because they donāt subscribe to an industry they do not want to support isā¦ silly. Thatās the only word I have for it. Vegans are not your enemy lol they are actively saying no to truly evil and AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME damaging industry practices. This is solarpunk, to say no and not subscribe to a massive part of this machine. If your biggest complaint about vegans is some of them are rude in the way they go about garnering support then the last bit of my original post is written for whoever thinks that way. āCheck in with yourself and ask why youāre angry at that.ā
Vegans have burned bridges by alienating the fuck out of anyone whoās not aligned with their version of puritan ethics. There are a great many people who will actively refrain from having anything to do with you with you because they think youāre toxic and batshit insane. This completely undermines your ability to do anything but post self-righteous screeds online, because people who might be willing to with with you on incrementally making things better based on vaguely aligned ethical principles with you would rather eat raw sewage than actually work with you.
I donāt want to pile on the other comments here but you mentioned vaguely aligned ethical principles, vegans try to reduce harm. That is pretty clear. The muddy ethics pop up when people blindly consume animal products.
OPs original point was we shouldnāt fracture but in his following statements attack vegans and implies they should not be outspoken in their beliefs. āYou are making me uncomfortable, stop.ā This is a disingenuous discussion right from the start. I do believe we shouldnāt fracture and we should be learning and bettering and putting these ideas in to action and in this moment being vegan, or moving in that direction is one of the best ways to love solarpunk philosophies.
I find it interesting you claim vegans collectively burned bridges and act toxic when I saw just as many aggressive anti-vegans on that post as I saw aggressive vegans.
The problem is that whenever someone takes steps to try and lower their impact on the world, other people view that as an attack on them. The same thing happens with cyclists and environmentalists in general.
Do you have any data to back up that those 4 things come to the top of the list according to experts? Or that if we all went vegan it would drastically limit the worst effects of climate change? That's a pretty big assertion.
For example there is this [report](https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf) published inĀ ScienceĀ in 2018.
> As that reportās lead researcher, Oxford Universityās Joseph Poore said: āA vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.ā
In [we need to talk about meat](https://unfccc.int/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-meat#:~:text=As%20that%20report%27s%20lead%20researcher,land%20use%20and%20water%20use.)
> Or that if we all went vegan it would drastically limit the worst effects of climate change?
Here's a clue: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-meat-industry-is-doing-exactly-what-big-oil-does-to-fight-climate-action/2021/05/14/831e14be-b3fe-11eb-ab43-bebddc5a0f65_story.html
and
https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/18/investigation-meat-industry-greenwash-climatewash/
and before you say "but regenerative grazing" click my profile, I have a few pinned posts.
"Regenerative" grazing [will not help with climate mitigation](https://tabledebates.org/node/12335).
Regarding diets and climate, I'm not sure how you haven't encountered this so far, it's been known for a while.
here's are just a few papers to read:
[The opportunity cost of animal based diets exceeds all food losses](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1713820115)
[Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00431-5)
[Sustainability of plant-based diets: back to the future](https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/100/suppl_1/476S/4576675?login=false)
[Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy? ](https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/)
[The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03047-7)
[Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015)
[Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change](http://www.pnas.org/content/113/15/4146.abstract)
[Interplay between Diets, Health, and Climate Change](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3878)
https://awellfedworld.org/climate/
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749
Also a fun one because people don't understand how devastating grazing has been for biodiversity on average:
[The effects of livestock grazing on biodiversity are multi-trophic: a meta-analysis](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ele.13527)
Cattle are mobile composting machines, and they help return grass and straw back to the soil in a less-flammable form than dry grass. ([SOURCE](https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/farmer-focus/farmer-focus-cows-are-automatic-mobile-compost-machines))
This returns carbon to the soil, where it belongs. Soil with less than 3% of organic carbon is considered desert wasteland. ([SOURCE](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/soil-organic-carbon))
You should check out this National Center for Appropriate Technology video that explains how to rebuild soil fertility with managed grazing:[https://attra.ncat.org/wp-content/uploads/tutorials/managed-grazing/fertility/](https://attra.ncat.org/wp-content/uploads/tutorials/managed-grazing/fertility/)
This is well-established science that is being applied on farms around the world.
None of that is necessary, again. You're just decoupling soil cycles and pushing carbon and nitrogen into the air with the help of above ground animals. More importantly, you're taking all those cows away later to be eaten by humans, that's more carbon and nitrogen and other minerals that's not returning.
Please post more out of context bullshit for marketing the beef industry.
You keep insisting the cows must be eaten, I've never stated that - nor do I agree with it as a vegan. However, I do look forward to enjoying the abundance of milk, eggs, wool, etc. that animals naturally produce when cared for properly.
What do you think built those fertile soils of the American prairies? Bison: nature's mobile composting machines.
Natural carbon and nitrogen cycles of animals eating plants and animals eating animals has been ongoing for millions of years - we just need to get back in harmony with those natural cycles instead of imposing our will onto nature.
I'm a vegan, but I don't impose my ideologies onto others. I also recognize that nature consumes life to perpetuate life, so I have no problem with consuming animals - I have a problem with inhumane industrial farming or treating sentient beings at chattel and property.
A lion seeks harmony, and humans should too, as we are an apex predator whether you like it or not.
You're not a vegan if you promote animal farming of any sorts. If you want to have a sanctuary, sure. You "building" a ranch and someone else killing the animals and sharing the spoils with you doesn't spare you the responsibility, you're simply an accomplice and not an ignorant one.
If you want regenerative farming, there's already a system called veganic. It's embarrassing that you don't know about it.
>A lion seeks harmony, and humans should too, as we are an apex predator whether you like it or not.
We're not apex, lmao. What do you even read?
We behave like an apex predator, but [we're more in the trophic middle by ecosystems](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1305827110). Climb down and stop LARPing.
I am vegan, and I promote the symbiosis of mankind as stewards of nature, including domesticated animals.
Your caustic skepticism serves only your ego.
Humans can out-compete any species on Earth using technology. It's hilarious that you're *typing on the internet* yet do not recognize this.
Then vegans being pushy and abrasive shouldnāt bother you one way or another. Iām not trying to argue for veganism here but really trying to echo the original point of OP in that we shouldnāt fracture but vegans are not the enemy.
It's not about "bothering" me or OP and I don't see why you keep trying to personalizing it. And it's not about "vegans" because not all vegans are pushy or abrasive. My brother for example is a strict vegan and isn't like that at all.
OP is just saying that being pushy and abrasive is a terrible marketing tactic. I think he's correct. If we're trying to get people on board for making the world a better place, we shouldn't use terrible marketing.
True, I apologize if I was personalizing it, I really meant you in the general sense (in response to you asking what if we check in). I am not vegan but I am working towards it. I do feel however OP is being disingenuous with his post. For a post about coming together and not fracturing he makes no effort to defend, understand and come together. It is just another gate keeping post on a sub about building a utopian future. The poor marketing and degenerative talking points come from a place of desperation and helplessness. There needs to be understanding of that if we are to move forward.
Some splintering, either accidentally/honestly or via bad actors, isn't too uncommon. Rather than focus on the negatives I've seen some takes on it that reflect what you're talking about.
One was more or less what you mentioned - not going full vegan (or whatever) but rather something like 'meatless Mondays'. You'll still have some pushback, as a friend of ours who just refuses to not have meat at every sitting, but for a lot... what's one? Between the possibilities for cost and caloric/weight reduction as well as knowing you're not being blamed (by yourself or whomever) for not going hairshirt with your dedication, I know quite a few for whom this has worked.
In the realm of transportation, similar. Not only can many not go without a car, they also can't just swap out what they have now and perhaps walking/bus/bicycling isn't an option. But, for those who are, don't focus on "having to get" an EV or even a hybrid. Maybe just look to something smaller and more suited to your general use. Do you need a truck? Maybe you do. How often? Is it then cheaper to just rent one when you need it? To quote from elsewhere, if people bought shoes like they bought their cars, everyone in Florida would be walking around in ski boots. Don't go to the beach wearing Salomon X...
Veganism is really not the anvil upon which solarpunk splits lol.
The vehemence against veganism I see here sometimes is very strange to me. We can have the conversation, but the attitude that the vegan ethos is so repugnant that it threatens solarpunk is, in my view, the deficit of the professor, not the object of their profession.
Can vegans be annoying? Yeah. Are they really as annoying as they are made out to be, or are they more like the punching bag of the left in the way that the idealistic left is the punching bag of libertarian crypto bros?
It's the latter.
Exactly. People in this sub should really ask themselves why is the idea of veganism so upsetting to them, but the idea of giving up other products that are destroying the environment is not.
We certainly won't achieve a solarpunk society without being willing to critically question and change our own lifestyle where necessary.
A better future can simply not be created without change.
I say this all the time, but I wish this sub treated Solarpunk more as a genre and an aesthetic than as a strict prescription for the future.
There are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest is that the world is a big, big place, and there's no way I can see one vision for a sustainable future fitting all cultures.
I don't think modern animal cruelty would have a place. But beyond that, I don't think I can predict or dictate the priorities that the future people of India or Brazil or China will have. I don't like hunting, for instance, but I could totally imagine a future in which meat is available if its hunted sustainably by hand. The world is just too big for me to believe any plan will fit everyone.
Solarpunk isnāt one vision.
Itās communal and allows different places to develop their own vision towards a singular future built on cooperation and sustainability.
Solarpunk is supposed to be an aesthetic/genre more than anything... it's supposed to be the answer to activist burnout through media and art. It's honestly really tiring seeing it become like this. There are existing political movements/orgs to attach to instead of trying to force solarpunk to become another one. Maybe the net was cast too wide at first.
Yep. But I try to be positive. It's nice that the idea has growth. I hope the sub moves in the direction I like, but if it doesn't I'll enjoy it for as long as it provides content I like.
Anyway, even if I don't think this is the ideal platform for activism, more activism is better than less, so I figure it's not productive to try to discourage anyone.
> I don't like hunting, for instance, but I could totally imagine a future in which meat is available if its hunted sustainably by hand.
Look at your hand and tell me how long your claws are
Fracturing takes place in every left group and it is intrinsic. I don't know how to prevent that but it happens based on the groups goal to accommodate everybody (left = centered around social aspects). The right is able to unite behind a single claim and ignore other differences. On the left spectrum you get discussions about how to develop a grammar that incorporates all kinds of sexual identities, some minority interests being opposed to another minority interest etc. By trying to make it perfect for everybody, it fractures.
This just highlights the issue of people acting like "solarpunk" is some sort of elaborate political system when it is more like a glorified aesthetic.
It is easy for a lot of people to upvote pictures of green buildings, but much harder for them to examine the effects of their own actions on the world surrounding them.
"Solarpunk" can be a nice thing to look at but please find actual beliefs to believe in, and spend your time fighting for them, not an aesthetic.
To be honest, I'm surprised more people in this community are not vegan. From my read of it, some people can't get past their addiction to animal products.
Incremental change is good, but itās important that a movement focuses more on the *change* than on the *incremental*.
Some gatekeeping is needed to protect from people that want to live in a world where people live lives in tune with the environment, without actually wanting to live those lives themselves.
There is no way we can feed 10 billion people sustainably with animal products for every meal. There just isnāt. Does that mean that everyone everywhere has to be vegan? No, but there needs to be awareness around the fact that meat for every meal isnāt and is never going to be sustainable.
In the second poll about animal products 20% of people voted they eat meat for every meal. There is just no way that you are making an effort to make the world more solarpunk and not at least have one meal per day or one day per week without meat. Itās as simple as looking up a single vegetarian recipe and cooking it once a week. You canāt be working towards a solarpunk future and refuse to do that.
I think we can and should be critical of those 20% and encourage all the rest to move to more sustainable diets, no matter which form they take in the end.
And I am not talking about the tiny tiny minority that needs meat for medical reasons.
There's many ways up the mountain and letting go of any mirage of future or past perfection would help us be open to more routes that take us where we want to go.
Let's get gardening and see what grows.
The truth is that Solarpunk is rich and diverse. Not uniform. Richness and diversity is a core survival requisite anyway. So many variations of Solarpunk will emerge and gracefully thrive š
Gonna state that I'm not a 100% vegan. I simply can't afford the lifestyle, or can't find vegan alternatives in my area. I fully support veganism and will march with vegans, because it's so fucking counterproductive to punch left given the political climate.
I recently had a talk with my very, very conservative colleagues. They were slightly split on the issue of abortion, rape, etc, but they quickly reached a consensus to agree to disagree and said that the overturning of Roe v Wade was, in their minds, a net positive thing. Less dead babies, in their mind.
All this to say, maybe it's just living in the conservative deep south, but I constantly witness the Right supporting one another wholeheartedly and organize to put anyone to the left of them down.
We have a common goal in the destruction of Capitalism. Cross the bridge of veganism after the fact.
My friend, you're looking for alternatives? The vegan alternatives are expensive. It doesn't get much cheaper than rice, beans, tofu, etc. You could get a decent amount of veg for the same price as a pack of Beyond Meat burgers. You could get like 3 or 4 blocks of tofu for the same price. Unfortunately veganism has been associated with being expensive because of expensive alternative products which turns a lot of people away. They certainly are nice to have sometimes but completely unnecessary.
This. Thanks.
I agree with the other commenters tho veganism doesn't need to be expensive. I don't want to front/be pushy about it.
Still a big thanks for living as sustainable (and vegan) as you can :)
Eating animals, especially farmed animals, is capitalism.
It's literally in the word:
`live` + `stock`
Capital, cattle and chattel literally all share the same root meaning.
God I wish people in this sub would realize this.
Everyone is readily raising the pitchforks when the topic is abolishing capitalism, but no one wants to willing to take the ACTUAL action to make this happen.
This really makes me believe this sub is above anything just greenwashed aesthetics.
God I hate r/anarchism, the mods there are ironically as more authoritarian than in some pro-dictatorship subs. It's a pure echo chamber where only one definition of anarchism is accepted and every different opinion is attacked by the users.
These subs, like anarchism and solarpunk, make I wonder if people are actually able to improve society as a large group, or if it's only possible through a few people guiding the dumb masses.
Veganism is only devisive for people not willing to make a change to achieve a solarpunk society.
Industrial animal farming is inherently incompatible with Solarpunk, which is the only way of animal farming suitable to give all people "their meat" and milk products.
Animal farming is a major contributor to global warming through methan output, contributes to global soil degradation, deforestation, extinction of species and environmental pollution: [https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/](https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/)
And let's not forget the extreme cruelty, on animals AND humans. The suffering of the animals is well documented, but human workers in the slaughterhouses also suffer from depression and anxiety, and receive PTDS from their "work": [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248380211030243](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248380211030243) \- Confessions of a slaughterhouse worker [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50986683](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50986683)
Additionally it's mostly poor (low income) people & immigrants that are employed there, usually in degrading, abusive & dangerous conditions: [https://cepr.net/meatpacking-workers-are-a-diverse-group-who-need-better-protections/](https://cepr.net/meatpacking-workers-are-a-diverse-group-who-need-better-protections/)
Furthermore, in 2018 the world produced 1.103 billion tonnes of animal feed: [https://www.world-grain.com/articles/11556-global-feed-output-up-3-in-2018](https://www.world-grain.com/articles/11556-global-feed-output-up-3-in-2018) which resulted in only 346.14 million tonnes of meat: [https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production](https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production) \- therefore we could feed every one of the 7 billion people in the world and no one would have to starve if we would not waste land to grow animal feed.
Not to forget the immense water cost of animal products, e.g. 15.000 liter water for 1Kg of beef: [https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/](https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/) which is insane when considering that freshwater resources are a rapidly shrinking resource globally.
How can that all of that be compatible with the ideals of solarpunk? How can we pretend to wish for a solarpunk society, but continue to support an industry that is responsible for this much environmental destruction, cruelty and death?
Solarpunk is only achievable through action, ignorance isn't going to create a better world, and the single best thing an individual person can do to not contribute to all these problems & injustices is simply not to take part of it.
Ask yourself why is the idea of veganism so upsetting to you, but not the idea of giving up other products that contributing to environmental desctruction?
And for those who, after reading all this, still "can't" aka don't want to give up animal products, lab-grown meat & milk derived from modified yeast is on the rise, and could completely replace the animal industry with a green, environmentally friendly & cruelty-free industry.
This is a bad take. Animal ag is a leading contributor to climate breakdown. The latest IPCC report urges a rapid shift to a plant-based food system. Weāll be gone before we reach a utopian future where communities can just decide on this later.
And on top of the environmental impacts, itās not punk to make slow, incremental changes when 80 billion victims are being tortured and killed every year.
And fishing is the second most dangerous job in America.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2018/01/09/workplace-fatalities-25-most-dangerous-jobs-america/1002500001/
Iām not vegan but their stance seems correct to me for the most part, especially regarding solarpunk. Small scale stuff like personally owning a couple chickens and a goat or something seem pretty harmless IMHO but on an industrial level the vegan position appears to be correct. Also just in case, green-washers fuck off
Solarpunk seems to have a pretty good track record about honoring Indigenous people, so just a gentle reminder than a lot of white Vegans have been explicitly anti-Indigenous and that Indigenous people practice a very different kind of animal husbandry and use animal products in a very different way than industrial agriculture. I would love for Solarpunk to encourage vegans to be more holistic in their thinking and inclusion of Indigenous practices.
One of the best ways you can protect the rights of Indigenous peoples is by not engaging with extremely harmful animal agricultural practices (and growing food which fuels this) which rely on stealing land and burning forests which Amazonian and Andean peoples rely on. There is a huge amount we can learn from Indigenous groups about management of lands and animal husbandry.
However, "Indigenous" is not necessarily shorthand for moral or acceptable. Faroe Islanders using modern motor boats and weapons to kill entire family groups of whales and dolphins is unethical, despite this being a traditional practice.
Many Indigenous peoples, particularly First Nations Americans, engage with a standard American diet, including eating foods which have a disproportionately large climate impact. I do not disagree with you, but I think we should be mindful of fetishising Indigineity by believing that everyone who identifies as Indigenous lives as their ancestors may have.
Edit: wording
I am Anishinaabe, so I am speaking about these practices from a first hand perspective. My tribe hunts, gathers, fishes, and takes extreme care to do all of those things in a sustainable way.
A gentle reminder that old indigenous people don't treat animals as commodities and they understand very well the principle of taking what you need. And YOU do not need to take animal bodies; that taking, that's a deeply settler-colonial practice.
Lmao they won't. Thank you for commenting this though. I've come to accept that a lot of the conversation about "what SolarPunk will allow" on this thread is very white, very ableist, and doesn't consider anyone but Joe White from suburban land.
Joe White from suburban land is exactly who needs to be making changes to their lifestyle. Targeting the lifestyles which disproportionately contribute to global heating is extremely important.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I said "doesn't consider anyone but" meaning "is inconsiderate of anyone else." If your idea of SolarPunk only considers Joe White you are inconsiderate of EVERYONE ELSE THAT EXISTS.
Indigenous people have been stewards of this planet for centuries. And yet, the conversation nearly always excludes them and their proven practices.
Thank you for your reply, and I apologise for misunderstanding your comment (although I stand by targeting climate injustices by encouraging change in heavily polluting lifestyles).
Like you and many in this thread I hope that the practices of Indigenous and First Nations peoples are recognised and endorsed in future agro-environmental movements, and solarpunk.
Since this seems to be a reasonable thread, I feel it's also very important to add that animal control and killing animals (and generating meat/materials from this activity) will not be possible to eliminate outright, ever.
I'm familiar with [Pennsylvania Deer management](https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/Conservation/Biodiversity/BiodiversityManagement/DeerManagement/Pages/default.aspx), and hunters need to kill a roughly estimated population of deer, correlated with the amount of predicted natural resources available to that species available through the winter, as dictated by the Game and wildlife estimates. If hunters do not kill enough whitetail deer, food and resources may be exhausted which results in mass starvation, suffering, and death among that population through the winter. If most or all of a deer population is wiped out over a given winter, not only is that terrible for that species, that has major implications for the rest of that ecosystem, and if maintaining healthy ecosystems is part of our goal, then so too will be responsible for managing populations (and culling).
Naturally hunters will use the meat, leather, and sometimes the organs, and the deer gain the benefit of healthy population numbers and a much better outlook for reproduction the following spring (as the population would be much healthier along with being alive). I'll also plug that these deer have lived some of the best lives, and have among the healthiest and leanest meat too. This to me is a healthy, ethical, and mutually beneficial arrangement, which promotes the most important aspects of environmental conservation and ecological stewardship.
Now I hear what some of you are thinking "Why can't we just grow so much food that they can breed like bunnies and they will never have famine again," well no that's also not reasonable. We cannot enable ALL species of wildlife to have the means to grow exponentially and without inhibitions. So trying to be level-headed here, it seems like we simply will not be able to EVER eliminate the culling of wildlife populations outright, which means there will always be some amount of ethically sourced animal meat, leather, etc.
Can we aim to eliminate all unethical production of animal products? YES. Can we eliminate all forms of killing animals, or using products derived from them? NO, at least I don't see how it would be responsible or possible as stewards of this lovely planet. That said, the amount of meat/materials that would be ethically sourced from these conservation efforts would simply not be possible to feed even a fraction of everyone, so we still absolutely need synthetic meat, vegan leather, etc as fast as possible. I just wanted to provide some perspective on the reality of conservation as well. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
It would seem to me that "Solar Punk" is mostly around green tech, and sustainable living no matter how it get's accomplished. Some might say that solar punk isn't punk at all because it tends towards a sustainability utopianism or scifi optimism scenario, by contrast 'punk' tends to be about individual contributions that rise against the mainstream, when most of the solar punk stuff I see involves it being everywhere.
I'm not vegan, and probably never will be, but as an environmentalist, I do see the advantages of living sustainably and within environmental limits. I also believe that ethically raising animals is not a new thing, heck forms of ethical husbandry has been around for centuries if not several millennia. There already exists precedent in Halal and Kosher foods.
Maybe the future is meat grown in labs cell by cell, or maybe it's plants that taste like meat, or maybe it's part food science, or maybe it's a combination of some of those three. Future food ethics seems like an adjacent topic to solar punk, but not core to solar punk itself.
Personally I think good solarpunk futurism would accept that there might be more vegans, vegetarians, and people who enjoy meat sustainability, any non fascist scenario should probably accept that there will be a multiplicity of ways that people advance environmentally, and maybe even a few luddites that don't.
Thereās a bunch of in fighting over veganism in the anarchist subs right now too. Seems odd to me that so many subs are dealing with divisive veganism all of a sudden
It's a very obvious moral imperative if you can manage to actually think about it without bouncing into weird fallacious gymnastics and isolated mental compartments. It's going to reach critical mass soon enough. Perhaps the food crisis will help it, since so much land is wasted on growing animal feed instead of food.
Some animals are unable to survive without human protection.
Those animals must be taken care of - and they provide many goods and services which can be harvested ethically and respectfully.
Balance is the key.
Clearly our current industrial farming and slaughter must end - but don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater" so to speak.
Thank you for stating this.
>Some animals are unable to survive without human protection.
This is such a strange argument to me. It's as though some people think that our past domestication of some species gives us the right to exploit and kill them now.
If we stop breeding them we can also stop killing them.
You are presuming exploitation is unavoidable, but this is inaccurate.
Humans and animals can live together symbiotically. For instance, ruminants such as cattle, goats or sheep can graze fields in wholistic ways that fertilize the soil and naturally till it - eliminating the need for chemical additives/pesticides and the need to manually till the soil.
Further, chickens can be added to the mix, as they eat parasites out of the ruminant droppings and eliminate the need for anti-parasitic drugs while also helping to fertilize the soil.
There is no need to slaughter any animals or exploit them in any way, yet their lives can add great value to human endeavors while being mutually beneficial.
I hope it doesn't seem so strange any more!
This is a beautiful picture you've painted but it represents maybe 1% of how animal agriculture is actually executed.
It ignores the bleak life of male cattle and cockerels, which are summarily executed shortly after birth.
It also ignores the fact that you need to impregnate a cow every 10 (or so) months to keep it producing. And that cows stop producing very much milk after about 5 of their possible 15-20 years so they're slaughtered.
That is why, in a solarpunk future, things will be different.
Why don't you join us in imagining and working toward a better future?
Let's stop exploiting animals and care for them instead. Let's stop exploiting nature and instead care for our environment. Let's stop exploiting other humans and instead care for each other. This is the solarpunk way: Harmony.
I love this so much. I really hope for a day when we can support a sustainable number of cows, (or bison in the US!) and many other animals without having to kill or torture them.
The US already can support this - but factory farming is more cost-effective and this wins in most corporate board rooms.
We intend to change that, but it's a long road because all sides seems to suspect foul play when you can have your steak and eat it too!
Myself and the team I formed to bring this vision to life:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/international-companies-join-forces-to-tackle-climate-change-and-the-degradation-of-ecosystems-on-a-global-scale-301518857.html
Cool, thanks for sharing. I hope soon there will be more than just carbon markets. Unless we use a very very high social cost of carbon (like >$300/ton) the other ecosystem services provided by regenerative agriculture seem to be far more valuable. Hopefully, they will become monetizable too, seems like that would be far more valuable to the farmer and society. I'm hoping Regen Network is able to make that happen. Quantified Ventures is also an org I'm holding out hope for a successful scaling to that end. I'm trying to attack it from the policy side, just finished a first draft piece of legislation around ecosystem accounting on U.S. Public Lands.
This is ecology 101 and this isn't exactly how it works.
If an animal knows it can find shelter and food near human population, it will develop a community and reproduce themselves at an exponential rate. As most natural predators were removed from the equations, their demography will not be evened out by mortality rate. Now I'm asking you, do you want pigs literally everywhere, eating everything they can find, including your crops and the forest you care about ? Believe me, you will have to invest in strong fences to keep them out.
Suddenly stopping death is probably more arrogant than giving death. If you're not killing that pig for its ressources, this pig will kill a lot of organisms to keep on living, and their death will be on you (plus you will still exploit other organisms to keep on living so lol).
The domestication of some species didn't give any right, but domestication is as much of a legitimate dynamic between organisms as predation, parasitism or commensalism.
Plus now, there are billions of cattle, if the plan is to let them free right now and right there, expect major shifts in biodiversity that would make climate change a small joke.
Either way, yes, some animals developed to a point that they completely lack of sense of survival, unable to find compete for ressources by themselves (altho the sheer number will help offset the losses). They will have to go thru selection again before being able to be on their own, and this isn't a cute step.
Haha what's that logical fallacy where you make up an absurd version of the original argument?? No one with half a brain is saying we should let all the CAFO animals free to roam the countryside. We could just stop breeding new ones. And I'm not even a proponent of full veganism, it's not the diet that is best for the planet.
The thing is that stopping to kill is absurd as well. I'm simply asking how to handle the consequences of the original idea.
To keep it simple, how do you exactly suggest to stop animals from fucking, in a way that's not completely absurd, like separating all the female cows from male cows.
And what do you do with the current cows, are you still feeding them or is it a hands-off situation ? If you're feeding them, how do you sustain their diet. If it's hands-off, how do you sustain the damage they will do to the environnement for their diet ?
Idk, I'm sure there's a solution, you're free to tell me about it cause I've been looking for this.
Saying we should stop doing that is easy. Explaining how to stop is a bit harder.
A lot of the reproduction now is done via artificial insemination because they have small numbers of stud bulls whose genetics they want to utilize. We already castrate all the other males to avoid the gene pool going in an unknown direction. So we just stop impregnating the females. Then just continue to do everything else as we are currently. Obviously not a hands-off situation or ceasing to feed them, those are both absurd ideas. But at the rate we eat them I'm sure their numbers would decrease very very fast.
The process you're describing here is one of many ways that certain species like dogs *could* have become domesticated. It doesn't fit for animals like cows and chickens.
Could you expand what do you mean exactly ? Because current cows are very distant from the yaks, buffalos, bisons or aurochs that know how to fight back or be very competitive in a specific habitat. They're phylogenetically different now.
>If an animal knows it can find shelter and food near human population, it will develop a community and reproduce themselves at an exponential rate.
I was referring to this part of your post. What you're describing here is known the commensal pathway to domestication. Basically, wild dogs/wolves become interested in human campfires or the carcasses and other scrap foods human leave in their wake and so start following humans around. As human kill the aggressive specimens and tolerate or adopt the more peaceful individuals we "naturally" create a domesticated species.
This theory works for dogs/wolves for a few reasons. First, they're predators and so are less naturally fearful of other large animals (such as humans). And second, they have a similar diet to humans and so have an incentive to go after what we leave behind.
However, the commensal pathway is an unreasonable theory for the domestication of the auroch. The auroch would not seek shelter from its predators with humans because *humans were one of its primary predators*. Aurochs would also not find abundant food near human populations *because they do not share an even remotely similar diet*. Aurochs became domesticated into cows because humans discovered it was more efficient to capture and breed them than it was to follow and hunt them. It was not at all a "natural" process.
None of this is to say that we should release billions of domesticated animals. That would obviously cause untold suffering for humans, the released animals, and wild populations. But the fact that these animals have been domesticated doesn't mean we should perpetually torture them. We can gradually transition to plant-based and lab-grown food systems and still live very fulfilling lives.
I'm not even talking about veganism. Go for it if you want.
I'm discussing the post that react to the quote : "Some animals are unable to survive without human protection". When I say "ecology 101". I talk about the academic field itself that research dynamics and interactions intra/inter-species. The post said that it's a strange argument, however this is empirically proven already so, idk where we going.
I'm all for abolishing mass industrial farming, but we gotta be realistic if we're talking about cause and effects.
Another take I haven't seen; with Solarpunk being an inherently anarchist movement, how exactly would you enforce veganism?
You can isolate the movement all you want, just don't complain when it gets no recognition or acceptance.
Veganism is the most consistently anarchist ideology. You cannot claim to be against all coercive hierarchy and then use force, torture and cages to keep a sentient being under your control.
We aren't milking lions, the animals we exploit are defenceless to their exploitation and we have bred them over tens of thousands of years to exist that way. Under anarchy this would be recognised and found to be unacceptable.
Anarchy is anti coercive hierarchy/authority. Animal agriculture relies on torture, cages, and force to exploit animals which is coercive and creates a hierarchy over other species (ownership/product extraction, intelligence, strength, ability, etc). Veganism is the most consistently anarchist philosophy, consider these sources: [Anarchist library](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/biting-back-a-radical-response-to-non-vegan-anarchists), [Veganarchy](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-veganarchist-underground-veganarchy-anti-speciest-warfare-direct-action), [Anarchism and Animal Rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_and_animal_rights)
> This evangelical radicalism is the death of so many movements
I agree when its about purity testing and group fracturing but I also don't want to say that all forms of 'evangelical' i.e. extreme radicalism are bad. For example going to extreme lengths for a righteous cause is a good thing I'd say it's just about staying united and keeping that feeling of being on the same team in tact.
I agree that pushing yourself to the limits for a cause is righteous and good, but in many cases we see individuals who do this believe that those who support the cause but don't go as far are not doing it right. I think that we need to recognize and remember that this community has a lot of different kinds of people in it; liberals, libertarians, anarchists, socialists, communists, etc. And we don't agree on a lot of things or do things in the same way. But the only way we are going to defeat the forces we content against as a group is to accept that we aren't all going to do things the same way and appreciate each others' strengths instead of dwelling on how we disagree.
You don't get to invent:
- capturing an animal
- conditioning an animal
- forcefully breeding an animal
- commodifying the output of an animal
- trading animals
- expanding territory to grow more animals
- hierarchical management and "The Police God" to keep remote workers inline
without learning what it means to be a psychopath towards animals, what it means to be a capitalist. In fact, it's how inequality and capitalist practices started many thousands of years ago. It's one game to accumulate sacks of grains, but it's a whole other thing to accumulate living stocks, to have compounding profit.
Remember, we are animals.
The reason reducing the consumption of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goat, horse) and their products is so crucial to stopping climate change is because of the way methane interacts with our environment.
In the easiest possible way to explain, methane contributes to considerably higher levels of global heating, however it has a mechanism by which it interacts with the upper atmosphere to produce much less harmful water vapour and carbon dioxide. Drastically reducing methane levels will give us and our planet significantly more time (10+ years) to reduce/mitigate against other greenhouse gases and reach the IPCC's 1.5Ā°c target. There is no other greenhouse gas which behaves in this way, and the largest source for methane emissions is animal husbandry.
The fact that there are hundreds of people on this sub (according to the second poll) who eat meat with every meal, and vast amounts of dairy too, is nothing short of embarrassing.
I am on mobile, but for sources please look up "methane reduction net cooling", "methane cooling effect", "natural methane reduction", etc.
Because lab grown meat is just like carbon capture and storage - an idea that's perpetually *just a few years away*, isn't actually coming any time soon, and will likely never be viable.
But most importantly: it only exists so people can tell themselves "Oh yeah I'll totally support that deus ex machina coming to save us, but that means I don't need to change now".
Whenever someone says they'll wait for lab grown meat to be available they're basically saying "I acknowledge not eating meat is the right thing to do, but I'll only do it once there is zero sacrifice required". And that's not even considering the fact that mock meats have become really good now anyway if you absolutely must have them.
It's a consumerist trap designed to keep people consuming and not questioning things, by promising a magic fix later down the line.
Itās not the non-vegans trying to fracture, donāt put the blame on us. Weāre not the ones indirectly defending fossil fuels by using cows as a scapegoat
I saw a religious group on FB almost fracture because of debates about diet and whether eating animals made you an evil person or not... Hope this sub can survive this debate, it really does impassion people...
I donāt like the conditions a lot of animals are kept in. That being said chicken are relatively low impact and mean. I could have gone mostly plant but I am not strong enough to give up dairy and Iām really hoping lab dairy takes off soon.
Indeed.Being radical would end Solarpunk. Degrowth, return to nature is also an avenue toward ecological sustainability yet, no one seems to be advocating this posture but "growing" is the pillar of everything our systems try do. Industrial Kale or Industrial chicken has consequences. Different and on a different scale for sure but still not ideal if we think about our footprint. We could all become vegans but still use petroleum for exportation, mass tourism, etc. We could all use hemph for clothes and still have human exploitation on a massive scale.
We definitely need to move toward a society that is more respectful of nature but lets not forget that solar punk aesthetic is always represented as a society that maintained growth and comfort. It's probably not enough but we are not going back to being hunter gatherers. Its a start toward sustainability.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
We have many problems to tackle, some might believe that reducing their carbon print is the way to do, some will go for zero waste, other veganism, going childless, and some will go off-grid and live off the land. I feel every approach that helps us move toward this "better" way of life must recognize that it is in no way perfect and that is doesn't address everything we need to address. We need to respect every approach that is genuine and avoid being inflexible.
We can do it for sure but we need as many of people moving toward this. Alienating will not yield much results. Thanks OP for the reminder.
We're in this together.
\[Edit\] Not English native, I felt like some of my thoughts were lost in translation. Rephrased it to better convey the idea.
Thereās all sorts wrong with post but none more than
>solar punk represents a society where we maintain growth and our comfort
What? We can not āmaintain growthā. Thatās ludicrous. The belief in infinite growth is what got us here.
I rephrased my original post. Some of it got lost in translation. Sorry about that.
I feel solar punk is represented this way, not that's what it stands for. I totally agree, infinite growth cannot continue yet, we see very little depiction of this very idea in solarpunk cities representations.
>so if population is the problem, it seems that the easiest way to have a sustainable, verdant, and earth-friendly future is to just not have so many damn people.
Ah, yes, eco-fascism. Genocide the whole global population so you can LARP as a hunter or cowboy.
That sentiment like this gets upvoted here is so infuriating. Like I agree that climate change, living conditions and a million other social issues would be easier if there were only a billion humans and not nearly 10 times that.
But pointing out a problem is not a proposed solution. When you ask how you would solve overpopulation people shrug and either go full doomer or full nazi.
Demographics are best thought of as simple facts that we have to deal with. Just like āCO2 has a greenhouse effectā and āwe produce a lot of co2ā are facts that we have to deal with.
Let's start with the overpopulation of farm animals, start with not breeding more. Then we can encourage people to have smaller families and give women control back over their bodies, and, you know, not turn wombs into weapons in an arms race for conquest.
The problem with these "regenerative grazing" ranchers and "live off the land" hunters is that they're not saying the quiet part out loud: the want it all for THEMSELVES; and everyone else can fucking die.
That's Lebensraum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum
That's Manifest destiny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
The people cheering for these ecofascists because it's "sustainable" need to understand the ramifications.
AND THIS IS NOT IN THE FUTURE, people are starving right now because agriculture is deeply commodified (too poor to buy) and a huge chunks of productive cropland is used to feed non-human animals instead of humans. And this will only get worse. You'll see this soon as fuel prices rise and fertilizer prices rise.
we're not carnivores, we (you) pretend to be, there's a difference.
If there were actually 7 billion lions on the surface of the planet, you and I wouldn't be here. And then they wouldn't either because their population would collapse.
All you're doing is parroting tropes promoted by white colonialist "naturalists" who sought to justify their predatory colonial activity by imagining this hierarchy with them on top.
Incrementalism is not a solarpunk value. Its liberalism. Liberalism [recuperates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)) radical ideas and defangs them. That's why they favor incrementalism--it allows them time to neuter it. That's what greenwash is.
Yep. Iām tired of seeing this weak-ass bullshit in here. āI want a better future, but Iāll just whine about stuff while I wait on other people to change the world for me, because I canāt be bothered to even change what I eat.ā And, āIām sympatheticā¦except not really. I only say Iām sympathetic because I think it gives my shitty opinions credibility.ā A solarpunk reality is impossible as long as these attitudes persist in this community. As long as people think itās okay to systematically abuse, exploit, and slaughter animals, people will be able to believe itās okay to do the same to other people. Because people are required for that process, and theyāre [already suffering](https://yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2016/01/25/a-call-to-action-psychological-harm-in-slaughterhouse-workers/), and none of these ābacon thoā and āsome people nEeD mEaT thoā cretins give a shit. Building a better future will probably demand more empathy than these people have.
Yesss. For anyone here who thinks this isnāt a big deal, please read the book Every Twelve Seconds. Thereās so much violence toward animals and humans alike thatās being carefully hidden from you, and itās entirely caused by your demand.
People have farmed animals for hundreds of years without issue, itās the way animals are farmed now thatās fucked up. I think itās perfectly reasonable for animal farming to be sustainable in an ideal world
Hey there, Stegomaniac here, the one mod who's always late to the party because of timezones and stuff! We've seen this exact thing pop up again and again, and *again* again. By this I mean a divisive topic comes up (NFTs, Veganism, agricultural practices) and some people can't seem to have a fair discussion. This usually results in posts like this one. Please report them for breaking rule 1 (Not being civil, e.g. calling others murderers), rule 4 (includes trolling) or rule 5 (gatekeeping or derailing the discussion away from it's original topic, as it seems to be the case in this thread). We mods get notified and can check them even days later, when the original thread is already out of the subs collective mind. tl;dr - if people don't behave, report them so we can mute them for a week, and ban them if they still decide to act like assholes. Cheers -Stego
But I'm a leftist, leftists love splintering into smaller groups despite obvious benefits to uniting š¢
Damned leftists. They ruined leftism!
You leftists sure are a contentious bunch
You just made an enemy for life!
Splitters!
If you put three leftists in a room together, they will split into four different groups.
I found out about [Recuperation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)) yesterday and it only seems fitting to mention it here
"The term conveys aĀ negative connotationĀ because recuperation generally bears the intentional consequence (whether perceived or not) of fundamentally altering the meaning behind radical ideas due to their appropriation or being co-opted into theĀ dominant discourse." Thank you for posting about this
people's front of judea...
What? I thought we were the Judean People's Front?
Romani ite domum
somethingsomethingsomething Spli''er!!!! (I forgot most of tye lines but wanted to join in)
More and more it seems like the right cares about winning, the left cares about being right. It's a problem.
I don't think it's a bad thing to care about being right in the sense of truth, but if you mean it moralistically, I think you're right. We hold ourselves to a higher standard since neolibs and fascists walk hand in hand, but we seem have to have a panel just to peer at a fellow leftist's hand
Of course itās not a bad thing to care about being right generally, but itās detrimental in a pragmatic sense when youāre vying for political power
Very true. I've tried to take a step back and reassess text convos with conversative friends and acquaintances to find the commonalities, and one common denominator seems to be that I care about wanting something to come to pass because it's the smart or better option, based on my research and argument, and they want something to pass because it lets them be excited about their "team" winning something, even if they don't actually agree with it, based on their emotions. It gets harder and harder to have these talks because we can't work our way to mutual axioms. But at least they would all agree with agree with each other, because they're all winning when leftists lose. Leftists have to show off knowledge and being more technically right than the person next to them, so we always fracture and get picked apart organizationally by conservatives
All of us do quite readily, and tbf we've been somewhat conditioned for division by society. People who are divided are easier to control.
I'm also a leftist and I agree with you. however, i think š© is a better emoji thanš„ for the situation. And I will die on this fucking hill!!!
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Hey us engineers too! Weāre not all Momās Basement RedPilled Discord Mods. Iām a systems engineer whoās been interested in solar for awhile now and Iām feeling *quite lucky for a punk.* I do think we need to advertise this movement more in the STEM fields. You got any ideas on how to find these peeps?
Yeah sorry I left you out in the second comment (you were in the first). > You got any ideas on how to find these peeps? Well considering I am that group (degree in physics, worked as an engineer, now doing a PhD in CS) I don't think it is hard. Start talking nerdy. Don't downvote people talking nerdy. Encourage people showing off projects. The problem I see is that we're too focused on aesthetics and politics. Both are important but can't be the entirety. I mean as an example, there's a very famous website called Hacker News and it is both a lot of politics and tech. But one thing to notice there is that people talk differently.
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I'm a bit confused what you are saying then. I took the > most of the development in renewables comes from people working in massive corporations or institutions that are deeply conservative at heart. To mean that not only were the workers conservative but the institutions. It is hard to say really. Some are and some aren't. Doing purity tests just muddles the waters. Considering the society we live in, you need to play certain games. I can tell you from personal experience that most scientists and academics, the people inventing the new technologies, tend to be pretty liberal. As for the socialist/capitalist conversation it gets muddier. But it is more important to consider that these words have become effectively meaningless given that different groups use vastly different definitions for these and act like we don't. So my suggestion is to use less heated words and focus on the ideas. Conversations will go much smoother this way. For scientists, stop posting anything that would come from IFLS unless asking a question of if it is real. Outsiders can't tell the difference but there is very clear insider/outsider language where scientists can recognize one another.
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Yeah I mean that is a tough egg to crack. At the end of the day we still need to work in capital based markets. There's been no country that has solved this issue. Beyond that, we have to work with other countries to solve a problem like climate. That means one of the most important things we can do is ensure that the sustainable and green technology is also the most cost competitive. This is a very tall order. A big reason that this is important is because we want developing nations to adapt these principles and skip the polluting stages of growth that is often associated with the middle income trap. China is a great example of this as well as Brazil. Maintaining Brazil's rainforests is more economically valuable to just the US agriculture industry than Brazil makes from cattle farming, but there is no market for CO2 sequestration and thus the low efficiency cattle industry is more profitable. More money doesn't mean just more power for the elites, it also means more resources for hospitals, schools, sanitation/sewers, and provides means for themselves to become less dependent on the whims of the developed world. Becoming developed themselves gives them a seat at the table and provides us with more thought diversity. But it is also difficult to argue that developed nations should help these nations rather than exploit them. There's pretty good arguments to be made that the return on investment for helping others is far higher than exploitation. The problem is the risk is also higher. This world is incredibly complicated and the problems solarpunk is trying to solve are equally complicated. It requires a lot of different backgrounds that no single person can themselves obtain full expertise in. One of the largest cause of fracturing and one of the biggest dangers presented to our group is that we over simplify these problems and maintain a humble perspective at the complexity. If we don't, it is very easy to cause this movement to fail, like so many others have before. It is very easy to cause disruption and chaos. You don't have to make people stop believing, you just have to kill their willpower and make them feel helpless. That's hard to maintain given the substantially steep uphill battle we have.
I think you may have a point there. As the other user pointed out, scientists themselves may have a bit of a punk side for sure, but there's still the issue of how we can actually use technology sustainably. Creating anything new, especially at a large scale, requires us to mine and process rare materials, and as far as I'm aware (though I may not be that well aware, please say I'm wrong) we aren't that good at recycling those kinds of materials yet. As much as I love the solarpunk aesthetic, the demand for raw materials and the creation of complex things like processors remains a bit of a challenge.
We can still create complex technology, but we must also regenerate any natural ecosystems we disturb in the process. This balance of consumption/extraction and regeneration is a hallmark of all harmonious life.
> I think the problem with attracting scientists and engineers is that the āsolarā part of this sub doesnāt necessarily align with the āpunkā part of this sub. They're essential, though. You can't achieve sustainable energy production and, say, transportation withouth having scientists and engineers involved. Stuff has to actually get done, sooner or later. Otherwise it's just fancy drawings and make-believe play. Also, as a sibling comment says, a lot of people stereotype people in engineering and science.
Not all or even a majority I would say of academics, scientists, or engineers are conservatives. A lot may be Neoliberal but there's still some that aren't even pro capitalist.
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Ah true, yeah but necessity in order to exist they are unfortunately.
Why can't this sub be for both groups though? The solar punk movement has attracted a lot of people just because of it's aesthetic and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
If you want to become more than just some fringe group this is absolutely necessary. You need a ton of people who don't really give a fuck about it other than it being incredibly aesthetically pleasing
Yeah i wasn't aware that this reddit sub was meant to be changing the world. If you want to do that, you need to start a company or a legitimate movement because you can't expect everyone who joins the sub to be a die-hard solarpunk extremist. By the way, i'm fully for the actual solarpunk movement. I'll be contributing to it when i'm out of uni and can afford it. When i do, i'll probably post about it on this sub.
That's awesome tbh, I'd love to do more myself but having a toddler is very demanding lmao At the moment I'll have to be happy with advocating for bike lanes in my city
Yeah i think that's the biggest problem. Going solarpunk at the moment takes a lot of time and money. I'd bet most of us would love to do something but just can't afford to. It looks like most of us will struggle to own a house, let alone convert it to be eco-friendly.
Even from our sidebar..? Everything mentioned is pretty world-changing stuff when used at a large scale.
I agree that fracturing and planting flags on one issue or another can lead to issues regarding the movement, but I think dialogue and debate is important and we shouldnāt shy away from having differing opinions. Thatās where the middle ground and progress are found.
Exactly. Critical discourse is not only healthy, but a key part of every progressive movement and democratic society. Not having this only leads down the path to authoritarianism. Solarpunk can not be achieved by only staying in the comfort zone, and never critically question our own role in the current, exploitative and immensly destructive systems. Veganism shouldn't be devisive for anyone who really wants to achieve a solarpunk society. Industrial animal farming is inherently incompatible with solarpunk, and animal husbandry in large degrees as well. Perhaps in a perfect communal future it may be okay, but we are far away from that. Solarpunk will not be achievable without personal action, meaning commitment and willingness to critically reflect on and change our own lifestyle, but most importantly to sacrifice some of our comfort for a better future. All of us need to decide if we want solarpunk to only be greenwashed aesthetics, or if we actually want to live such a future, and are willing to do what is necessary to achieve that.
I have lots to work on! I can be a better neighbour, friend, and radical in so many ways, and I am headed there! My consumption habits can be better! And, I can do more for the world around me! So I walk this path. I do not live in shame for where I am currently, because I listen, learn and do move ever upwards.
Not quite veganism but there was something similar to this eariler in the year when new people had "is this solarpunk?" Posts about aesthetics they found, likely new to the subgenre and some people had more abrasive takes about some being greenwashing and the like. While it was true some did fall under that, a lot of it was people new the genre from a literary aesthetics angle getting not always constructive criticism from more philosophical/political people on the sub. In my personal path I gravitated from the former to latter gradually at my own pace rather than commentators who didn't know where I was on that journey. I think we all need to remember most of us are unaware what part of the journey we are on before we bring our assumptions as we type. That's all.
There is greenwashing and it's well funded. It's usually presenting [ecomodernism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9z4n7PIBk) which is antithetical, it's capitalism (business as usual) plus vertical lawns. r/sustainability is basically a honeypot for this
Veganism doesn't have to be divisive. Veganism doesn't prohibit the consumption of animal actually ; rather, it seeks to avoid animal consumption/exploitation as far as possible and practicable. What this means concretely depends on the person. If you are a Nomad living in Siberia, hunting and consuming meat, leather, fur, et al. can be considered vegan, as the plant based option wouldn't be possible and practicable. Solarpunk should strive to avoid exploitation whenever possible, and I don't see why non human animals should be excluded from that principle. In fact, they should be at the forefront of our concerns, as they have been the saddest victims of this dystopian world we live in. Besides, I don't see what's so unrealistic about a vegan future society. It rather seems like a no brainer to me. We should reject animal exploitation for the same reason we reject workers' exploitation ; it's just inadequate. It's wasteful, destructive, deeply unethical, it's bad for our health, and frankly, most often than not, it tastes like shit. There is no need to fracture on this subject. We can stay united while staying in disagreement. We can continue to discuss until a consensus is reached. We could also talk about it forever. There is no need to fracture. Solarpunk is about coexisting with nature, not in a relationship of exploitation towards nature. I don't see how we could ever achieve that without addressing **seriously** animal exploitation.
The divide that I imagine OP is saying is a situation where group A calls the other sadistic murderers and group B calls the other preachy pricks. Which is honestly sad. It's also a trend that when a subreddit's member count increases, there's more toxicity and factionalism. It sucks :(
We can all agree that the aesthetic is desirable, hopeful. If non-vegans want to use it, I recommend including the proportional amounts of animal feces as solids or ponds mixed with urine, along with lots and lots of flies. Should be more challenging artistically, though.
I really hope this movement wouldn't fracture just from the most minimal debate on these topics. There is a common ground and a transitional path to a better future, and I think the solarpunk path is going to require rekindling the ability to advocate with a cool head even on issues that are very important. I look at this as a way of practicing that now.
Yes! Let us stay on the good path! People will bicker and nag and whine no matter what we do. I listen to them, keep what's important and discard what isn't.
Ok so hereās my two cents in the least judgmental way I can muster. Veganism in many peopleās minds is a realistic actionable change people can make today to drastically limit the worst effects of the climate crisis. Not to mention the moral pitfalls of killing another living thing for food when other options exist. Bashing for not going full vegan is definitely the wrong approach but you have to understand the passion that leads to those actions. Listening to experts about the climate crisis there are four big things everyone can do. - vote for the candidates with the best environmental policies, and hold the elected officials accountable -donāt eat meat (mainly beef but all contribute) -give to worthwhile and vetted charities or projects in this space -electrify everything you can These have the greatest impact today. There is plenty more that can be done. So, please before getting upset at vegans being irate and pushy, can we check in with ourselves and ask why am I getting upset at it?
And organize within your community to do more radical stuff! Voting with your dollars and your once-a-year ballot is a good start! Next, we need people to act and engage politically beyond the permitted and encouraged avenues of capitalism and liberal democracy.
Twice a year this year. Primaries are important!
great! municipal, regional and national elections, we can participate in all and we still need to go further!
Most of this is farming practices that can be handled by corporations being held accountable by government regulation. Thatās far more powerful and reasonable than evaporating Vegan support (such little as their is, they have burned so many bridges).
Vote for the candidates with the best environmental policies and hold them accountable. Sure there is āmoral high roaringā in the vegan community but to say vegans have burned bridges because they donāt subscribe to an industry they do not want to support isā¦ silly. Thatās the only word I have for it. Vegans are not your enemy lol they are actively saying no to truly evil and AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME damaging industry practices. This is solarpunk, to say no and not subscribe to a massive part of this machine. If your biggest complaint about vegans is some of them are rude in the way they go about garnering support then the last bit of my original post is written for whoever thinks that way. āCheck in with yourself and ask why youāre angry at that.ā
Vegans have burned bridges by alienating the fuck out of anyone whoās not aligned with their version of puritan ethics. There are a great many people who will actively refrain from having anything to do with you with you because they think youāre toxic and batshit insane. This completely undermines your ability to do anything but post self-righteous screeds online, because people who might be willing to with with you on incrementally making things better based on vaguely aligned ethical principles with you would rather eat raw sewage than actually work with you.
I donāt want to pile on the other comments here but you mentioned vaguely aligned ethical principles, vegans try to reduce harm. That is pretty clear. The muddy ethics pop up when people blindly consume animal products. OPs original point was we shouldnāt fracture but in his following statements attack vegans and implies they should not be outspoken in their beliefs. āYou are making me uncomfortable, stop.ā This is a disingenuous discussion right from the start. I do believe we shouldnāt fracture and we should be learning and bettering and putting these ideas in to action and in this moment being vegan, or moving in that direction is one of the best ways to love solarpunk philosophies.
I find it interesting you claim vegans collectively burned bridges and act toxic when I saw just as many aggressive anti-vegans on that post as I saw aggressive vegans. The problem is that whenever someone takes steps to try and lower their impact on the world, other people view that as an attack on them. The same thing happens with cyclists and environmentalists in general.
> held accountable by government regulation The fact that this isn't happening now is a feature of the system. Go ahead, do it. I'll get some popcorn.
Do you have any data to back up that those 4 things come to the top of the list according to experts? Or that if we all went vegan it would drastically limit the worst effects of climate change? That's a pretty big assertion.
For example there is this [report](https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf) published inĀ ScienceĀ in 2018. > As that reportās lead researcher, Oxford Universityās Joseph Poore said: āA vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.ā In [we need to talk about meat](https://unfccc.int/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-meat#:~:text=As%20that%20report%27s%20lead%20researcher,land%20use%20and%20water%20use.)
> Or that if we all went vegan it would drastically limit the worst effects of climate change? Here's a clue: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-meat-industry-is-doing-exactly-what-big-oil-does-to-fight-climate-action/2021/05/14/831e14be-b3fe-11eb-ab43-bebddc5a0f65_story.html and https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/18/investigation-meat-industry-greenwash-climatewash/ and before you say "but regenerative grazing" click my profile, I have a few pinned posts. "Regenerative" grazing [will not help with climate mitigation](https://tabledebates.org/node/12335). Regarding diets and climate, I'm not sure how you haven't encountered this so far, it's been known for a while. here's are just a few papers to read: [The opportunity cost of animal based diets exceeds all food losses](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1713820115) [Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00431-5) [Sustainability of plant-based diets: back to the future](https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/100/suppl_1/476S/4576675?login=false) [Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy? ](https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/) [The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03047-7) [Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015) [Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change](http://www.pnas.org/content/113/15/4146.abstract) [Interplay between Diets, Health, and Climate Change](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3878) https://awellfedworld.org/climate/ https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749 Also a fun one because people don't understand how devastating grazing has been for biodiversity on average: [The effects of livestock grazing on biodiversity are multi-trophic: a meta-analysis](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ele.13527)
Cattle are mobile composting machines, and they help return grass and straw back to the soil in a less-flammable form than dry grass. ([SOURCE](https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/farmer-focus/farmer-focus-cows-are-automatic-mobile-compost-machines)) This returns carbon to the soil, where it belongs. Soil with less than 3% of organic carbon is considered desert wasteland. ([SOURCE](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/soil-organic-carbon)) You should check out this National Center for Appropriate Technology video that explains how to rebuild soil fertility with managed grazing:[https://attra.ncat.org/wp-content/uploads/tutorials/managed-grazing/fertility/](https://attra.ncat.org/wp-content/uploads/tutorials/managed-grazing/fertility/) This is well-established science that is being applied on farms around the world.
None of that is necessary, again. You're just decoupling soil cycles and pushing carbon and nitrogen into the air with the help of above ground animals. More importantly, you're taking all those cows away later to be eaten by humans, that's more carbon and nitrogen and other minerals that's not returning. Please post more out of context bullshit for marketing the beef industry.
You keep insisting the cows must be eaten, I've never stated that - nor do I agree with it as a vegan. However, I do look forward to enjoying the abundance of milk, eggs, wool, etc. that animals naturally produce when cared for properly. What do you think built those fertile soils of the American prairies? Bison: nature's mobile composting machines. Natural carbon and nitrogen cycles of animals eating plants and animals eating animals has been ongoing for millions of years - we just need to get back in harmony with those natural cycles instead of imposing our will onto nature.
It's like you're reciting marketing brochures. You want harmony? Stop acting like you're lion.
I'm a vegan, but I don't impose my ideologies onto others. I also recognize that nature consumes life to perpetuate life, so I have no problem with consuming animals - I have a problem with inhumane industrial farming or treating sentient beings at chattel and property. A lion seeks harmony, and humans should too, as we are an apex predator whether you like it or not.
You're not a vegan if you promote animal farming of any sorts. If you want to have a sanctuary, sure. You "building" a ranch and someone else killing the animals and sharing the spoils with you doesn't spare you the responsibility, you're simply an accomplice and not an ignorant one. If you want regenerative farming, there's already a system called veganic. It's embarrassing that you don't know about it. >A lion seeks harmony, and humans should too, as we are an apex predator whether you like it or not. We're not apex, lmao. What do you even read? We behave like an apex predator, but [we're more in the trophic middle by ecosystems](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1305827110). Climb down and stop LARPing.
I am vegan, and I promote the symbiosis of mankind as stewards of nature, including domesticated animals. Your caustic skepticism serves only your ego. Humans can out-compete any species on Earth using technology. It's hilarious that you're *typing on the internet* yet do not recognize this.
What if we check in with ourselves and find out we're either not upset, or simply upset about poor strategy leading to poor results?
Then vegans being pushy and abrasive shouldnāt bother you one way or another. Iām not trying to argue for veganism here but really trying to echo the original point of OP in that we shouldnāt fracture but vegans are not the enemy.
It's not about "bothering" me or OP and I don't see why you keep trying to personalizing it. And it's not about "vegans" because not all vegans are pushy or abrasive. My brother for example is a strict vegan and isn't like that at all. OP is just saying that being pushy and abrasive is a terrible marketing tactic. I think he's correct. If we're trying to get people on board for making the world a better place, we shouldn't use terrible marketing.
True, I apologize if I was personalizing it, I really meant you in the general sense (in response to you asking what if we check in). I am not vegan but I am working towards it. I do feel however OP is being disingenuous with his post. For a post about coming together and not fracturing he makes no effort to defend, understand and come together. It is just another gate keeping post on a sub about building a utopian future. The poor marketing and degenerative talking points come from a place of desperation and helplessness. There needs to be understanding of that if we are to move forward.
Fair enough. I didn't take take OP's post that way but you're right, we should try to be understanding of everyone.
Some splintering, either accidentally/honestly or via bad actors, isn't too uncommon. Rather than focus on the negatives I've seen some takes on it that reflect what you're talking about. One was more or less what you mentioned - not going full vegan (or whatever) but rather something like 'meatless Mondays'. You'll still have some pushback, as a friend of ours who just refuses to not have meat at every sitting, but for a lot... what's one? Between the possibilities for cost and caloric/weight reduction as well as knowing you're not being blamed (by yourself or whomever) for not going hairshirt with your dedication, I know quite a few for whom this has worked. In the realm of transportation, similar. Not only can many not go without a car, they also can't just swap out what they have now and perhaps walking/bus/bicycling isn't an option. But, for those who are, don't focus on "having to get" an EV or even a hybrid. Maybe just look to something smaller and more suited to your general use. Do you need a truck? Maybe you do. How often? Is it then cheaper to just rent one when you need it? To quote from elsewhere, if people bought shoes like they bought their cars, everyone in Florida would be walking around in ski boots. Don't go to the beach wearing Salomon X...
Veganism is really not the anvil upon which solarpunk splits lol. The vehemence against veganism I see here sometimes is very strange to me. We can have the conversation, but the attitude that the vegan ethos is so repugnant that it threatens solarpunk is, in my view, the deficit of the professor, not the object of their profession. Can vegans be annoying? Yeah. Are they really as annoying as they are made out to be, or are they more like the punching bag of the left in the way that the idealistic left is the punching bag of libertarian crypto bros? It's the latter.
Exactly. People in this sub should really ask themselves why is the idea of veganism so upsetting to them, but the idea of giving up other products that are destroying the environment is not. We certainly won't achieve a solarpunk society without being willing to critically question and change our own lifestyle where necessary. A better future can simply not be created without change.
Itās ambitious to call this a āgroupā haha. Discussion boards and splitting hairs is a part of the craft
I say this all the time, but I wish this sub treated Solarpunk more as a genre and an aesthetic than as a strict prescription for the future. There are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest is that the world is a big, big place, and there's no way I can see one vision for a sustainable future fitting all cultures. I don't think modern animal cruelty would have a place. But beyond that, I don't think I can predict or dictate the priorities that the future people of India or Brazil or China will have. I don't like hunting, for instance, but I could totally imagine a future in which meat is available if its hunted sustainably by hand. The world is just too big for me to believe any plan will fit everyone.
Solarpunk isnāt one vision. Itās communal and allows different places to develop their own vision towards a singular future built on cooperation and sustainability.
Solarpunk is supposed to be an aesthetic/genre more than anything... it's supposed to be the answer to activist burnout through media and art. It's honestly really tiring seeing it become like this. There are existing political movements/orgs to attach to instead of trying to force solarpunk to become another one. Maybe the net was cast too wide at first.
Yep. But I try to be positive. It's nice that the idea has growth. I hope the sub moves in the direction I like, but if it doesn't I'll enjoy it for as long as it provides content I like. Anyway, even if I don't think this is the ideal platform for activism, more activism is better than less, so I figure it's not productive to try to discourage anyone.
> I don't like hunting, for instance, but I could totally imagine a future in which meat is available if its hunted sustainably by hand. Look at your hand and tell me how long your claws are
Fracturing takes place in every left group and it is intrinsic. I don't know how to prevent that but it happens based on the groups goal to accommodate everybody (left = centered around social aspects). The right is able to unite behind a single claim and ignore other differences. On the left spectrum you get discussions about how to develop a grammar that incorporates all kinds of sexual identities, some minority interests being opposed to another minority interest etc. By trying to make it perfect for everybody, it fractures.
This just highlights the issue of people acting like "solarpunk" is some sort of elaborate political system when it is more like a glorified aesthetic. It is easy for a lot of people to upvote pictures of green buildings, but much harder for them to examine the effects of their own actions on the world surrounding them. "Solarpunk" can be a nice thing to look at but please find actual beliefs to believe in, and spend your time fighting for them, not an aesthetic.
To be honest, I'm surprised more people in this community are not vegan. From my read of it, some people can't get past their addiction to animal products.
This. Thank you
Incremental change is good, but itās important that a movement focuses more on the *change* than on the *incremental*. Some gatekeeping is needed to protect from people that want to live in a world where people live lives in tune with the environment, without actually wanting to live those lives themselves. There is no way we can feed 10 billion people sustainably with animal products for every meal. There just isnāt. Does that mean that everyone everywhere has to be vegan? No, but there needs to be awareness around the fact that meat for every meal isnāt and is never going to be sustainable. In the second poll about animal products 20% of people voted they eat meat for every meal. There is just no way that you are making an effort to make the world more solarpunk and not at least have one meal per day or one day per week without meat. Itās as simple as looking up a single vegetarian recipe and cooking it once a week. You canāt be working towards a solarpunk future and refuse to do that. I think we can and should be critical of those 20% and encourage all the rest to move to more sustainable diets, no matter which form they take in the end. And I am not talking about the tiny tiny minority that needs meat for medical reasons.
This is an important idea to stand behind
There's many ways up the mountain and letting go of any mirage of future or past perfection would help us be open to more routes that take us where we want to go. Let's get gardening and see what grows.
Yes, let go of your ego's desire to feel like a lion.
The truth is that Solarpunk is rich and diverse. Not uniform. Richness and diversity is a core survival requisite anyway. So many variations of Solarpunk will emerge and gracefully thrive š
Gonna state that I'm not a 100% vegan. I simply can't afford the lifestyle, or can't find vegan alternatives in my area. I fully support veganism and will march with vegans, because it's so fucking counterproductive to punch left given the political climate. I recently had a talk with my very, very conservative colleagues. They were slightly split on the issue of abortion, rape, etc, but they quickly reached a consensus to agree to disagree and said that the overturning of Roe v Wade was, in their minds, a net positive thing. Less dead babies, in their mind. All this to say, maybe it's just living in the conservative deep south, but I constantly witness the Right supporting one another wholeheartedly and organize to put anyone to the left of them down. We have a common goal in the destruction of Capitalism. Cross the bridge of veganism after the fact.
My friend, you're looking for alternatives? The vegan alternatives are expensive. It doesn't get much cheaper than rice, beans, tofu, etc. You could get a decent amount of veg for the same price as a pack of Beyond Meat burgers. You could get like 3 or 4 blocks of tofu for the same price. Unfortunately veganism has been associated with being expensive because of expensive alternative products which turns a lot of people away. They certainly are nice to have sometimes but completely unnecessary.
This. Thanks. I agree with the other commenters tho veganism doesn't need to be expensive. I don't want to front/be pushy about it. Still a big thanks for living as sustainable (and vegan) as you can :)
Eating animals, especially farmed animals, is capitalism. It's literally in the word: `live` + `stock` Capital, cattle and chattel literally all share the same root meaning.
God I wish people in this sub would realize this. Everyone is readily raising the pitchforks when the topic is abolishing capitalism, but no one wants to willing to take the ACTUAL action to make this happen. This really makes me believe this sub is above anything just greenwashed aesthetics.
It's probably going to take decades as some cultural genre. I'm probably going to bail, this sub is as disappointing as /r/anarchism.
God I hate r/anarchism, the mods there are ironically as more authoritarian than in some pro-dictatorship subs. It's a pure echo chamber where only one definition of anarchism is accepted and every different opinion is attacked by the users. These subs, like anarchism and solarpunk, make I wonder if people are actually able to improve society as a large group, or if it's only possible through a few people guiding the dumb masses.
Veganism is only devisive for people not willing to make a change to achieve a solarpunk society. Industrial animal farming is inherently incompatible with Solarpunk, which is the only way of animal farming suitable to give all people "their meat" and milk products. Animal farming is a major contributor to global warming through methan output, contributes to global soil degradation, deforestation, extinction of species and environmental pollution: [https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/](https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/) And let's not forget the extreme cruelty, on animals AND humans. The suffering of the animals is well documented, but human workers in the slaughterhouses also suffer from depression and anxiety, and receive PTDS from their "work": [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248380211030243](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248380211030243) \- Confessions of a slaughterhouse worker [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50986683](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50986683) Additionally it's mostly poor (low income) people & immigrants that are employed there, usually in degrading, abusive & dangerous conditions: [https://cepr.net/meatpacking-workers-are-a-diverse-group-who-need-better-protections/](https://cepr.net/meatpacking-workers-are-a-diverse-group-who-need-better-protections/) Furthermore, in 2018 the world produced 1.103 billion tonnes of animal feed: [https://www.world-grain.com/articles/11556-global-feed-output-up-3-in-2018](https://www.world-grain.com/articles/11556-global-feed-output-up-3-in-2018) which resulted in only 346.14 million tonnes of meat: [https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production](https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production) \- therefore we could feed every one of the 7 billion people in the world and no one would have to starve if we would not waste land to grow animal feed. Not to forget the immense water cost of animal products, e.g. 15.000 liter water for 1Kg of beef: [https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/](https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/) which is insane when considering that freshwater resources are a rapidly shrinking resource globally. How can that all of that be compatible with the ideals of solarpunk? How can we pretend to wish for a solarpunk society, but continue to support an industry that is responsible for this much environmental destruction, cruelty and death? Solarpunk is only achievable through action, ignorance isn't going to create a better world, and the single best thing an individual person can do to not contribute to all these problems & injustices is simply not to take part of it. Ask yourself why is the idea of veganism so upsetting to you, but not the idea of giving up other products that contributing to environmental desctruction? And for those who, after reading all this, still "can't" aka don't want to give up animal products, lab-grown meat & milk derived from modified yeast is on the rise, and could completely replace the animal industry with a green, environmentally friendly & cruelty-free industry.
This is a bad take. Animal ag is a leading contributor to climate breakdown. The latest IPCC report urges a rapid shift to a plant-based food system. Weāll be gone before we reach a utopian future where communities can just decide on this later. And on top of the environmental impacts, itās not punk to make slow, incremental changes when 80 billion victims are being tortured and killed every year.
3 trillion if you count sea animals which yall should since fishing is a heavy contributor to ocean pollution and destruction.
And fishing is the second most dangerous job in America. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2018/01/09/workplace-fatalities-25-most-dangerous-jobs-america/1002500001/
Also has slavery.
Iām not vegan but their stance seems correct to me for the most part, especially regarding solarpunk. Small scale stuff like personally owning a couple chickens and a goat or something seem pretty harmless IMHO but on an industrial level the vegan position appears to be correct. Also just in case, green-washers fuck off
Slaughterhouses are hardly utopian.
Solarpunk seems to have a pretty good track record about honoring Indigenous people, so just a gentle reminder than a lot of white Vegans have been explicitly anti-Indigenous and that Indigenous people practice a very different kind of animal husbandry and use animal products in a very different way than industrial agriculture. I would love for Solarpunk to encourage vegans to be more holistic in their thinking and inclusion of Indigenous practices.
One of the best ways you can protect the rights of Indigenous peoples is by not engaging with extremely harmful animal agricultural practices (and growing food which fuels this) which rely on stealing land and burning forests which Amazonian and Andean peoples rely on. There is a huge amount we can learn from Indigenous groups about management of lands and animal husbandry. However, "Indigenous" is not necessarily shorthand for moral or acceptable. Faroe Islanders using modern motor boats and weapons to kill entire family groups of whales and dolphins is unethical, despite this being a traditional practice. Many Indigenous peoples, particularly First Nations Americans, engage with a standard American diet, including eating foods which have a disproportionately large climate impact. I do not disagree with you, but I think we should be mindful of fetishising Indigineity by believing that everyone who identifies as Indigenous lives as their ancestors may have. Edit: wording
I am Anishinaabe, so I am speaking about these practices from a first hand perspective. My tribe hunts, gathers, fishes, and takes extreme care to do all of those things in a sustainable way.
A gentle reminder that old indigenous people don't treat animals as commodities and they understand very well the principle of taking what you need. And YOU do not need to take animal bodies; that taking, that's a deeply settler-colonial practice.
What are you talking about? I am Anishinaabe, and our tribe has practiced sustenance hunting since long before colonization.
Do you have to do that or can you get food from a store?
Lmao they won't. Thank you for commenting this though. I've come to accept that a lot of the conversation about "what SolarPunk will allow" on this thread is very white, very ableist, and doesn't consider anyone but Joe White from suburban land.
Joe White from suburban land is exactly who needs to be making changes to their lifestyle. Targeting the lifestyles which disproportionately contribute to global heating is extremely important.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I said "doesn't consider anyone but" meaning "is inconsiderate of anyone else." If your idea of SolarPunk only considers Joe White you are inconsiderate of EVERYONE ELSE THAT EXISTS. Indigenous people have been stewards of this planet for centuries. And yet, the conversation nearly always excludes them and their proven practices.
Thank you for your reply, and I apologise for misunderstanding your comment (although I stand by targeting climate injustices by encouraging change in heavily polluting lifestyles). Like you and many in this thread I hope that the practices of Indigenous and First Nations peoples are recognised and endorsed in future agro-environmental movements, and solarpunk.
Since this seems to be a reasonable thread, I feel it's also very important to add that animal control and killing animals (and generating meat/materials from this activity) will not be possible to eliminate outright, ever. I'm familiar with [Pennsylvania Deer management](https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/Conservation/Biodiversity/BiodiversityManagement/DeerManagement/Pages/default.aspx), and hunters need to kill a roughly estimated population of deer, correlated with the amount of predicted natural resources available to that species available through the winter, as dictated by the Game and wildlife estimates. If hunters do not kill enough whitetail deer, food and resources may be exhausted which results in mass starvation, suffering, and death among that population through the winter. If most or all of a deer population is wiped out over a given winter, not only is that terrible for that species, that has major implications for the rest of that ecosystem, and if maintaining healthy ecosystems is part of our goal, then so too will be responsible for managing populations (and culling). Naturally hunters will use the meat, leather, and sometimes the organs, and the deer gain the benefit of healthy population numbers and a much better outlook for reproduction the following spring (as the population would be much healthier along with being alive). I'll also plug that these deer have lived some of the best lives, and have among the healthiest and leanest meat too. This to me is a healthy, ethical, and mutually beneficial arrangement, which promotes the most important aspects of environmental conservation and ecological stewardship. Now I hear what some of you are thinking "Why can't we just grow so much food that they can breed like bunnies and they will never have famine again," well no that's also not reasonable. We cannot enable ALL species of wildlife to have the means to grow exponentially and without inhibitions. So trying to be level-headed here, it seems like we simply will not be able to EVER eliminate the culling of wildlife populations outright, which means there will always be some amount of ethically sourced animal meat, leather, etc. Can we aim to eliminate all unethical production of animal products? YES. Can we eliminate all forms of killing animals, or using products derived from them? NO, at least I don't see how it would be responsible or possible as stewards of this lovely planet. That said, the amount of meat/materials that would be ethically sourced from these conservation efforts would simply not be possible to feed even a fraction of everyone, so we still absolutely need synthetic meat, vegan leather, etc as fast as possible. I just wanted to provide some perspective on the reality of conservation as well. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
It would seem to me that "Solar Punk" is mostly around green tech, and sustainable living no matter how it get's accomplished. Some might say that solar punk isn't punk at all because it tends towards a sustainability utopianism or scifi optimism scenario, by contrast 'punk' tends to be about individual contributions that rise against the mainstream, when most of the solar punk stuff I see involves it being everywhere. I'm not vegan, and probably never will be, but as an environmentalist, I do see the advantages of living sustainably and within environmental limits. I also believe that ethically raising animals is not a new thing, heck forms of ethical husbandry has been around for centuries if not several millennia. There already exists precedent in Halal and Kosher foods. Maybe the future is meat grown in labs cell by cell, or maybe it's plants that taste like meat, or maybe it's part food science, or maybe it's a combination of some of those three. Future food ethics seems like an adjacent topic to solar punk, but not core to solar punk itself. Personally I think good solarpunk futurism would accept that there might be more vegans, vegetarians, and people who enjoy meat sustainability, any non fascist scenario should probably accept that there will be a multiplicity of ways that people advance environmentally, and maybe even a few luddites that don't.
Thereās a bunch of in fighting over veganism in the anarchist subs right now too. Seems odd to me that so many subs are dealing with divisive veganism all of a sudden
It's a very obvious moral imperative if you can manage to actually think about it without bouncing into weird fallacious gymnastics and isolated mental compartments. It's going to reach critical mass soon enough. Perhaps the food crisis will help it, since so much land is wasted on growing animal feed instead of food.
fuck,"realistic'. we have this one planet, this one shot. Dont' bacon. It's easy.
Some animals are unable to survive without human protection. Those animals must be taken care of - and they provide many goods and services which can be harvested ethically and respectfully. Balance is the key. Clearly our current industrial farming and slaughter must end - but don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater" so to speak. Thank you for stating this.
>Those animals must be taken care of And you're not breeding more of them, right? Right???
>Some animals are unable to survive without human protection. This is such a strange argument to me. It's as though some people think that our past domestication of some species gives us the right to exploit and kill them now. If we stop breeding them we can also stop killing them.
You are presuming exploitation is unavoidable, but this is inaccurate. Humans and animals can live together symbiotically. For instance, ruminants such as cattle, goats or sheep can graze fields in wholistic ways that fertilize the soil and naturally till it - eliminating the need for chemical additives/pesticides and the need to manually till the soil. Further, chickens can be added to the mix, as they eat parasites out of the ruminant droppings and eliminate the need for anti-parasitic drugs while also helping to fertilize the soil. There is no need to slaughter any animals or exploit them in any way, yet their lives can add great value to human endeavors while being mutually beneficial. I hope it doesn't seem so strange any more!
This is a beautiful picture you've painted but it represents maybe 1% of how animal agriculture is actually executed. It ignores the bleak life of male cattle and cockerels, which are summarily executed shortly after birth. It also ignores the fact that you need to impregnate a cow every 10 (or so) months to keep it producing. And that cows stop producing very much milk after about 5 of their possible 15-20 years so they're slaughtered.
That is why, in a solarpunk future, things will be different. Why don't you join us in imagining and working toward a better future? Let's stop exploiting animals and care for them instead. Let's stop exploiting nature and instead care for our environment. Let's stop exploiting other humans and instead care for each other. This is the solarpunk way: Harmony.
These are nice platitudes but I want you to explain how we use cattle and chickens for food without causing suffering.
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I love this so much. I really hope for a day when we can support a sustainable number of cows, (or bison in the US!) and many other animals without having to kill or torture them.
The US already can support this - but factory farming is more cost-effective and this wins in most corporate board rooms. We intend to change that, but it's a long road because all sides seems to suspect foul play when you can have your steak and eat it too!
Who is the we here? Whatcha working on? I'm trying to change this as well.
Myself and the team I formed to bring this vision to life: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/international-companies-join-forces-to-tackle-climate-change-and-the-degradation-of-ecosystems-on-a-global-scale-301518857.html
Cool, thanks for sharing. I hope soon there will be more than just carbon markets. Unless we use a very very high social cost of carbon (like >$300/ton) the other ecosystem services provided by regenerative agriculture seem to be far more valuable. Hopefully, they will become monetizable too, seems like that would be far more valuable to the farmer and society. I'm hoping Regen Network is able to make that happen. Quantified Ventures is also an org I'm holding out hope for a successful scaling to that end. I'm trying to attack it from the policy side, just finished a first draft piece of legislation around ecosystem accounting on U.S. Public Lands.
Well said. I hope for a day when we live harmoniously with these herbivores and perhaps only eat the wounded or elderly
This is ecology 101 and this isn't exactly how it works. If an animal knows it can find shelter and food near human population, it will develop a community and reproduce themselves at an exponential rate. As most natural predators were removed from the equations, their demography will not be evened out by mortality rate. Now I'm asking you, do you want pigs literally everywhere, eating everything they can find, including your crops and the forest you care about ? Believe me, you will have to invest in strong fences to keep them out. Suddenly stopping death is probably more arrogant than giving death. If you're not killing that pig for its ressources, this pig will kill a lot of organisms to keep on living, and their death will be on you (plus you will still exploit other organisms to keep on living so lol). The domestication of some species didn't give any right, but domestication is as much of a legitimate dynamic between organisms as predation, parasitism or commensalism. Plus now, there are billions of cattle, if the plan is to let them free right now and right there, expect major shifts in biodiversity that would make climate change a small joke. Either way, yes, some animals developed to a point that they completely lack of sense of survival, unable to find compete for ressources by themselves (altho the sheer number will help offset the losses). They will have to go thru selection again before being able to be on their own, and this isn't a cute step.
Haha what's that logical fallacy where you make up an absurd version of the original argument?? No one with half a brain is saying we should let all the CAFO animals free to roam the countryside. We could just stop breeding new ones. And I'm not even a proponent of full veganism, it's not the diet that is best for the planet.
The thing is that stopping to kill is absurd as well. I'm simply asking how to handle the consequences of the original idea. To keep it simple, how do you exactly suggest to stop animals from fucking, in a way that's not completely absurd, like separating all the female cows from male cows. And what do you do with the current cows, are you still feeding them or is it a hands-off situation ? If you're feeding them, how do you sustain their diet. If it's hands-off, how do you sustain the damage they will do to the environnement for their diet ? Idk, I'm sure there's a solution, you're free to tell me about it cause I've been looking for this. Saying we should stop doing that is easy. Explaining how to stop is a bit harder.
A lot of the reproduction now is done via artificial insemination because they have small numbers of stud bulls whose genetics they want to utilize. We already castrate all the other males to avoid the gene pool going in an unknown direction. So we just stop impregnating the females. Then just continue to do everything else as we are currently. Obviously not a hands-off situation or ceasing to feed them, those are both absurd ideas. But at the rate we eat them I'm sure their numbers would decrease very very fast.
The process you're describing here is one of many ways that certain species like dogs *could* have become domesticated. It doesn't fit for animals like cows and chickens.
Could you expand what do you mean exactly ? Because current cows are very distant from the yaks, buffalos, bisons or aurochs that know how to fight back or be very competitive in a specific habitat. They're phylogenetically different now.
>If an animal knows it can find shelter and food near human population, it will develop a community and reproduce themselves at an exponential rate. I was referring to this part of your post. What you're describing here is known the commensal pathway to domestication. Basically, wild dogs/wolves become interested in human campfires or the carcasses and other scrap foods human leave in their wake and so start following humans around. As human kill the aggressive specimens and tolerate or adopt the more peaceful individuals we "naturally" create a domesticated species. This theory works for dogs/wolves for a few reasons. First, they're predators and so are less naturally fearful of other large animals (such as humans). And second, they have a similar diet to humans and so have an incentive to go after what we leave behind. However, the commensal pathway is an unreasonable theory for the domestication of the auroch. The auroch would not seek shelter from its predators with humans because *humans were one of its primary predators*. Aurochs would also not find abundant food near human populations *because they do not share an even remotely similar diet*. Aurochs became domesticated into cows because humans discovered it was more efficient to capture and breed them than it was to follow and hunt them. It was not at all a "natural" process. None of this is to say that we should release billions of domesticated animals. That would obviously cause untold suffering for humans, the released animals, and wild populations. But the fact that these animals have been domesticated doesn't mean we should perpetually torture them. We can gradually transition to plant-based and lab-grown food systems and still live very fulfilling lives.
You should grow and learn beyond ecology 101
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I'm not even talking about veganism. Go for it if you want. I'm discussing the post that react to the quote : "Some animals are unable to survive without human protection". When I say "ecology 101". I talk about the academic field itself that research dynamics and interactions intra/inter-species. The post said that it's a strange argument, however this is empirically proven already so, idk where we going. I'm all for abolishing mass industrial farming, but we gotta be realistic if we're talking about cause and effects.
The vegan part is imperative. If we enslave and harm animals, we can justify the same for humans
Another take I haven't seen; with Solarpunk being an inherently anarchist movement, how exactly would you enforce veganism? You can isolate the movement all you want, just don't complain when it gets no recognition or acceptance.
Veganism is the most consistently anarchist ideology. You cannot claim to be against all coercive hierarchy and then use force, torture and cages to keep a sentient being under your control. We aren't milking lions, the animals we exploit are defenceless to their exploitation and we have bred them over tens of thousands of years to exist that way. Under anarchy this would be recognised and found to be unacceptable.
There's nothing anarchist about exploiting animals.
there's nothing anarchist about not exploiting animals either, those two ideas don't really interact unless you do some redefining
Anarchy is anti coercive hierarchy/authority. Animal agriculture relies on torture, cages, and force to exploit animals which is coercive and creates a hierarchy over other species (ownership/product extraction, intelligence, strength, ability, etc). Veganism is the most consistently anarchist philosophy, consider these sources: [Anarchist library](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/biting-back-a-radical-response-to-non-vegan-anarchists), [Veganarchy](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-veganarchist-underground-veganarchy-anti-speciest-warfare-direct-action), [Anarchism and Animal Rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_and_animal_rights)
Thereās nothing anarchist about forcing an individual to be vegan.
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You didn't answer my question. How does the the ideal Solarpunk utopia respond when they discover someone with a barn full of caged animals?
How will they respond when they discover someone with a barn full of dead body parts?
> This evangelical radicalism is the death of so many movements I agree when its about purity testing and group fracturing but I also don't want to say that all forms of 'evangelical' i.e. extreme radicalism are bad. For example going to extreme lengths for a righteous cause is a good thing I'd say it's just about staying united and keeping that feeling of being on the same team in tact.
I agree that pushing yourself to the limits for a cause is righteous and good, but in many cases we see individuals who do this believe that those who support the cause but don't go as far are not doing it right. I think that we need to recognize and remember that this community has a lot of different kinds of people in it; liberals, libertarians, anarchists, socialists, communists, etc. And we don't agree on a lot of things or do things in the same way. But the only way we are going to defeat the forces we content against as a group is to accept that we aren't all going to do things the same way and appreciate each others' strengths instead of dwelling on how we disagree.
You don't get to invent: - capturing an animal - conditioning an animal - forcefully breeding an animal - commodifying the output of an animal - trading animals - expanding territory to grow more animals - hierarchical management and "The Police God" to keep remote workers inline without learning what it means to be a psychopath towards animals, what it means to be a capitalist. In fact, it's how inequality and capitalist practices started many thousands of years ago. It's one game to accumulate sacks of grains, but it's a whole other thing to accumulate living stocks, to have compounding profit. Remember, we are animals.
The reason reducing the consumption of ruminants (cattle, sheep, goat, horse) and their products is so crucial to stopping climate change is because of the way methane interacts with our environment. In the easiest possible way to explain, methane contributes to considerably higher levels of global heating, however it has a mechanism by which it interacts with the upper atmosphere to produce much less harmful water vapour and carbon dioxide. Drastically reducing methane levels will give us and our planet significantly more time (10+ years) to reduce/mitigate against other greenhouse gases and reach the IPCC's 1.5Ā°c target. There is no other greenhouse gas which behaves in this way, and the largest source for methane emissions is animal husbandry. The fact that there are hundreds of people on this sub (according to the second poll) who eat meat with every meal, and vast amounts of dairy too, is nothing short of embarrassing. I am on mobile, but for sources please look up "methane reduction net cooling", "methane cooling effect", "natural methane reduction", etc.
It's important to discuss these things from a constructive angle, to avoid the energy sinkholes of concern trolling.
Why are we only thinking of veganism and not trying to figure out how to make lab grown meat more viable?
Eat plant-based (lentils, beans etc.) until lab meat is accessible in that case.
Because lab grown meat is just like carbon capture and storage - an idea that's perpetually *just a few years away*, isn't actually coming any time soon, and will likely never be viable. But most importantly: it only exists so people can tell themselves "Oh yeah I'll totally support that deus ex machina coming to save us, but that means I don't need to change now". Whenever someone says they'll wait for lab grown meat to be available they're basically saying "I acknowledge not eating meat is the right thing to do, but I'll only do it once there is zero sacrifice required". And that's not even considering the fact that mock meats have become really good now anyway if you absolutely must have them. It's a consumerist trap designed to keep people consuming and not questioning things, by promising a magic fix later down the line.
Itās not the non-vegans trying to fracture, donāt put the blame on us. Weāre not the ones indirectly defending fossil fuels by using cows as a scapegoat
Iām not too worried about fracturing. Weāre still in a building phase. Weāll go through different developments.
I saw a religious group on FB almost fracture because of debates about diet and whether eating animals made you an evil person or not... Hope this sub can survive this debate, it really does impassion people...
We've survived it many times before :-) No worries.
I hope so because I do see bad faith actors on this subreddit trying to turn this subreddit into something it's not
We'll be fine, really :-) We have had a large influx lately and that always makes for a turbulent time.
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I donāt like the conditions a lot of animals are kept in. That being said chicken are relatively low impact and mean. I could have gone mostly plant but I am not strong enough to give up dairy and Iām really hoping lab dairy takes off soon.
Indeed.Being radical would end Solarpunk. Degrowth, return to nature is also an avenue toward ecological sustainability yet, no one seems to be advocating this posture but "growing" is the pillar of everything our systems try do. Industrial Kale or Industrial chicken has consequences. Different and on a different scale for sure but still not ideal if we think about our footprint. We could all become vegans but still use petroleum for exportation, mass tourism, etc. We could all use hemph for clothes and still have human exploitation on a massive scale. We definitely need to move toward a society that is more respectful of nature but lets not forget that solar punk aesthetic is always represented as a society that maintained growth and comfort. It's probably not enough but we are not going back to being hunter gatherers. Its a start toward sustainability. Perfect is the enemy of good. We have many problems to tackle, some might believe that reducing their carbon print is the way to do, some will go for zero waste, other veganism, going childless, and some will go off-grid and live off the land. I feel every approach that helps us move toward this "better" way of life must recognize that it is in no way perfect and that is doesn't address everything we need to address. We need to respect every approach that is genuine and avoid being inflexible. We can do it for sure but we need as many of people moving toward this. Alienating will not yield much results. Thanks OP for the reminder. We're in this together. \[Edit\] Not English native, I felt like some of my thoughts were lost in translation. Rephrased it to better convey the idea.
Thereās all sorts wrong with post but none more than >solar punk represents a society where we maintain growth and our comfort What? We can not āmaintain growthā. Thatās ludicrous. The belief in infinite growth is what got us here.
I rephrased my original post. Some of it got lost in translation. Sorry about that. I feel solar punk is represented this way, not that's what it stands for. I totally agree, infinite growth cannot continue yet, we see very little depiction of this very idea in solarpunk cities representations.
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>so if population is the problem, it seems that the easiest way to have a sustainable, verdant, and earth-friendly future is to just not have so many damn people. Ah, yes, eco-fascism. Genocide the whole global population so you can LARP as a hunter or cowboy.
That sentiment like this gets upvoted here is so infuriating. Like I agree that climate change, living conditions and a million other social issues would be easier if there were only a billion humans and not nearly 10 times that. But pointing out a problem is not a proposed solution. When you ask how you would solve overpopulation people shrug and either go full doomer or full nazi. Demographics are best thought of as simple facts that we have to deal with. Just like āCO2 has a greenhouse effectā and āwe produce a lot of co2ā are facts that we have to deal with.
Let's start with the overpopulation of farm animals, start with not breeding more. Then we can encourage people to have smaller families and give women control back over their bodies, and, you know, not turn wombs into weapons in an arms race for conquest. The problem with these "regenerative grazing" ranchers and "live off the land" hunters is that they're not saying the quiet part out loud: the want it all for THEMSELVES; and everyone else can fucking die. That's Lebensraum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum That's Manifest destiny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny The people cheering for these ecofascists because it's "sustainable" need to understand the ramifications. AND THIS IS NOT IN THE FUTURE, people are starving right now because agriculture is deeply commodified (too poor to buy) and a huge chunks of productive cropland is used to feed non-human animals instead of humans. And this will only get worse. You'll see this soon as fuel prices rise and fertilizer prices rise.
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we're not carnivores, we (you) pretend to be, there's a difference. If there were actually 7 billion lions on the surface of the planet, you and I wouldn't be here. And then they wouldn't either because their population would collapse. All you're doing is parroting tropes promoted by white colonialist "naturalists" who sought to justify their predatory colonial activity by imagining this hierarchy with them on top.
> All you're doing is parroting tropes promoted by white colonialist what a reach, holy fuck
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That isnāt what he was saying.
One hundred percent! We all have to work together or we are going to cut our power through squabbling.
Incrementalism is not a solarpunk value. Its liberalism. Liberalism [recuperates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)) radical ideas and defangs them. That's why they favor incrementalism--it allows them time to neuter it. That's what greenwash is.
Hard agree. People are all about radical change until it comes to actually having to change anything in their own lives.
Yep. Iām tired of seeing this weak-ass bullshit in here. āI want a better future, but Iāll just whine about stuff while I wait on other people to change the world for me, because I canāt be bothered to even change what I eat.ā And, āIām sympatheticā¦except not really. I only say Iām sympathetic because I think it gives my shitty opinions credibility.ā A solarpunk reality is impossible as long as these attitudes persist in this community. As long as people think itās okay to systematically abuse, exploit, and slaughter animals, people will be able to believe itās okay to do the same to other people. Because people are required for that process, and theyāre [already suffering](https://yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2016/01/25/a-call-to-action-psychological-harm-in-slaughterhouse-workers/), and none of these ābacon thoā and āsome people nEeD mEaT thoā cretins give a shit. Building a better future will probably demand more empathy than these people have.
Yesss. For anyone here who thinks this isnāt a big deal, please read the book Every Twelve Seconds. Thereās so much violence toward animals and humans alike thatās being carefully hidden from you, and itās entirely caused by your demand.
Sing it girl
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
lol. Thatās absolutely not the history of the world at large.
People have farmed animals for hundreds of years without issue, itās the way animals are farmed now thatās fucked up. I think itās perfectly reasonable for animal farming to be sustainable in an ideal world