When looking at the majority of comments going on certain online forums you can end up thinking that the vast majority of solarpunks all think the same way on certain issues.
Whether it’s plant-based diets, or the role of traditional media it can seem like 80%+ of the people are in agreement, sometimes very strong agreement and denounce alternative interpretations as not solarpunk at all.
This is why the pioneering research by Benjamin Maldonado Fernandez is so interesting. As part of his studies at the university of Leiden he conducted a survey of people in the solarpunk scene which gained 571 respondents, making it one of the largest, if not the largest so far. It had a wide range of questions which you can see all of in the published results here.
We interviewed Benjamin to unpack some of the findings of the survey.
As I suspected, the majority (59%) believe that skyscrapers with green stuff on them were solarpunk. This isn’t largely true, but I think the main entry point is people enjoy imagining better cities.
I am trying to create solarpunk art with more practical options for verdant urban spaces.
I think this makes sense as the majority of people in ‘developed’ countries live in urban places. I live rurally and I find it interesting to think about solarpunk visions of this way of life, particularly how our social lives could be enhanced.