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it’s only possible to achieve this bucolic utopian vision by depopulation; there absolutely is not enough acreage available even if we had multiple earths to provide this lifestyle for everyone
Are you sure about that?
One, hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns have a calories-per-acre production metric that rivals or surpasses broadacre cereal crops. It is not an accident that they are well established as food crops across the northern hemisphere’s temperate forest regions.
Two, companion planting or polyculture is more productive per acre than broadacre farming. Chinampas (which CarmineCatboy posted) and Three Sisters plantings are two examples of wildly productive formats. The difference is that polyculture is labor-intensive, and conventional agriculture economizes labor above all else. We certainly won’t be able to feed the world with 1% of people working as farmers as the West does now, but 10-20% farmers would be feasible. If you bring the energy cost and embodied energy of farm equipment into account, conventional farms fall even further behind.
Three, the standard Western farm grows wheat or field corn or soy and about half of all this goes to livestock feed or biofuels, then most of the remainder is refined into corn syrup or modified food starch or bleached flour or hydrogenated vegetable oil and so on. These especially shelf stable commodities are not essential to our nutrition.
Four, conventional farming is depleting our topsoil and our oil resources and our other mineral resources, and it won’t last until the beginning of the next century anyway.
The idea that we need conventional agriculture to survive was planted in our heads by the capitalists, and we need to unlearn it.
And we could provide for 10x the current population if we shifted agricultural production to wolffia or azolla but that’s not the point. I said this directly after talking about the image of a homestead, hence the term bucolic and talking about it in terms of lifestyle and not in sheer terms of agricultural productivity. The fact of the matter is that there is not enough habitable land to provide a homestead to 8 billion+ people.
I already know that polyculture farming is more productive but chinampas are not a model which is suitable for intensive farming in many places in the world and, like it or not, chinampas do not embody the vision of a oneness with nature that solarpunk promotes; establishing chinampas will require dramatically changing the waterways and thus the local ecology so it’s not some magic bullet that resolves all of these issues. There are plenty of freshwater fish that are endangered around the world that probably wouldn’t survive if we turned all the world’s freshwater waterways into chinampas for food production. It’s four sisters btw.
These especially shelf stable commodities are not essential to our nutrition.
Most foods are not essential to our nutrition. Bleached flour or unbleached flour, it doesn’t change much in regard to if it’s essential to our nutrition and it doesn’t change the demands on arable land except for the fact that the more shelf stable a food is, the less food waste is incurred due to spoilage. I don’t really get what your point is.
Four, conventional farming is depleting our topsoil and our oil resources and our other mineral resources, and it won’t last until the beginning of the next century anyway.
Yes, but it’s not a binary question of maintaining the current system or switching to solarpunk and this framing is disingenuous.
The idea that we need conventional agriculture to survive was planted in our heads by the capitalists, and we need to unlearn it.
This doesn’t come off as being in good faith. I never said that we must maintain our current system of agricultural production or that it’s totally fine. That was never my point and I didn’t argue that whatsoever.
I was reserving this criticism of solarpunk politics but it’s very retrograde in its outlook and I’ve never seen defenders of it beat the allegations that it advocates for a “return to nature” to reconnect with some essentialness of being human. In all honesty it seems to me to be this eclectic, aestheticized pseudopolitics or at its heart it’s anprim ideology with a coat of permaculture-inspired paint to make it more palatable. We can’t just throw chinampas at the problem and call it good; ecologists and agronomists at the top of their fields will tell you that it’s very complex and dependent upon the local conditions and there aren’t many simple solutions.
Solarpunk doesn’t have prescriptions about how things are grown, just some permaculture overlap. The comment you were responding to had pictures of both chinampas and agroforestry. If you’re not talking about that, then you’re arguing against something nebulous and undefined. Is it practical to try to define solarpunk as “anything you want it to be”, or is it more practical to call it “appropriate tech with transparent social structures, and an environment that is scaled to human comprehension”?
Of course the Texcoco style won’t be suitable around the globe. There are lots of vernacular approaches for every corner of the globe, pre-capitalism. No need to trip over yourself to justify homogenized grain and pulse products, these are not good for human health or for ecology, and they end up getting wasted at a similar rate anyway around the point of consumption.
The only rigorous and non-debatebro part of your post is saying that we can’t give everyone a homestead with fields and buffer space. And yeah, sure. But the comment you’re replying to also has a low-rise city skyline that’s implied to be within cycling distance.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that solarpunk is anything more than a gateway drug, but if it’s not something that gets eaten up by cottagecore, it ends up orienting toward ecology and accessibility.
Solarpunk doesn’t have prescriptions about how things are grown
Yeah, but this is my exact point - it’s not rigorous, it’s just vibes and aesthetics. That’s the whole point of my criticisms.
The comment you were responding to had pictures of both chinampas and agroforestry.
I am aware. Did I not just describe my criticisms of chinampas in the comment you just replied to?
Why do you presume I needed to be informed of this so deep into the replies?
If you’re not talking about that, then you’re arguing against something nebulous and undefined.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. I wasn’t responding to the use or depiction of chinampas or agroforestry. I’m responding to the lack of political dimensions and the lack of program inherent to the solarpunk movement.
I’m not sure how I could have made that clearer unless I specifically prefaced my first comment with “This is not about the agriculture methods depicted in the images above”.
Is it practical to try to define solarpunk as “anything you want it to be”, or is it more practical to call it “appropriate tech with transparent social structures, and an environment that is scaled to human comprehension”?
That’s a question for people who count themselves as part of the solarpunk movement.
But to me “appropriate” is a floating signifier as much as “in line with ecology” is - if you drill down into the details, all you find is vibes.
Of course the Texcoco style won’t be suitable around the globe.
So what was the point in giving me the cliff notes of chinampas exactly unless you were trying to flex your knowledge and position the discussion as if I had no idea what they are?
You keep on attempting to school me on chinampas for some reason. I don’t get it.
No need to trip over yourself to justify homogenized grain and pulse products
Again, I never said anything like this. I never argued in favor of conventional agriculture nor did I say that it’s justified. You’re tilting at windmills.
and they end up getting wasted at a similar rate anyway around the point of consumption.
I have zero clue what point you’re trying to make here. In comparison to what? Based on what evidence?
The only rigorous and non-debatebro part of your post
See this is where I take issue with your attitude in these replies. You have approached this discussion as if there are only two options and that any criticism of solarpunk as an aesthetic masquerading as a political program equates to defending conventional agriculture and the typical western diet.
On top of that, instead of actually engaging with my arguments you decided that I don’t know basic terms and that I needed to be told about food production methods like chinampas. Then you sling an insult at me by calling me a debatebro. That’s dismal. If you take issue with debatebro comments then you should reflect on how you’ve approached this exchange with me.
The only rigorous and non-debatebro part of your post is saying that we can’t give everyone a homestead with fields and buffer space.
That was the entire point of what I was saying. The fact that you felt it necessary to gripe about bleached flour and shelf-stable foods and it’s only when this deep into the replies that you finally start discussing the point really illustrates your hypocrisy in calling me a debatebro.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that solarpunk is anything more than a gateway drug, but if it’s not something that gets eaten up by cottagecore, it ends up orienting toward ecology and accessibility.
Not from what I’ve seen. I just see buzzwords like “appropriate use of technology” being deployed to avoid engaging with matters of implementation. I don’t see any real engagement with ecology.
Just like with what permaculture has become today, so too is solarpunk. I’ve seen people with waterlogged soil making swales that further exacerbate the problems of water management on their land because they only understand form and not function, the same can be said with countless rocket stoves and rocket mass heaters - it’s an utter disregard for any design principles because it has become aestheticized and a rocket mass heater has somehow become a symbol of permaculture. This is the exact same problem inherent to solarpunk except for the fact that solarpunk started as an aesthetic and, for all its problems and all the criticisms of it, at least permaculture was founded on serious agro-ecological design principles. The same cannot be said for the solarpunk movement.
Are you sure about that?
One, hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns have a calories-per-acre production metric that rivals or surpasses broadacre cereal crops. It is not an accident that they are well established as food crops across the northern hemisphere’s temperate forest regions.
Two, companion planting or polyculture is more productive per acre than broadacre farming. Chinampas (which CarmineCatboy posted) and Three Sisters plantings are two examples of wildly productive formats. The difference is that polyculture is labor-intensive, and conventional agriculture economizes labor above all else. We certainly won’t be able to feed the world with 1% of people working as farmers as the West does now, but 10-20% farmers would be feasible. If you bring the energy cost and embodied energy of farm equipment into account, conventional farms fall even further behind.
Three, the standard Western farm grows wheat or field corn or soy and about half of all this goes to livestock feed or biofuels, then most of the remainder is refined into corn syrup or modified food starch or bleached flour or hydrogenated vegetable oil and so on. These especially shelf stable commodities are not essential to our nutrition.
Four, conventional farming is depleting our topsoil and our oil resources and our other mineral resources, and it won’t last until the beginning of the next century anyway.
The idea that we need conventional agriculture to survive was planted in our heads by the capitalists, and we need to unlearn it.
And we could provide for 10x the current population if we shifted agricultural production to wolffia or azolla but that’s not the point. I said this directly after talking about the image of a homestead, hence the term bucolic and talking about it in terms of lifestyle and not in sheer terms of agricultural productivity. The fact of the matter is that there is not enough habitable land to provide a homestead to 8 billion+ people.
I already know that polyculture farming is more productive but chinampas are not a model which is suitable for intensive farming in many places in the world and, like it or not, chinampas do not embody the vision of a oneness with nature that solarpunk promotes; establishing chinampas will require dramatically changing the waterways and thus the local ecology so it’s not some magic bullet that resolves all of these issues. There are plenty of freshwater fish that are endangered around the world that probably wouldn’t survive if we turned all the world’s freshwater waterways into chinampas for food production. It’s four sisters btw.
Most foods are not essential to our nutrition. Bleached flour or unbleached flour, it doesn’t change much in regard to if it’s essential to our nutrition and it doesn’t change the demands on arable land except for the fact that the more shelf stable a food is, the less food waste is incurred due to spoilage. I don’t really get what your point is.
Yes, but it’s not a binary question of maintaining the current system or switching to solarpunk and this framing is disingenuous.
This doesn’t come off as being in good faith. I never said that we must maintain our current system of agricultural production or that it’s totally fine. That was never my point and I didn’t argue that whatsoever.
I was reserving this criticism of solarpunk politics but it’s very retrograde in its outlook and I’ve never seen defenders of it beat the allegations that it advocates for a “return to nature” to reconnect with some essentialness of being human. In all honesty it seems to me to be this eclectic, aestheticized pseudopolitics or at its heart it’s anprim ideology with a coat of permaculture-inspired paint to make it more palatable. We can’t just throw chinampas at the problem and call it good; ecologists and agronomists at the top of their fields will tell you that it’s very complex and dependent upon the local conditions and there aren’t many simple solutions.
Solarpunk doesn’t have prescriptions about how things are grown, just some permaculture overlap. The comment you were responding to had pictures of both chinampas and agroforestry. If you’re not talking about that, then you’re arguing against something nebulous and undefined. Is it practical to try to define solarpunk as “anything you want it to be”, or is it more practical to call it “appropriate tech with transparent social structures, and an environment that is scaled to human comprehension”?
Of course the Texcoco style won’t be suitable around the globe. There are lots of vernacular approaches for every corner of the globe, pre-capitalism. No need to trip over yourself to justify homogenized grain and pulse products, these are not good for human health or for ecology, and they end up getting wasted at a similar rate anyway around the point of consumption.
The only rigorous and non-debatebro part of your post is saying that we can’t give everyone a homestead with fields and buffer space. And yeah, sure. But the comment you’re replying to also has a low-rise city skyline that’s implied to be within cycling distance.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that solarpunk is anything more than a gateway drug, but if it’s not something that gets eaten up by cottagecore, it ends up orienting toward ecology and accessibility.
Yeah, but this is my exact point - it’s not rigorous, it’s just vibes and aesthetics. That’s the whole point of my criticisms.
I am aware. Did I not just describe my criticisms of chinampas in the comment you just replied to?
Why do you presume I needed to be informed of this so deep into the replies?
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. I wasn’t responding to the use or depiction of chinampas or agroforestry. I’m responding to the lack of political dimensions and the lack of program inherent to the solarpunk movement.
I’m not sure how I could have made that clearer unless I specifically prefaced my first comment with “This is not about the agriculture methods depicted in the images above”.
That’s a question for people who count themselves as part of the solarpunk movement.
But to me “appropriate” is a floating signifier as much as “in line with ecology” is - if you drill down into the details, all you find is vibes.
So what was the point in giving me the cliff notes of chinampas exactly unless you were trying to flex your knowledge and position the discussion as if I had no idea what they are?
You keep on attempting to school me on chinampas for some reason. I don’t get it.
Again, I never said anything like this. I never argued in favor of conventional agriculture nor did I say that it’s justified. You’re tilting at windmills.
I have zero clue what point you’re trying to make here. In comparison to what? Based on what evidence?
See this is where I take issue with your attitude in these replies. You have approached this discussion as if there are only two options and that any criticism of solarpunk as an aesthetic masquerading as a political program equates to defending conventional agriculture and the typical western diet.
On top of that, instead of actually engaging with my arguments you decided that I don’t know basic terms and that I needed to be told about food production methods like chinampas. Then you sling an insult at me by calling me a debatebro. That’s dismal. If you take issue with debatebro comments then you should reflect on how you’ve approached this exchange with me.
That was the entire point of what I was saying. The fact that you felt it necessary to gripe about bleached flour and shelf-stable foods and it’s only when this deep into the replies that you finally start discussing the point really illustrates your hypocrisy in calling me a debatebro.
Not from what I’ve seen. I just see buzzwords like “appropriate use of technology” being deployed to avoid engaging with matters of implementation. I don’t see any real engagement with ecology.
Just like with what permaculture has become today, so too is solarpunk. I’ve seen people with waterlogged soil making swales that further exacerbate the problems of water management on their land because they only understand form and not function, the same can be said with countless rocket stoves and rocket mass heaters - it’s an utter disregard for any design principles because it has become aestheticized and a rocket mass heater has somehow become a symbol of permaculture. This is the exact same problem inherent to solarpunk except for the fact that solarpunk started as an aesthetic and, for all its problems and all the criticisms of it, at least permaculture was founded on serious agro-ecological design principles. The same cannot be said for the solarpunk movement.