To state the obvious, others disagree. Here's how the "manifesto" page linked from the OP [1] puts it:
> The “punk” in Solarpunk is about rebellion, counterculture, post-capitalism, decolonialism and enthusiasm. It is about going in a different direction than the mainstream, which is increasingly going in a scary direction
One thing to bear in mind is that the series begins with stories that are very optimistic (some would say naively so), but the themes increasingly became darker as the authors aged.
Most of it is difficult to read nowadays, it’s mostly about spreading the idea of communism to the outer space and coping with the ideologically immature alien nations. But there are some gems, of course. Strugatsky brothers as a fine example, they started to write on early 60s and even thought their early prose is full of communism ideology, the overall quality is amazing. Check their “Hard to be God” book, it’s one of my all time favorites.
> The “punk” in Solarpunk is about rebellion, counterculture, post-capitalism, decolonialism and enthusiasm. It is about going in a different direction than the mainstream, which is increasingly going in a scary direction.
Judging from the behavior of the current brigade of people taking part -at least in theory- of many of those movements, I would say the opposite, that is the scary part. A new-inquisition in which your sins are going against the current orthodoxy of social justice and similar movements. Now, that is the kind of book I would read, also to be honest many works have been produced in that vein, like Harrison Bergeron, form 1961!
It is also ironic, that most of the people exposing this movement, are esentially white WEIRD , a tiny sliver of the world population to whom also belong most of the dominant class.
>It is also ironic, that most of the people exposing this movement, are esentially white WEIRD , a tiny sliver of the world population to whom also belong most of the dominant class.
That may be true, but we need to start somewhere. Actually we need to start lots of places, but a movement coming from amongst the most priveliged is a really good sign if you think about it. At least as long as they don't overimpose their view on the less fortunate.