AEMarling

Every Sunday this Discord of solarpunks has discussions, which are often thoughtful and interesting. We are about to start a new book, Solarpunk Creatures. Now is the perfect time to join us.

I’m designing a solarpunk city for my next novel and am exploring my options for streetlights. On the one hand, light pollution harms wildlife and humans. It also uses energy. On the other, well-lit streets increase the perception of safety. This is not to say good lighting prevents crime. If anything, it facilitates it. Further, you would expect crime to be less in a solarpunk city that prioritizes mutual aid, minimizes wealth disparity, and fights toxic masculinity. However, we should not discount the feeling of danger from darkness.

Personally, I’m male presenting, actively seek out dangerous situations, and have a high tolerance for horror movies. My first inclination is that streetlights should go. That said, once I got caught out at night in the woods. I was immediately terrified. And I had my phone light with me. In short, if a city is not lit, I suspect few people would venture out at night.

1- Mostly Dark-

A city could remove all street lights. People would instead rely on personal lighting: head lamps and flashlights. This would be more efficient and less harmful. Curbs and other critical areas could be marked (not illuminated) by glow-in-the-dark paint or bioluminescent algae or plants. There would be some light from open windows.

2- Lightly Lit-

Streetlights with caps that aim light downward, wavelengths skew into the redder side of the spectrum, and the minimum illumination required to see. Amber light is less harmful. Brighter lights create more shadows. An example of a city using this minimal approach is Canberra, as light pollution would jeopardize local observatories.

3- Cinderella Lighting -

Bright streetlights switch off at a specific time, such as midnight. This would allow people to enjoy some nighttime hours, while leaving others to more natural darkness. This is the scenario I used in my previous solarpunk novels.

Do let me know your preference and awesome ideas.

A projection in Oakland that reads “liberation requires community.” What ways have you found to build community?

In a post-scarcity solarpunk future, I could imagine some reasonable uses, but that’s not the world we’re living in yet.


AI art has already poisoned the creative environment. I commissioned an artist for my latest solarpunk novel, and they used AI without telling me. I had to scrap that illustration. Then the next person I tried to hire claimed they could do the work without AI but in fact they could not.

All that is to say, fuck generative AI and fuck capitalism!

After writing Solarpunk Creatures, I decided to join forces with my co-authors to create a workshop at the Solarpunk Conference: Decentering Humans in Solarpunk. How would you create a society that sees other creatures not as things to be exploited or marginalized into extinction but valuable independent of their use to us?

We’re about to begin Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Set in the year 2454, the Earth of the Terra Ignota quartet has seen several centuries of near-total peace and prosperity.

Projected last night at the Free Palestine Encampment at Cal, Berkeley. Colonial capitalism drives the war machine that bulldozes people from Gaza, to the Congo, to the Philippines. It’s important for solarpunks to show up in solidarity with native peoples against imperialism. Sustainability depends on the knowledge and stewardship of native populations. And, most importantly, Zionist punks fuck off! -

I’m swimming-with-mermaids delighted to reveal the cover of my next solarpunk mystery novel, Missing Mermaid. Right now I’m deciding how best to arrange the text on the cover. Do you recommend option one (author name on her tail) or option two (author name and title both up in the sky)?

The illustration is by Nell Fallcard. You can order the ebook, internationally, on the indie site Smashwords after its release on May 24th. You can preorder the book on Amazon. The paperback will come later on Barnes and Noble.