Solarpunk is innately about hope for a better future, but Desert is rather about the impossibility to save the world from climate change and the opportunities for anarchy that arise after the world’s end. It’s not as if Desert is devoid of hope, but rather it sees hope and possibilities within the end of the world. In that respect, there is some overlap with solarpunk, but I can’t help but think the nihilism doesn’t jive well with the solarpunk ethos.
I think its really well done, which I guess puts me in the minority. I don’t think nihilism and hope are incompatible inherently, but also I don’t see desert as particularly nihilistic. Also I don’t think saving the climate is a thing humans are going to do. All humans have an impact on the environment, but most people I interact with are not interested in environmentalism at all. I would write that off as anecdote, except all the polls bear this out in the US at least. In polls I’ve seen over the last few weeks anywhere from 3-8% of people think the environment or climate change is our most important issue, while anywhere from 12-60% of people feel its’s the economy. So those are pretty dismal numbers given the IPCC’s latest report. Furthermore most of us can’t make hugely effective choices. We can go vegan, ditch the car for the ebike, etc. Those things matter, but a lot more so in aggregate. This is why population matters. If roughly 5% of the population is willing to modify their own behaviors to help save the environment, then 1.5C is just the tip of the iceberg. Furthermore, more modern studies show that the earth cannot support 8 billion people sustainably no matter how we live and we blew past that number last year. The world desert imagines is actually inevitable. Mass death and suffering is inevitable. That doesn’t mean we have to succumb to the despair. I think it means its a matter of cruelty to have a child given what little the future holds as far as hope goes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to make life better for those of us that are here and will be having to live through this cursed timeline. There are going to be opportunities to live according to mutual aid as governments collapse in the wake of what’s coming. Creating ways to survive this is crucial, but wwe shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking there is actually a future where humans don’t destroy the entire earth. We are at a point of accepting and reducing harm.
