Solarpunk is a genre I have only recently become aware of. Indeed, it’s arguably beyond a literature genre and become a movement, focussed on real sustainability based in community action. In literature, I think the thing about solarpunk is that it’s hopeful - in particular acknowledging climate change and suggesting ways for humans to live with it, and mitigate it.
Phoebe Wagner’s essay this month looks at how American solarpunk stories use the motif of the garden, and how this harks back to biblical imagery as well as earlier American literature. It’s a challenge to authors to go beyond seeing the garden as an easy way of talking about sustainability. It’s also an excellent intro to the whole concept of solarpunk.