hm, i feel like there’s a big problem when we try...

elodieunderglass:

underthehedge:
elodieunderglass:
butchniqabi:
hm, i feel like there’s a big problem when we try to visualize a sort of “solarpunk”-like society where we assume that every place a gonna be a grassy, tree-fillled, green city and that’s like fine and all but it’s very inauthentic to the diverse landscapes of our planet. for example, i live in southern california and ive seen trees and grass but i’ve also seen desert with cacti and bushes and dry land. when we associate our future, our “progress”, with a certain landscape we are not treating the land with the respect it deserves. deserts, plains, mountains, marshes are all apart of the world we live in and we need to invision a future with those lands too
also with all this in mind, a lot of this aesthetic and line of thinking can be damaging to indigenous communities. thinking the desert is just “empty space” and thinking the plains should be replaced with forests go hand-in-hand with colonialist ideology. no land is empty land, it is always someone’s home. we need to make space for indigenous people in our solarpunk, cottagecore, vegan, etc. ideologies if we ever want to truly make progress and not perpetuate the same shit with a different brand on it
Exactly this. Plantcraft is geography plus intention. It involves the best plant for the job and place.
The Eurocentric vision of a mossy temperate forest as the ideal landscape is colonialist. And this vision is marketed to you by people who don’t know much about plants. So you end up being less open to new plant knowledge, and less imaginative - neither of which are in the spirit of solarpunk
Grasslands are ecologically valid. Scrublands are ecologically valid. The world is full of plants and animals and fungi that evolved for open spaces and grasslands that would be lost to tree cover. Trees != best ecology forever. Like, reforestation is good where appropriate but it’s a matter of time and place and local environment and the idea that grassland is sterile straight up incorrect. A natural or semi-natural grassland is not a monoculture lawn.
I know I never shut up about this, but. Humans: a grassland species on a grassland planet. Globally, our staple diets are based on grass seed. Almost all of our meat is from grass-eating animals. Our permanent settlements are largely founded around the storage of grass. If the root of our humanity is in a plant it is in grass. And some real bright sparks in conservation have everyone convinced that the ideal state of the planet is a fake English woodland, because (checks notes) their dad spent too much time mowing their 2.5 acre American lawn i guess idk

(via pangur-and-grim)