I feel like I always think of solar punk as a macro thing where a lot has to change but there are still smaller wins we can implement, what have you been doing?
Is taking an electric bus to the native plant gardens to take care of them solarpunk?
Absolutely!
Seems pretty solar punk to me.
I literally couldn’t name many things more solarpunk than that
Lately, I’ve been teaching people how to repair their clothing! At least one guy has come to the conclusion that hand sewing is actually punk af, because knowing how to fix your shit is Sticking It To The Man.
‘Thread Repair’ is definitely less grandma-esque than ‘sewing’ or ‘needle and stitch’.
Some youtuber somewhere is probably recording an introduction,
‘Welcome to my thread repair lab. This is where we pull, push, and stretch fabric to the limit…’
It writes itself! Theres a whole youtube channel in this!
The need to de-centre women from traditionally female technologies, crafts and occupations in order to appeal and cater to men’s interests, is kinda upsetting though.
I’m really torn on it because on one hand, if calling it Thread Repair could get more people (especially men) to participate, that’s a good thing! I also just like the sound of thread repair XD On the other hand… maybe men should learn to be interested in things that aren’t personally catered to their tiny baby feelings. Get over it and fix your damn socks.
I dunno. I’m also eternally torn between “men created toxic masculinity and they need to fix it themselves, not expect women to do it for them” and “men need the women in their lives to help them escape toxic masculinity because we’re outside it (for the most part) and everyone needs help sometimes”
Yeah, interesting for me that you picked up the masculinity still.
In that comment I actually considered that because I had written something like ‘inject masculinity’ into it. But as I wrote, I thought its not just young men, but women as well, much like yourself. So I tried to de-masculine it and make it about dropping the old person connotations.
I suppose I’s not very successful in that. I think its the faux quote at the end that just reads so much like every male teenfluencer ever. 😆
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I believe that’s actually a modern perception and textiles were originally a male dominated field.
Yeah, fuck all the female dominated histories of all the various textile cultures around the world, someone on the internet told me it was men who probably did it first, and women obviously just copied them! So if men want to get into textiles again now they have every right to push out any reminder of women ever being involved!
Just to be clear, the above paragraph is sarcasm. Exasperated but unsurprised, sarcasm.
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On the other hand, the SciShow episode about knitting was so upsettingly wrong that Hank Green took it down, so I’m not particularly inclined to trust him on this topic. He angered the entire fiber art community by talking about how nobody understood knitting until scientists looked at it, which is actually pretty sexist.
@faythofdragons @Capitanmaroon
Good for them for realizing the truth, because It *IS* punk af.
And also awesome.
I do a lot more food related DIY stuff, like balcony gardening, food preservation (bought from local farmers directly), planning to grow mushrooms etc.
Oh mushrooms, I wish I had time to get back to those!
I bought a mushroom log last year that was sprouting so I harvested it. I haven’t got anything else from it since last spring. I’m bummed because I love mushrooms
Some mushrooms can be shocked into fruiting by dropping the log into a bucket of cold water for a few hours. Probably worth having a search to see if that’s relevant for the mushrooms you have.
Good idea!! I they grow in colder weather so I will have to wait. I think the log dried out maybe
Where goblincore swamp and solarpunk forest meet, where the sacred grove is being tended, the bog creature has been up to this:
- Lots of DIY food production. This year I’m probably at 50% home grown and home raised.
- Continuous learning and improving to work low tech as well as low energy input (short transport paths, few step processes) around house and garden.
- Recycle and reuse. Got no money anyways, great chance to learn how to reuse everything. My furniture is punk as fuck, most is self-build or recovered. Sewing machine shall be my powerful ally for making new clothes out of old ones.
- Small, smaller, still smaller, and very quiet. I practice degrowth as a spiritual practice. I try to notice and to consider my many non-human neighbours and consciously try to keep a tiny footprint and to do a slow and steady work instead of big interventions.
- I used to be more active in community work, but it’s not within my means and capabilities at the moment. Seeds I helped plant in the past are growing though, so that’s not lost and I will pick it up again in the future.
- Returning to joyful creative work. My spirit of creating had been fucked over for years by the power of the algorithm and I am rediscovering my true roars and whispers.
- Remain open to new ideas out there and try to keep a bit updated about what the youngsters do and want and like, to not become a fossil.
Love ALL of this! LoL, just starting to make friends in the GoblinCore. <3
I hear you on the joyful creative work. I am only recently starting to write again after all the energy and joy was sapped out of me by survival. Here’s to finding ourselves again <3
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Moving my technological dependencies from big tech companies to self-hosted, open source solutions, running Linux on my machines etc.
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Gardening on my balcony. I am growing tomatoes, broad beans, peppers (chilis, bell) and an assortment of salads and herbs. I am mostly self-sufficient on herbs, during growing season I am fully self-sufficient on salads. Pretty far from it on tomatoes and peppers, and especially on beans as they are not fruiting :(
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In general getting more in touch with local flora. I’ve been photographing flowering plants in my neighborhood lately and identifying them, trying to learn what grows around here. Goal is to be quite well-versed in local flora, including what is edible (and how to use it) and not
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Contributing to OpenStreetMap, both in my neighborhood and also through tasks.hotosm.org where I help trace missing buildings in disaster-struck places for first-responders to use (and in preparation for possible disasters in the future). This kind of collaborative project I find to be very solarpunky.
Living in a rented apartment, there is only so much I can make changes here. There was an initiative to install solar panels, but it was voted down for some reason - not being an owner, I am not involved in those discussions. Dream is to find a small house outside the city to expand my garden and to become as off-grid as possible.
I’d never heard of OpenStreetMap and I’ve gone down the rabbit hole since last night - this is cool as hell, thank you for introducing me!!
Nice, cool to hear!
I have two favorite navigational applications that utilizes OSM-data: Organic Maps/CoMaps (there’s a lot of drama here that you can read up on if it interests you, but CoMaps was forked from Organic Maps after some mismanagement of funds was uncovered) for a clean, simple and quick navigation experience and OsmAnd~ for a very tailored experience that takes some time to get into, but gives you a way to set up different profiles for walking, hiking, cycling, public transport, driving etc. The premium version with a full feature set (~) can be purchased in Apple Store and Google Play Store, but is offered for free through F-Droid on Android.
I mentioned tasks.hotosm.org. Here is a cool writeup of the project which introduced me to it just some weeks ago, which was posted somewhere on Lemmy: https://sheets.works/data-viz/strangers-draw-maps
I also use StreetComplete to solve some outstanding questions about features in the neighborhoods I walk in, such as the quality of the road surfaces, whether a street is lit or not and speed limits. Organized as small tasks that show up as icons on the map. Kinda like a Pokémon Go-experience, as Wiz@midwest.social described it as. There’s another one called Every Door that is supposed to be better for adding information about points of interests (shops, restaurants, monuments, drinking fountains, etc. etc.). I have not tried that yet. I also have Verspucci installed that is a more full-fledged editor for Android, for when I want to make more detailed edits. A bit steeper learning curve. I have not used it that much yet, but I did update some very out-of-date restaurants in a city I visited earlier this Summer.
I use it a little like Pokémon Go. Just download an app and complete the map!
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° Eating plant-based & living vegan
° Going car-free while using an e-bike
° Reducing consumption habits while lowering waste production & plastic use
° Long-term goal of owning land & building off-grid, renewables-powered tiny home ♡
- utility biking
- repairing stuff instead of throwing it out
- using stuff found on the curb that other people threw out (my wife rescued a $500 Kitchen Aid stand mixer the other day – it’s wild what people throw out around here!)
- DIY renovations with careful deconstruction so materials can be reused
Who throws out a kitchen aid mixer? That shit is expensive and fancy
It doesn’t run, but I haven’t dug into it yet to figure out what’s actually wrong with it. (First world problems: we’ve already got a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, so getting it working isn’t particularly urgent. This bowl-lift one would be a slight upgrade from our Artisan, though.)
Still, I’m pretty sure these things are a holdover from back when things were designed for repairability instead of planned obsolescence, so I have little doubt that it’s fixable for a lot less than the cost to replace it.
I know the motors are supposedly super high quality. I wouldn’t know how to fix one but I am sure it’s going to be worth the effort. Especially if you sell it as used afterwards
I was thinking of custom-painting it (like Alton Brown did to his mixer) and keeping it.
Even better
I looooove curb shopping. Ninety percent of my house is furnished with curb finds (the rest is thrifting finds)
Organic gardening including composting
Shop the Co-Op and Farmer’s Market - diet is mostly organic vegetarian
Ride Bikes
Drive an EV when needed + solar panels on the roof - It’s like riding on sunshine!
I avoid un-neccessary travel.
Enjoy “The Great Outdoors”
Connect with my like minded community (getting off corporate social media is a piece of this)
I’ve just come across the term Solar Punk in the past year or so. A lot of SP has been what I’ve felt was the best way to live harmoniously on the Earth. I’m still learning, and hope to continue.
All of this sounds great, especially +1 for avoiding unnecessary travel! A lot of people start to drive more once they get an EV, as it’s “more eco-friendly”, in the worst case creating a rebound-effect. It takes willpower and thoughtfulness not to fall into that behaviour
An EV is never going to be more efficient than a bike or walking. My EV’s mass is enormous compared to my bike or a pair of sneakers. I don’t know about willpower, for me, as bikes are so fun to ride.
I was thinking I haven’t made much progress but writing it down, I have a few going right now.
- Purchased a used eletric car (With a new baby we couldn’t get by without one, but we are considering an e-cargo bike)
- Continue gardening and urban foraging skills
- Planted a large native garden in my front yard (Over 400 sq ft.)
- Continuing my herbalism practice for my own healthy and family (my lotions and salves are working great)
- Continue to purchase the majority of my child clothes used or second hand. Getting lots of things free
- Continue my practice to try to give things away instead of throwing them away
- Volunteer with a native lead oprganization doing prairie restoration. (I went to one of their interesting hands on demo on three sisters gardens and learned tons about drying food).
So I am making some progress but plently to go. I want to try to reduce my food waste but I haven’t gotten in the practice of saving or drying things when getting low.
If you’ve got a young’n:
- Go cloth diapers over disposable most the time. We went woth a diaper servce to start, then bought our own once we had it figured out.
- For the ebike: we waited until kiddo was old enough for a bike seat (10 mo in our case, but ~12 mo) for the ebike. This let us get a longtail that is cheaper, mechanically simpler, and we can store inside instead of a bucket style bike
It takes something like 500 years for a store bought disposable diaper to decompose in a landfill, and we use billions of them every year.
If one can use cloth, I say one should.
We did use some disposables throughout (mostly for logistical reasons) but we still saved 5,000+ diapers fron landfill.
Our daughter is 10 months so we’re just starting looking for bikes. I was thinking about getting a long tail because that’s what people around us seem to be using.
I know cloth diapers are better for the environment I just can’t.
Cloth diapers can definitely be hard if you dont have on-site laundry. We were lucky enough to live somewhere with a diaper service when we didn’t have laundry.
We have on site laundry but I already do so much laundry.
I’d like to tell you it gets better…
With laundry? Or everything? Let me keep the surprise
Do you have any resources for the herbalism practice? That sounds extremely cool
Of course. I have done most of my learning via books and trial and error. The first book I got was The Healing Garden which is written by an herbalists who does an online classes which I haven’t done except the free ones. The book is beautiful and totally worth owning and will go over everything from organic herbal hardening, wildcrafting best practices, creating medicines and species highlights. Most books have the same categories as well.
I also recommend anything and everything by Rosemary Gladstar. She is a giant in the field and has lots of small densely packed books. I have her Medicinal Herbs and Herbal Healing for me both of which are great. Her herbal healing for men is the only men specific herbalism book I’ve seen.
If you need to buy herbs see if you have a local shop. They are usually listed as metaphysical stores which contains Tarot decks, crystals etc. some are good for herbs and some are bad. You will have to check them out yourself. Online Mountain Rose Herbs is amazing. Be careful elsewhere because some online shops are sketchy and are not giving you good herbs or worst of all something completely different. The best is growing it yourself or buying high quality culinary herbs. (A lot of culinary herbs have medicinal qualities usually at higher doses but can still be part of a dish).
All the books have more resources and there’s tons of ways to go. All the books are modern Western herbalists which combine multiple historical traditions which is typical. But you can deep dive into specific traditions as well (Chinese medicine, ayurvedic, traditional European herbs, indigenous etc.). Follow the references.
The only watch out I will give you is this. A herbalist should never use only essential oils for treatments. That is a scam and usually a MLM. Full plants are preferred and essential oils are usually just used for smells. Second, they should be a supplement to standard Western medicine and not a replacement. It covers gaps within that system (chronic issues, preventative medicine, quality of life, etc.) and should still be used. Most herbalists think of that as hero medicine for the big things while herbs do the rest.
Have fun!!!
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Cheers to using the library!! I don’t go often but I do love my Libby app
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Electrification is a big topic. But you can always start with little things like changing to an electric mower instead of a gasoline powered one. Community work is also important, but I honestly don’t know where to start…
May I share a post recently from our own slrpnk.net? @Pencilnoob shared a bunch of info about volunteering with local fire squads that I found really insightful! Turns out it’s not all about running into burning buildings c: https://slrpnk.net/post/40223075
Buying secondhand over new. I love thrifting so that’s a bonus for me! Also using what I have, repairing what I can, or just going without something versus buying something in the first place.
Eating less meat, and prioritizing locally grown veg when possible.
Taking public transit, walking, or biking everywhere. If going long distance, I try to take ground transportation (trains, buses) over flying.
Reducing energy use eg turning off lights when I’m not in the room. You’d be surprised how many people still don’t do that, haha!
I’m still building the habit of turning lights off when leaving a room hehe. I’ve learned a lot about those little things recently - turning the lights off, stopping the dishwasher before the dry cycle, and someone below said that a computer uses less energy when the screen brightness is down so I’m doing that now too c:
Also seconding on thrifting, it’s so much fun!! I also love repairing.
I already had a professionally installed solar system on my roof, but the capacity isn’t great (12 years old) and adding to it isn’t feasible. I do have a pergola over my backyard patio, so I bought 4 new (and large) panels, an off-grid inverter, and 5kWh battery. I put the panels on the pergola, ran wiring into the garage, and hooked up the inverter and battery in there. I then wired one of my level 1 chargers to the inverter. I use it to help charge my cars. I try to plug the charger in during the day as much as we can to charge the cars directly, but the 5 kWh server rack battery is there to soak up electrons when the cars are in use.
I thought about skipping the server rack battery for a cheaper setup, but it’s been worth it considering how often a car isn’t available to charge directly. It’s not integrated into the house circuits, so no permit needed.
My wife’s family has property out in the forest (Navajo reservation) with a house that doesn’t have running water or power, so we’re going to start fixing it up for her mom to live there (she recently retired) and will be setting up an off-grid power solution and water system soon. We’ll have to haul water from the nearest chapter house, but there’s a program to provide and install a 1200 gallon storage tank underground that we’ll use. Probably augment that with a rainwater catchment setup. Maybe even start raising sheep again, no one in her family has used their grazing rights for years, since her grandmother passed away. My wife spent many summers at that property. Used to be summer only due to the snow and dirt roads, but thanks to global warming, it’s a viable year-round housing site now.
A lot of our life has been trending solarpunk for decades; we just finished processing the early crop of cooking apples, from two trees, and gave away the surplus, for instance.
But notably utopian design stuff: we’re building a bathroom with a composting toilet and greywater drainage.
Heating in the bathroom will be by on-demand infrared panel, and the small multipurpose building with the bathroom is getting a heat pump. Construction is mostly new materials but we did manage to reuse a lot of salvage.
Besides gardening? I built a low-power, right-sized server out of an ancient phone. It draws around a watt of power, less when idle.
Any DIY links that you have found are useful for this (before I start re’searching’. )
I don’t have any handy “start to finish” guides for this. I suppose I should start a blog, or something :)
Basic steps:
- get a phone that can run PostmarketOS - https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices — it does not need to run it perfectly. Camera, cell modem, even screen are completely optional. It must charge and do WiFi, only.
- flash PostmarketOS on the phone. Get SSH access - if the screen doesn’t work, use USB ethernet emulation (during pmbootstrap init, choose USB mode = “developer”), log in, then
nmtuito enter your WiFi password. - optionally, reduce maximum battery charge/voltage, to prolong battery health. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Battery_Voltage_Reduction
- hooray, now you have a server. Proceed setting up as if it were a VPS. It’s a variant of Alpine Linux - any Alpine guide will work fine, or you could use Docker or Podman.
Now this is something I haven’t done, but you could - hook it up to a solar panel. Rely on solar during the day, and on the phone battery until it lasts. Write a shell script / cronjob / systemd unit to suspend the phone when battery level gets low. It’ll get a wakeup event from hardware, when solar comes back (hopefully).
What are you using it for?
Offsite monitoring. It runs Prometheus, Grafana, etc, and watches the rest of my selfhostables. Sends me alerts when stuff goes down.
