Solarpunk

Do you know the "Future Histories" podcast? It aims to expand our concept of the future by discussing a broad range of themes like alternatives to capitalism, degrowth, commons, cybernetics and much more. In every episode the host Jan Groos talks to interesting guests, who are activists, scholars or experts on their fields. I linked one of the recent episodes but I would recommend to check them all out. Sadly many episode are in german, but you can find the English episodes by searching for "Future Histories International".

On this server we are often victim of this stuff, i hope we can all improve

Are you an introvert but still want to make a difference?

Do you like talking to persons but hate talking to people?

Do you want to join community but hate the idea of meeting with community?

Here's a fun thing to do:

• Print zines (little how-to and educational pamphlets).
• Put zines in little free libraries!

Here's a place to download zines for free: https://www.sproutdistro.com/

Edit: Adding @CrimethInc as well: https://crimethinc.com/library

Here's a how-to on how to make and put together zines (cheers @susankayequinn )

https://susankayequinn.com/how-to-write-solarpunk-zine

Here's a place to find all the little free libraries in your neighborhood: https://littlefreelibrary.org/map/

Here's the FAQ from Little Free Libraries regarding donating any books or material that may be considered controversial (dive in and read their take on Banned Books! Oooooh!): https://littlefreelibrary.org/faqs/#45820

Do you have any other sources for zines that you like? Post them below.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #libraries #littleFreeLibraries

Nice video with solar punk-y vibes, might be interesting to someone else. :)

Work is under way to create a mine water heating system which will supply hundreds of homes.

Water from disused mines will eventually be used to heat houses in a new community near Seaham in County Durham.

Half the 1,500 homes on the Seaham Garden Village development, which will be built over the next 10 years, will be heated through an ultra-low carbon district heat network.

Councillor Mark Wilkes, Durham County Council cabinet member for neighbourhoods and climate change, said the project will have "significant environmental benefits".

Water is extracted from former coal workings to protect the groundwater aquifer which provides drinking water to households.

This water is extracted and treated to remove heavy metals before being discharged out to sea.

The heat in the water currently dissipates into the atmosphere but, under the new project, it will instead feed into the heat network.

Miners' legacy Durham County Council, the MRA and Karbon Homes are working together on the scheme to heat 750 affordable homes at Seaham Garden Village, with Vital Energi designing, building and operating the heat network.

The mine water project has received £4.3m from the government's Heat Networks Investment Project, including £3.23m towards construction.

Wilkes said the mine water will be "there for the long-term, for decades".

"If you think about oil and gas, these are finite resources that are coming from overseas," he said.

"This is right here in County Durham. It's that legacy from all of those people who worked in the mines."

My brother pointed out to me that in last week's episode of his podcast, Ezra Klein namechecked solarpunk in a blink-and-you-miss it mention:

“One common argument I heard on the left - Lina Khan made this point actually in our pages - was that this proved our whole paradigm of AI development was wrong. That we were seeing that we did not need all this compute, we did not need these giant companies, that this was showing a way towards a decentralized, almost solarpunk version of AI development, and in a sense the American system and imagination had been captured by, like, these three big companies.”

The context isn't as interesting as the quote. He was talking about different approaches to developing strong AI. It's only interesting because he used the term "solarpunk" in such a casual manner in a discussion that wasn't about solarpunk or even fiction. It reveals that it's in his vocabulary, and that he's ingesting this in his media diet. For those who don't know Klein, he's a very popular writer and journalist whose politics roughly resemble a quieter version of Elizabeth Warren's.

After hearing this, the thought occurred to me that what I'm witnessing is an idea spreading from a fringe group into a mainstream concept. Eventually, if it gets big enough with mainstream progressive liberals like Klein, I bet it'll one day get discovered and made into a boogieman on the right.

I wonder how long that will take? When is the first time I'll hear a clip of like, I dunno, Ben Shapiro shouting, 'Have you heard about this new thing they call SOLARPUNK???!? It's crazy! It's like... imagine a cyberpunk dystopia: but they want THAT with like, vines and TRANS PEOPLE everywhere! Some ruthless Soviet dictatorship but without even the cool cars or wonderful corporate innovation! It's just TRAINS and GARDENS instead! Ulgh!! [eyes bugging out for the thumbnail image]'

That might be interesting. I think that this idea has a viral quality, so perhaps I can look forward to that in 2025 or 2026. What do you folks think?

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/122308

Indigenous futures thinking brings the expertise built up by Indigenous communities over many years into the plans needed for the world to adapt to climate change.

I just watched this video and found it awesome. I am not sure if this is the best community for it. Please, feel free to post it elsewhere! The more people that see it, the better!

Hey everyone, I'm fairly new to the concept of Solarpunk and since in the near future I'm going to be the owner of an apartment I wanted to know if the community has any suggestion about practical things I can do in an indoor only environment.
The place is a small attic and has 3 rooms: a kitchen+livingroom, a bigger bedroom and a smaller bedroom/studio. It has got plenty of sunlight coming in. If you need more info please ask

Edit: Thanks for all the kind suggestion, unfortunately the house has no balcony, but I'll try to gather knowledge on the other topics that came out in the comments.

I've been enjoying climate books recently. I've just finished How to be a Climate Optimist by Chris Turner, and before that The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken.

Are there any books that you consider foundational/required reading for climate issues?

Some users from c/degrowth recommended The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow and Survival of the Friendliest by Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods which I'm looking forward to checking out.

Hi, So I've encountered this problem for quite a while now: I am not able to see new or old posts on communities on this instance. For example: BuyItForLife Solarpunk memes (works for some extend?) Solarpunk I am a user of this instance and reading on the Thunder Client. Is there any solution already in place for such a problem? Thanks :)

Is anyone here involved in or aware of any organisations that create marketing campaigns that aim to tackle climate change via social influence?

An example that comes to mind are the UK group Led By Donkeys, but they focus on politics. I’m very interested in this line of work and would love to know more about it.

Vision is the most vital step in the policy process. If we don’t know where we want to go, it makes little difference that we make great progress. Yet vision is not only missing almost entirely from policy discussions; it is missing from our whole culture. We talk about our fears, frustrations, and doubts endlessly, but we talk only rarely and with embarrassment about our dreams. Environmentalists have been especially ineffective in creating any shared vision of the world they are working toward — a sustainable world in which people live within nature in a way that meets human needs while not degrading natural systems. Hardly anyone can imagine that world, especially not as a world they’d actively like to live in. The process of building a responsible vision of a sustainable world is not a rational one. It comes from values, not logic. Envisioning is a skill that can be developed, like any other human skill. This paper indicates how.

I'm reading a book titled Deep Time Reckoning by Vincent Ialenti which is about how we consider and plan for how the world will look in the far future. In it, he proposes a very Solarpunk idea called 'future sister cities' where communities will be paired with other communities that in the future have climates analogous to their own. This is intended to help share knowledge about how to design infrastructure, natural systems, and human endeavors to be more in line with the climates that towns, villages, and cities will experience in the future.

Hey solarpunks!

I'm Clockwork, an Italian solarpunk physicist, juggler and writer. I would like share my website with you; I've set it up two years ago with zero html knowledge and I have given it a new revamp recently. Since I write in English but the publishing system is extremely walled, I want to make myself known among likeminded people without selling my soul.

I write mostly solarpunk (you can check out the short story page and the Meteorina "saga" (three long stories, with a fourth one coming soon), but you can also find some Neolithic fantasy and scifi with community and resistance themes. All stories are FREE TO DOWNLOAD; there are no Amazon links and most files are interoperable and freely accessible. There is a donation button but I'd rather you enjoy these stories in a non-transactional way.

I hope you will find them interesting and possibly get inspired!

EDIT: I'm an idiot, here's the link! Thank you for pointing it out 😅

You are one of the passengers on a ship that has crashed onto an uninhabited island and have been given a section of the island to turn into your habitat. You have to start from scratch and build it in a way that respects nature and keeps all your necessities within a 15-minute walking distance.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25383874

Whats a good tool for tracking my emissions?

I tried apps like Klima and Earth Hero. Earth Hero is especially good but I would like to play with the numbers myself for specific scenarios like snapshots of my emissions, planning my next year, logging my specific air travel, hobbies, etc.

If anyone has a spreadsheet model I would be grateful. Otherwise I can build one. Earth Hero gives a lot of references to their source models.