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submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I'm always looking for things to add to my RSS reader! I loved the Hundred Rabbits site that was posted here recently and thought others might have some nice submissions.

I recently found Sunshine and Seedlings which is substack, alas, but has some great content.

I'm also a fan of Low-tech Magazine.

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A Solarpunk Manifesto (www.re-des.org)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”

The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and lush, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid.

Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world ,  but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not only warnings.

Solutions to thrive without fossil fuels, to equitably manage real scarcity and share in abundance instead of supporting false scarcity and false abundance, to be kinder to each other and to the planet we share.

Solarpunk is at once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, a way of living and a set of achievable proposals to get there.

  • We are solarpunks because optimism has been taken away from us and we are trying to take it back.
  • We are solarpunks because the only other options are denial or despair.
  • At its core, Solarpunk is a vision of a future that embodies the best of what humanity can achieve: a post-scarcity, post-hierarchy, post-capitalistic world where humanity sees itself as part of nature and clean energy replaces fossil fuels.
  • The “punk” in Solarpunk is about rebellion, counterculture, post-capitalism, decolonialism and enthusiasm. It is about going in a different direction than the mainstream, which is increasingly going in a scary direction.
  • Solarpunk is a movement as much as it is a genre: it is not just about the stories, it is also about how we can get there.
  • Solarpunk embraces a diversity of tactics: there is no single right way to do solarpunk. Instead, diverse communities from around the world adopt the name and the ideas, and build little nests of self-sustaining revolution.
  • Solarpunk provides a valuable new perspective, a paradigm and a vocabulary through which to describe one possible future. Instead of embracing retrofuturism, solarpunk looks completely to the future. Not an alternative future, but a possible future.
  • Our futurism is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk’s potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community.
  • Solarpunk emphasizes environmental sustainability and social justice.
  • Solarpunk is about finding ways to make life more wonderful for us right now, and also for the generations that follow us.
  • Our future must involve repurposing and creating new things from what we already have. Imagine “smart cities” being junked in favor of smart citizenry.
  • Solarpunk recognizes the historical influence politics and science fiction have had on each other.
  • Solarpunk recognizes science fiction as not just entertainment but as a form of activism.
  • Solarpunk wants to counter the scenarios of a dying earth, an insuperable gap between rich and poor, and a society controlled by corporations. Not in hundreds of years, but within reach.
  • Solarpunk is about youth maker culture, local solutions, local energy grids, ways of creating autonomous functioning systems. It is about loving the world.
  • Solarpunk culture includes all cultures, religions, abilities, sexes, genders and sexual identities.
  • Solarpunk is the idea of humanity achieving a social evolution that embraces not just mere tolerance, but a more expansive compassion and acceptance.
  • The visual aesthetics of Solarpunk are open and evolving. As it stands, it is a mash-up of the following:
    • 1800s age-of-sail/frontier living (but with more bicycles)
    • Creative reuse of existing infrastructure (sometimes post-apocalyptic, sometimes present-weird)
    • Appropriate technology
    • Art Nouveau
    • Hayao Miyazaki
    • Jugaad-style innovation from the non-Western world
    • High-tech backends with simple, elegant outputs
  • Solarpunk is set in a future built according to principles of New Urbanism or New Pedestrianism and environmental sustainability.
  • Solarpunk envisions a built environment creatively adapted for solar gain, amongst other things, using different technologies. The objective is to promote self sufficiency and living within natural limits.
  • In Solarpunk we’ve pulled back just in time to stop the slow destruction of our planet. We’ve learned to use science wisely, for the betterment of our life conditions as part of our planet. We’re no longer overlords. We’re caretakers. We’re gardeners.
  • Solarpunk:
    • is diverse
    • has room for spirituality and science to coexist
    • is beautiful
    • can happen. Now!
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submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

why i left the left the left the left

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submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30711375

People just need to get used to paying for the web. Monthly subscriptions for Spotify or Netflix are widely accepted, so a fee to fund the rest of the net doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. It could even be made part of the ISP fee (perhaps this could be forced on all ISPs by govts under the guise of 'supporting local websites').

The technical solutions already seem to exist, but have been shut down 1) due to lack of use and 2) by the entrenched business model (in the case of Scroll). Therefore, the challenge currently lies in bringing the masses over to this business model (IMO easier than it may seem, as the masses never consciously opted for their current method of paying anyway and hence feel no attachment to it), and stopping regulatory capture by the entrenched business model (an even deeper root problem whose solution would solve many issues beside this one).

So assume that everybody switched to this model of funding overnight. I don't think it would stop surveillance capitalism entirely since the surveillance technologies that the current business model lead to being developed (AI, cookies, etc) have since been adapted for use in other settings (facial recognition CCTV etc.) whose investment sources are now entirely separate from the web’s. What's more, websites would probably keep spying on paying users anyway, simply because they already have the technology to do so, and it would make them extra money on top of their allocated subscription money. Despite this, I still think it's a change worth working towards.

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I want only portable devices like solar, and hand-crank chargers. I want to be able to boil water, charge my Laptop and phone, run my induction stove for a few minutes thrice a day, want it rugerdized at some point, and want to depend on my equipment for day to day life as preparation for having no support.

How am I doing so far? Did I waste money?

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Gardening offers insight into biodiversity, soil health, and sustainability, fostering a deeper connection with nature.

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Insects come out at the crepuscular times Between two extremes, hot and bright, dark and cold The sun rays cast through an ocean of motes Dust, pericarps, insects, hummingbirds, bats Even in concrete suburbs I am reminded of the ocean we live under This atmosphere would suffocate me I am a masked intruder in the toxic jungle

[the toxicity is seasonal allergies]

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Anyone else going? Going solo and happy to tag along with other soloers! Not going to take tent (I don't have equipment) so would love to get a small group for the nearest accomodation. See ya there

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Radio is awesome! (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Hey Solarpunk people! I'm back to ask if you'd like to join our booklcub. We are a small community of readers, writers, and activists that is dedicated to exploring Solarpunk and adjacent literature. Every week, we discuss one chapter of a book that we choose together. So far, we have read eight books, including The Dispossessed, the Monk and Robot series and a few short story collections. If you want to join our book club just in time to pick our next read, please swing by. We’d be happy to have more people to share thoughts and insights with!

https://discord.gg/2zUph5DSmR

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

So im a very typical American. Cars, big lawn, etc. I do the best I can with a garden, fixing my own cars instead of buying new, and trying not to buy things packaged in plastic. I also want to make most of my lawn clovers and wildflowers etc because I hate the boringness of grass and want biodiversity.

Now I think the solarpunk movement is awesome, but I feel like im just a poser. Obviously I can't leave my house and go live in a grass hut. Im also one of those people with a million hobbies, so im always doing things (and by extension, purchasing things, though usually used). I've also always been a car guy, which kind of goes against the whole eco thing. Though I do pretty much only drive smaller cars. I wont buy electric until they are analog and disconnected from any sort of internet.

I feel like there's many out there like me who just feel they wont make any difference anyways so they don't get as involved. But what other things can someone like me do? I've thought about some panels on the house to potentially run small servers off of, but that's pretty much it

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submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

This past DC Climate Week, we linked up with founders, artists and visionaries who are reimagining how we move, grow, create, and care for our world. We talked, biked, toured rooftops, and reflected on how far we’ve come—and where we’re headed next. This issue is a preview of what’s bubbling beneath the surface of the DMV’s solarpunk movement.

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submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Grassy trams are better than dead asphalt, but monoculture lawns are still not the best. I'm not sure what the best translation of the official name would be, but I guess meadowy tram would fit. Much lower maintenance and increased resilience to heat and dryness are nice bonuses.

This is a 1km stretch of tramline 13 running through a park in Helsinki, Finland.

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submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

What's more solarpunk than using old hardware destined for the dump to host a cool website?

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submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

The German - French TV Broadcaster is doing a documentary series about sustainability of cities.

The Audio is only in German and French, but English Subtitles are available. It is nice to watch.

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submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Mass timer buildings are prefabricated structures made of (hopefully renewable) wood. The pieces are made in a factory and then able to be quickly constructed together on-site.

This can hopefully greatly reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere from producing a building. The cost of producing buildings in this method is also going down. Additionally, these mass timer buildings are typically more dense than single family homes, which can lead to more sustainable communities.

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submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Just finished the stellarbook, by James Arbib and Tony Seba (from RethinkX). They make a very interesting case on how we can move from our current extractive societies to one of abundance. It touches on many themes that are well known in the solar punk community, still it brought together a clear overview and model of where we are now and how to get to a better world.

I was wondering if anyone here has read it as well. And what your take is.

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submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Sod is the upper layer of soil held together by (usually grass) roots. It was used as a building material, in a similar way to soilbags.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Hello! I wanted to do my first project with solar panels and I don't know where to start.

I was thinking of make some transportable solar panel with a couple of outlets where it will be capable of charging cellphones or laptops, not sure if with a battery or not.

Any recommendations of easy to follow guides?

Edit: Also, what do I need to do a standard plug "type I" (10 A, 220V)

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