In the recently resurfaced debate about #solarpunk (or lunarpunk) aspects of #web3 and #blockchain I'm intrigued by one aspect:
Why do we accept being given a solution without outlining the problem in the first place?
Why do we listen to #DAO pitches instead of asking ourselves how we want to run our communities, how do we want to make decisions, vote, discuss things?
Just stating the problem first would make it very clear that there are multiple technical solutions, not just the Web3.
I lot of terrible things have happened in my life recently (and a fresh one last week!) that I have not and will not post here.
But the result is that my old life is gone. Completely.
I'm still going to work in infosec. Still hack. Still pentest. At least for the few years. It's a solid job. But my family is gone and atomized (Some deaths. Some breakups. Custody issues. Etc. Et al.)
I've made it through. And that was not a given. I only made it through because friends and family swarmed me. Would not let me be alone - despite my best efforts.
If I can get through the next several months financially... which I think I can - I will begin a new life.
Moving forward, I am going to dive heavily into Buddhism. There is pragmatism, care, love, community, and a framework there that is vastly different from the high demand religions that I grew up with.
I'm going to see if I can pursue becoming a Buddhist priest. And I want to dive even more so in solarpunk initiatives. I've had a lot of success with that and want to continue seeing it through.
Building things locally, while streamlining and establishing cooperations and coordinating globally.
I think a Buddhist priest building post-scarcity programs and forging into new economic paradigms is a solid new life.
This is a plan. A direction. And there will be deviations, changes, and adaptations moving forward.
Oh, just out here picking up abandoned bikes from the side of the highway, muling them home using human power, fixing them up and giving them away, as per usual #SolarPunk#buynothing#RightToRepair
We wanted to have a quiet afternoon and so we went to go to Kapej Coffee on the Brown Line. It is one of our favorite places in #Chicago with some of the best #coffee in the city. In fact, the owner was roasting coffee fresh in a little alcove off the counter.
Ok. Now that the seed library is built, I'm moving on to the next project.
Food Rescue.
Currently, I volunteer at my local community refrigerator and pantry....
....and by that I mean a literal refrigerator and pantry that sits outside.
Anyone can come up to it and put food in. And anyone can come up to it and take food out. No means testing. Mutual aid. Give a food, take a food.
Right now, it's being stocked with individual donations (people buying extra food while doing their own grocery runs or putting in extra food that they thought they were going to use but ended up not using all of it), overflow from food pantry distributions, and home garden and hydroponics for fresh produce.
That's great and I want to expand that, especially the home garden and hydroponics for fresh produce (see the Seed Library and hydroponics bin build pinned posts for efforts in that area).
All of that said, my local town is not doing a lot of food rescue.
We have grocery stores, convenience stores, and restaurants throwing away good food at the end of the day.
I want to get that food away from the dumpsters and into the community fridge / pantry.
So that's my next project. And I'll document it here. (I swear at some point, I'll put all of this together up on hacker(dot)solar - I just really suck at that. I don't know why.)
I'm currently looking at foodrescue(dot)us 's web app for food rescue coordination. It costs money, but I'm not sure how much. I'll find out and let y'all know.
I'll start with grocery stores. Then convenience stores. Then finally hot food from restaurants.
Cool thing. A lot of people worry about liability issues. That's not a thing anymore!!!
In the US, we have the Bill Emerson Food Donation Act that removes liability from donators, gleaners (food rescuers), and distributors:
"The Bill Emerson Food Donation Act establishes Federal protection from civil and criminal liability for persons involved in the donation and distribution of food and grocery products to needy individuals when certain criteria are met. In order to receive protection under the Act, a person or gleaner must donate in good faith apparently wholesome food or apparently fit grocery products to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to needy individuals. The Act also provides protection against civil and criminal liability to the nonprofit organizations that receive such donated items in good faith. "
Does sci-fi shape the future? Tech billionaires from Bill Gates to Elon Musk have often talked about the impact of novels they read as teens, from Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" to Iain M. Banks' "Culture" series. Big Think's Namir Khaliq spoke to authors including Andy Weir, Lois McMaster Bujold and @pluralistic about how much impact they think science fiction has had, or can have.
I truly believe that TTRPGs are an excellent way to model and get a taste for what a sustainable future could be like, and there are a lot of solarpunk TTRPGs out there to help with that!
There's a new list on the site today with solarpunk TTRPGs for all-ages, and I hope you can use it to find a game that you love!
Find the list through the TTRPGkids homepage (link is in bio), and happy gaming!
After spending a few months incognito, the #fediverse seems like my speed of social media. I think it's time to settle down for real life in a less-restricted profile.
I've made a start on a big list of #Solarpunk games.
So far, I've got:
Terra Nil
Abzu
Horizon: Zero Dawn (and sequel)
Solarpunk (not yet released)
Stardew Valley (with mods)
Anno 2070
Loftia (not yet released)
Final Fantasy VII
I should mention on here that the Solarpunk Short Story Collection I contributed to and that exclusively features authors from Luxembourg is freely available here.
I think a lot of people interested in #solarpunk get stuck specifically on the photovoltaic solar panels.
While renewable energy is way better than fossil fuels, IMO solarpunk is way more than that.
Everything has an impact environmentally. And while we desperately need to switch to renewable electricity generation - we also have to ask:
"How is this stuff made?"
+
"What are some ways we can change the underlying infrastructure?"
Most of what we use PV solar for is based around a fossil fuel economy! The electricity we generate tends to go to HVAC/water heating, running appliances like fridges, washing machines, and dryers, and various tasks that can be replaced with truly renewable sources and methods.
Heating our homes for example, is a currently a large percentage of fossil fuel use. We could use PV solar for things like that, but there are rare resources that go into making solar panels that have an environmental and social impact.
Passive heating doesn't require electricity to do! And requires far fewer resources to implement. Technology like passive solar heaters/water heaters use the sun to heat air and water instead of fossil fuels or electricity.
What if instead of requiring solar panels and electrical equipment that require mineral extraction - we used washing machines that run off a bike! Or a water wheel! Or directly off a wind turbine!
See what I'm getting at?
There are low/appropriate tech ways to put the solar into solarpunk, sometimes passive, easy to produce, and sustainable practices are simpler than we think.
Most of the research into PV solar has been on one general approach. But there are other methods that require way less mineral extraction to make a similar result. Imagine a future where we can still generate electricity with less resource extraction! It's possible! And has been done before. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-solar-panel
The solar in solarpunk doesn't have to just mean solar panels, it's way more! :)
Another update to my #sciencefiction list! #Solarpunk still dominant, although I read quite a few novels I liked despite being rather dystopian lately.
Added the category #solarpunk -adjacent for stories that have elements, but don't quite fit the genre, and ditched the category realism because who am I to judge that.
Also, compiling this has raised a question for me: Do you think a story set in space/off-world can be #solarpunk when the state of planet earth is still bad or unclear?
i.e. sustainable, posthierarchical communities in spaceships or colonies, with great ideas for tech, democracy tools, ways of life?
They do a lot for my optimism, but it still bothers me on a certain level 🤔
To find an engaging explanation of what an alternative, low impact, high community society would look like, I've usually had to resort to fiction. But I've found Ted Trainer's straightforward description easy to absorb.
I wish there were more transatlantic ocean liners.
The Queen Mary 2 is the only one that I know of that is a proper ocean liner (meaning its primary purpose is to transport passengers instead of being a vacation getaway like an ocean cruise).
America's first sustainable urban agrihood in Detroit.
"The three-acre development has vacant land, along with occupied and abandoned homes centered around a two-acre urban garden, with more than 300 organic vegetable varieties, like lettuce, kale, and carrots, as well as a 200-tree fruit orchard, with apples, pears, plums, and cherries, a children’s sensory garden, and more."
On this #TransDayOfVisiblity, I want to specifically highlight Bernie Wagenblast.
She is one of the famous announcer voices for New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority! (See video for demonstration)
From her wikipedia page: Bernie Wagenblast is a transportation journalist, radio personality and voice-over artist. She is the founder and editor of the Transportation Communications Newsletter. She also edits The AASHTO Daily Transportation Update, published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and hosts AASHTO's ETAP Podcast and the ITE Talks Transportation podcast for the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
Trans folks putting the 'trans' in public transit!
The lisianthus sprouts are still slowly growing. There’s now a sheen of something globby (algae?) and a nice smooth layer of something green and velvety.
No danger of them blocking the light to other plants, but at least they’re not dead.
Photo 1: Two cucumber plants with big leaves and feeders. The cucumbers are in a small unit with a red mini tomato plant. It’s probably time to transplant them to soil.
Photo 2: Two eggplant plants with a small parsley and a catnip start struggling for light between them. It’s probably time to transplant them to soil, too.
Alright, sent an email to the head of my local library about setting up a seed library there.
Seeds libraries are places you can go and "check out" seeds. Grow the seeds. Let one of the grown plants go to seed. Harvest the seeds. Then "return" the seeds back to the seed library!
The local Master Gardeners provided a lot of the intitial seeds (oh my gosh we are stocked!!!). They used an old card catalogue to store them. Today's the kickoff!
The idea is you "check out seeds" from the library, plant/grow/harvest, let some go to seed, then "return the seeds" back to the library!