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?
Planted some native plants in my garden, been taking care of that more, growing my own veggies and helping in a community garden, donating old clothes I don’t need any more and repairing clothing and apparel, sharing plants with friends.
-
Moving my technological dependencies from big tech companies to self-hosted, open source solutions, running Linux on my machines etc.
-
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 :(
-
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
-
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!
-
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. 😆
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
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 compost, dumpster dive, and collect manure to the point of weirdness at work. I’m trying to garden. I’ve got a bunch of chickens and a few goats. I take people in when they’re in bad situations. I’m trying to get solar and an EV. Sold my diesel pickup. (I really did need it for my last job. But not anymore.) Now I’m carless except for a work truck I’m not allowed to use for personal business. I do have an ebike. My career is in renewable energy. I’m stockpiling material I’ve collected to try and build an earthship in the next year or so.
Thank you for being a good person!
@Capitanmaroon we replaced our front lawn with raised garden beds a few years ago. Do we grow a lot? No. Are we especially good at gardening? Gosh no. But tonight I went outside, picked a cucumber and a handful of tomatoes, and really enjoyed my dinner. Planning on setting up a little table soon so we can give away any tomatoes beyond what we can use.
This is me, but instead of eating my delicious peppercinis a bunch of hornwoms devour the whole goddamn plant.
I had a squash borer absolutely decimate my pie pumpkins and cucumbers. Ot was awful T.T
that’s so cool!! I would much rather have tomatoes than a lawn. Also very cool that you’re giving away your tomatoes - I think I’ll try something like that with my basil!
Boycotting big business/unethical anti competitive practices. Businesses that lobby or have lobbied (aka legal bribery) for Republican officials or AIPAC democrats.
Easier said than done when you live in a rural area that only has a Walmart :-/
I try to be mindful of my purchases as much as possible but sometimes your only option is Walmart and that’s okay!
- I’ve been vegan for 5 years and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made.
- I only buy second-hand clothing. This is a recent change.
- I mostly stopped shopping online, except for specific items like my injection supplies.
- Using my local library!
- I crochet clothing and items for gifts.
Cheers to using the library!! I don’t go often but I do love my Libby app
Libby is great! Checking out a book online and pulling it up on my e-reader is wonderful when I don’t want to make the trip to my physical library branch.
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.
- Thrifting, sewing, and mending my clothes instead of buying new
- Using the AC as little as possible and participating in peakbusting as much as I can
- Reading a lot to learn important concepts - currently reading Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
- Teaching myself the basics of coding so I can make my own personal website
- Hosting a monthly community night at my house where folks can connect in a comfortable environment
- I’ve recently gotten into kandi and so far I haven’t bought a single pony bead new!!
- Setting up a balcony garden
- Making eraser stamps so I can customize my clothes and make patches
I’m most proud of the balcony garden, if we’re being honest. I’ve never gardened a single time before but my tomato plants are apparently growing me some tomatoes and that’s insane. Truthfully, most of what I’ve grown (tomatoes) isn’t offsetting what I’d buy, but learning about the natural world has been really special given that my disabilities mean I can’t really go foraging or hiking or anything like that. It’s also given me the opportunity to say hi to my neighbors when they’re outside!
° 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 ♡
While I’m not a very community focused person, finally grokking that everyone I see around where I live are real people that I’m in community with, has changed not just how I think of them but how I treat them.
Especially people I might not agree with, or my addict or unhoused neighbours. It’s pretty cool how just being genuine and open with people will change in turn their entire demeanor towards you.
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.
I don’t know if I’d really call these solar punk, but here’s a few things I’ve done.
My yard is clover, not grass. I barely mow it. I know it so little the city “politely” informs me when it’s time. (Pro tip: Don’t use red clover. Use white clover.) I also leave my leaves in place, the most I do is mow them to chop 'em up. The bees love the flowers. The lightning bugs seem to love it as well, I’ve noticed more. I attribute this to the leaves.
I replaced my water heater last year because it broke. It was electric. My new one is a heat pump. It’s cheaper to run. Plus, as a free side effect, it cools off and dehumidifies the basement. I’m not sure how much cooling and dehumidifying it really accomplishes, but I generally have a dehumidifier running down there anyways to help combat humidity.
deleted by creator
I find it odd that legally it seems to be easier to live in a van than it is to buy some woodland and live there. You can buy the woodland and build a cabin just fine but its living in it that is near impossible to do legally.
deleted by creator
