#solarpunk group

[solarpunkani]

Late night wishful thinking but like

I think planting funky things around retention ponds should be more normalized!!

Like okay I get it retention ponds are meant to hold the runoff water from parking lots and drive throughs and the like so they aren’t exactly the cleanest water around. But like!!! Maybe this is different in other areas, but the only plants I ever see grow around retention ponds are cattails!! Which, like, are fine and great and dandy lets go cattails, but like

Where’s the whimsy?? Where are the flowers?? If I’ve got to see retention ponds whenever I go to a store or drive down the highway or pick up food for my mom, at least bring in some flowers!!

And it’ll benefit so much! A wider variety of plants can make it a more welcoming home to wildlife! Maybe the plants will filter some of the runoff stuff and the water can then be nicer for even more wildlife! Maybe the flowers can be a nice food source for butterflies and bees on their journeys and day trips!! And humans like seeing things be pretty!

Maybe its easier said than done! Maybe most places already do this and its just my city or state that doesn’t really I’d be willing to believe that! But lets get some color in these goddamn retention ponds!!

Swamp milkweed! Aquatic milkweed! Pickerelweed! Water lilies! Irises! Cardinalflower! Fuck it, put some goddamn duckweed in there!! Get some color in those things or so help me!!

[solar-sunnyside-up]

The amount of times I go to a community thing these days or a council meeting and this exact thing happens

Them: "Hey you helped make this event? What's your name?"

Me: "Oh hi I'm Sunny"

Them: *sees my bright pink hair, something clicks* "Aaah your Sunny! I should've known!"

Guys What Does That Mean

[khanidae]

I worked on a visual novel with some friends / class mates a while ago, it's queer and solarpunk and furry and wholesome, I had a lot of fun with it 💛

Please do download it, I know it says it's playable in the browser but there's a couple bugs and it does not play the music properly 🥹

[solarpoweredpunkpossum]

Creating Principles of Outreach

Hey y'all - with the recent Everything and a friend seemingly tilting right, I've been thinking about what it takes to reach out to people not in the general "leftist/progressive" camp. There are of course way more detailed guides out there, but it's often a lot more individual than any comprehensive how-to can realistically cover.

So... what if there was a more general framework that could be adapted to the situation? Some things to keep in mind while you're trying, not so much directions as guardrails if that makes sense

I sort of have my own little list I try to follow day-to-day, but I'm curious if anyone with more experience has thoughts on this :)

In the plainest terms, anyone can be an a-hole. No identity absolves you of cruelty or rudeness, and no identity makes you categorically cruel either - it's an active choice, and you can choose otherwise at any point

No group is a monolith; there can be general consensus, sure, but complete agreement is nearly impossible. If you've met one [x type of person], you've met one [x type of person]. There are no chosen representatives that perfectly embody an entire community.

"Most" is not "all," and "a few" is not "none." Pretending or assuming they are is disingenuous at best and actively harmful at worst (see: radfems being used to slander feminism as a whole)

There are bigots and there are activists, but most people are just bystanders - recognize that, because conflating them with the bigots isn't effective, but showing them how to step in and help is.

At the end of the day, people want to be housed, happy, and fed. Ideology can be abstract, but material offers like better pay and lower costs are much easier to sell than ideals. They'll be more open to getting behind those when they're not stressing over rent.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Christina is thinking about hosting a Solarpunk Writing Group, starting at the end of April, and she's looking for participants but also ideas for what this group should do! Comment on the blog post if you have thoughts or to let her know that you're interested!

[justalittlesolarpunk]

You're in the UK right? Wondering if youve heard about gnd rising, and if so what do you think? Thanks for all the resources!

Yes I have! I love them and I don’t know why I left them off my resources post! Will go back and sneak them in

[bumblebeeappletree]

Recorded on April 20, 2023.

In this second part of our Grow Your Garden Group lunchtime series, we explore best practices and ideas for managing plot waitlists, and ways to keep members engaged in a variety of important garden tasks while they await a plot.

Facilitated by Erinn White and Hannah Wargo, NYC Parks GreenThumb

[twelvebooksstuff]

I love this <3

group living is beautiful and it’s about having a compost named marty and making dinner together and late night cups of tea on the couch with good books and sharing thrifted CDs or ones from the library and going to the park together in the morning before work and hugs when you get home and a household zine collection/obsession and sharing soaps and journals and making brownies together and dancing in the kitchen and planning a network of gardens between other people we know in the city and scrabble nights and teaching each other how to mend and cook and building each other nightstands and helping sew quilts and sliding books under bedroom doors and sticky notes with jokes and laughing in the sunshine outside of the laundry mat

[mesetacadre]

🏴illiteracypunk follow

everything feels hopeless these days because of the rise of global Corporatist Techno-Feudal Fascism, we can't forget about caring for each other and ourselves

You have to put on your own oxygen mask before changing the world, to continue living in a hostile society is an act of rebellion

traditional activism feels too hollow and ableist so instead, build up your own community: spend money in your local businesses, buy more drugs, maybe even throw up a graffiti or shoplift necessities (only from big corporations!) to then distribute. use public libraries, help out in a community garden or join a queer group

the point is to do things! indulge yourself and reinterpret your pre-existing behaviors as revolutionary and real. nevermind an actually defined structure, that's Authority and we can't liberate ourselves with the tools of our oppressors. only through voluntarist activism, in which the same few people show up for a few years before burning out or being involved in some sort of abuse, can we do Good. in fact, just go ahead and throw all that activism in the backgrounds, it sometimes doesn't feel good, after all. Collective freedom is only the sum of all individual freedoms, so by looking only after your own comfortableness and without ever doing anything that feels Bad, we can all build a revolution and freedom

#196 #leftist #anarchy #left #anarchism #leftism #anarchist #anarchopunk #solarpunk #hopepunk #green punk #anarchocommunism #social issues #social justice #socialist #socialism #fuck capitalism #revolutionary #freedom #revolution #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #anti tankie #tankie #anti authority #authority #mutual aid #effective activism

(6.9k notes)

[solarpunkani]

me lying awake at night, low energy, no money, no knowledge: I wanna restore a goddamn creek or something

me the instant I'm more awake: how the fuck would I restore a creek IDEK where a creek IS--

[guided-by-the-skies]

Why you may be blocked - by ascendant sign

the ascendent, representing our public facing self, can be correlated with the concept of the super ego in psychology. this is the part of us which keeps our darker nature and our shadow in check. it helps us exist in a society with different views and get along with others, and is crucial for forming our identities. yet because of this nature it can sometimes block us from fully understanding our shadow, making shadow work and freeing blockages challenging.

NB Modern people are WAY WAY too identified with our ascendant and as a result less in tune with our shadow which means it can come back to bite us. This is when we act in cruel or unnatural ways to others, feel like we've 'given in' to our dark side and so on.

The shadow is not BAD it's just unexpressed because it's the stuff we oftern were not allowed to express. However this makes it POWERFUL and by extension a bit dangerous. Again not because it's bad but just in the same way the ocean can be dangerous...

🌩 asc in aries - you feel pressure to one up people. your relief lies in comparing you to you, not you to others

🌩 asc in taurus - you feel deprived or harrassed. your ascendant doesn't feel natural to you, giving you this feeling of never getting a moment of peace

🌩 asc in gemini - you struggle to develop an identity. you focus on what you're saying as opposed to why, leaving you without inner convictions

🌩 asc in cancer - you wear your heart on your sleeve, and it is getting exploited because it's the bit you show to others most

🌩 asc in leo - you feel pressure to achieve, otherwise your identity will crumble. your dream and aim is to base it around something utterly different

🌩 asc in virgo - you get used as the therapist friend. you may have been pretending that you don't mind this, but it still has an affect at a subconscious level

🌩 asc in libra - you feel responsible for other peoples baggage, even though you had nothing to do with it

🌩 asc in scorpio- you are a social chameleon. separating what is yours and what is others' is your greatest challenge but can bring you rich rewards

🌩 asc in sagittarius - you've been forced to take debate too seriously. in truth, you don't need to have an opinion on everything, and it's ok to change your mind or say 'I don't know'

🌩 asc in capricorn - you feel the weight of the world. different from virgo, you feel the need to represent yourself or any group you are part of to wider society

🌩 asc in aquarius - you are worn down by frequent combativeness, when you just want to explore new posibilities. People may block your ideas and shoot them down :(

🌩 asc in pisces - you wonder whether your emotions are normal. you've lacked reference points for how you should feel, or people to normalise it for you. you are normal, for you

*this post is part of a series on why astrology matters regardless of how much you do or don't believe in it. as our lives have become busier, more disconnected, less spiritual, and significantly detached from the rhythms and energies of the earth, we have lost the ability to express the needs that are going unmet

I do a lot of this shadow work from a sort of solarpunk-y direction, beginning to build a post masterlist here or vote in the poll for my next post topic :p

[solsays]

first time drawing s10 Pearl :) I love the color scheme, kinda enjoying blending the postmaster with solarpunk too

HERMIT A DAY MAY!

Impulse | Grian | Tango | Fav Alt Hermit (HG/CG) | False | Mumbo | Bdubs | Hypno | Outfit Swap | Gem | Cub | Pearl | Joel | Groups/Collabs | Jevin | Scar | Ren | Fav Build | Cleo | xB | Xisuma | Keralis | TFC | Joe | Beef | Zed | Wels | Friends of HC | Skizz | Doc | Etho

Plus a bonus Pearl work doodle

[alpaca-clouds]

The Technology We Have Already

Today I want to talk about one Solarpunk-thingie, that kinda annoys me - and has to do with a lot with how real-life politians deal with talking about technology and especially energy technologies.

And this is the following fact:

We already have the technology! This is not some SciFi shit!

See, the issue within the politics tends to be, that a lot of folks go: "Oh, yeah, we would LOVE to go renewable. But right it is not possible! Once the technology gets there, we will totally go 100% renewable!"

And basically a lot of Solarpunks online are also waiting for the technology to get there. Again, there is sadly a big group of folks who technically love the aesthetics of Solarpunk and also generally the idea of a Solarpunk future, but do not engage with it over it. And they usually will also wait for technology to get there.

But it already is.

Let me talk about it.

We can produce enough renewable energy

In a way I get it. If you are not working in any fields related to this - and do not follow science news - you might just not know how fast the renewable energy field is moving right now. 10 years ago, yes, a lot of countries would have been able to go 100% renewable, but not all. It depended basically on the climate and environment. Partly because the photovoltaic (what most people call solar, but us engineers use solar for something a bit different) cells were just not as efficient in certain climates. And while the mix of wind and hydro power could do A LOT for many countries, it could not for all.

However, that was mainly before China really pulled all the stops for their research. No, it is not only China, but holy shit, China's research in terms of photovoltaic is insane. If you follow this, you basically will see a new breakthrough - often from China - every couple months. And by now, the efficiency of photovoltaic is insane. Sure, it might not make sense as the only source of energy in places were you basically do not get any sunlight for half the year, but outside of that? It is so darn good.

Other than that, we are really darn good with wind energy (which to my opinion is still the best way of producing energy) and hydro energy.

Don't get me wrong: We can totally improve those things further and further. But we can absolutely power the world on renewables right now. We do not need fossile fuels right now!

We can build climate-friendly transport!

I will remind y'all once more: Electric cars are definitely better than gas powered cars, for those people and situations in which cars are needed. (Read: For emergency services, certain forms of service work who need to transport stuff outside of the rail network, and probably also some people who live very isolated for certain reasons.) However, they are still cars and suck for this reason, if you do not REALLY need them.

Still, we are fucking good by now in building electric cars and for those scenarios where they are needed. Heck, by now in my city pretty much all public transport runs electric, including the busses. And no, they are not tram busses.

And yeah, turns out, we figured out how to build railways more than 200 years ago, and we figured out how to electricize them in 1881. Yes. 1881. 18 in the front. Almost 150 years ago. Sure, back then we were not that good with it, but we managed to build one for intracity transport that worked - and worked for long.

Yes, admittedly, there are some forms of transport that right now we might indeed need fossil fuels for. Right now, we have no method to fly planes and helicopters in a way that is both mass-producable and renewable. And the same is with transcontinental transport via the ocean.

Yeah, sure. We can technically just go fully low tech and just sail. That works. Heck, while it is about half as quick as modern ways to transport over the ocean, it is feasible. However, we just cannot move the amounts of cargo we might need to move with sailing. There are people figuring this out (partly through creating much better sails that work for MUCH BIGGER ships) but yeah, we are not there yet.

Still, a) a lot of the intercontinental stuff we technically do not need to transport (most of it is using cheap quasi-slave labor to save money), and b) that should not stop us from just doing sustainable on-land transport which we can do.

We also know how to build a better society

Now, a lot of the folks going for the Solarpunk aesthetics rather than philosophy are quite often very mistrustful of both anarchism and communism - or heck, just socialism. They often have drunken the capitalist cool-aid of capitalism being the "only system that works". But here is the thing: It doesn't.

Sure, there are versions of capitalism that would work a whole lot better than the Chicago-flavored one, but it will never really work - especially in regards to saving the environment. I talked about that a lot before.

But here is the thing. We know how it works better. We know how to build a better society. We know how to make economics work better. We know how to make better schools. We know how to build better cities. We know how to prevent at least a lot of wars. We know how to make society safer for kids. We know how to make healthier families. We know how to make medicine as a system work better. We know it all.

Heck, we have known how to make schools that are better in every way since the early 20th century - so more than a hundred years. This proposed school system since has been proofen time and time again in studies to be better for kids, and better in terms of education. But do we use them? No.

Again, politicians love to go: "We would love to change things, but we do not have a better system." But it is not true. We know how to do it better.

Same with the police and prison and stuff. We know how to do it better.

But right now, a) a lot of the stuff works in the favor of those who hold most power (aka the billionaires), b) a lot of people just do not like the idea of changing stuff majorly (which makes politicians who want change unpopular), and c) politicians also would need to fund the change - and that is going to be hard.

So, yeah. Change would be hard.

But it is not because we do not know how to do better.

And I really just wish people would stop propagating this idea that we do not know better. We do. But folks right now profit from things staying the same. And it sucks.

[ectoberhaunt]

Ectoberhaunt 2024: Past and Future

Y'all ready for this? Here is our prompt list for the event this year! (Please clap) What's this? A triple prompt for the first day? That's right! We're celebrating the Phandom new and old for our favorite ghost boy's 20th anniversary with a theme centered around the passage of time and what that could mean to Danny and his rogue's gallery. As always, our last prompt day is the 24th where we hand off to @ectoberweekofficial for their event. This makes our free days October 5th, 6th, 19th, 20th, and the 24th to Halloween this year. Please tag all prompt fills as "ectoberhaunt24" so we can find your posts, and follow the guidelines below the cut.

Posting for this event begins Monday, October 1st!

Down below are our written out calendar prompts (for accessibility) AND our posting guidelines. Check 'em out!\

The Prompts

Below are the listed prompts in date order, if it's blank it's a catch up day. First prompt is Past and second is Future.

Past, Present, & Future

Dinosaur & Robot

Archaeology & Meteorology

Came Back Wrong

-

-

Bury & Unearth

Pirate Ship & Spaceship

Rise & Fall

Creepy & Wet

Dark and Stormy Night

Isekai: Past Prompt (Here)

Isekai: Old Hero, New World

Cult Classic & Murder Mystery

Science Fiction & Double Feature

Bloom & Wither

Gothic Horror & Cosmic Horror

Mirror Image

-

-

Analog & Digital

Steampunk & Solarpunk

Big Bang & Heat Death

Time Loop

Ectober Week: 25-31

Post Guidelines

The following are the posting guidelines. Please follow them so we can reblog and share your posts without issue. We will also have this as a post available on our blog separately.

Tag all posts with “Ectoberhaunt24” so we can find it. If you do not use this tag, we may not find you.

Tag which calendar you're pulling from (“EH Past” or “EH Future”), which day the prompt is for ("Day X"). You do NOT need to tag which prompt it is for, but PLEASE put it somewhere in the post so we know which prompt you are filling- if you do not do this we will likely not reblog it.

Put your fics under a readmore. Add a summary before the cut with a short preview, content warnings, and which prompts were used. Then, add a readmore no more than 150 words or 10 lines/groups of text under your summary. If you're using mobile, type :readmore: and hit enter to make a readmore. If you do not do this, we will NOT reblog your post.

Make sure to tag all common content warnings (blood, gore, death, drugs, body horror, existentialism, & vermin)

We will try to reblog every prompt we can. Feel free to @ us in the post too or send us a DM with the post!!

Here's a handy dandy google sheet to keep track of your own progress, simply make your own copy and mess with it -> LINK

Banner graphic by @kawaiijohn

Calendar Graphics by @ajitated (template) and @five-rivers (composition)

Google sheet by @ajitated and @jackdaw-sprite

Happy creating!!

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Pondering a Solarpunk Writing Group

Lately, both my thoughts and Ariel’s have turned to what to do for the Solarpunk Action Week that will be kicking off on Earth Day. She’s got tons of super ideas for her actions, but, so far, the only solarpunk thing I can think of to do that would be more than just stuff I do anyway, would be to kick off a solarpunk writing group. Call it The Solarpunk Writing Group, maybe, although that smacks most unsolarpunkly of exclusivity.

Whatever. The point is that I am now enthusiastic about kicking off a solarpunk writing group during Solarpunk Action Week that would meet online (over, say, Zoom). But to do that, I NEED YOU. Or at least enough of you to fill up a writing group.

I’m hoping that the number of people who commented on the hero's journey just needs to end already post means that there are lots of you out there who’d be interested in joining a solarpunk writing group… for whatever you’re writing… fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and whatever else there is that qualifies as writing.

If you’re interested in joining a solarpunk writing group, drop me a comment on this post.

In fact, tell me more than that you’re interested. Because, not only am I trying to figure out if there is enough interest to found a solarpunk writing group, I’m also trying to figure out how often to meet, for how long, and what would the structure be. This, of course, depends upon what YOU want out a writing group.

Would you want meetings that are just quiet time to work? Would you want meetings where I’d provide writing prompts or other exercises? Or would you want just to meet so we can all read our work out loud and give each other encouragement (here’s what is good about the work) or perhaps even constructive criticism (here’s how the work could be improved)?

Once I figure out if there are enough people for a writing group, what the meetings would be like, and how often we would meet, then we can sort out the trickier issue of when we would meet.

So, please, let me know in the comments if you’re interested and what you’d be looking for in a solarpunk writing group that would kick off during Solarpunk Action Week (and then keep going)!

[cognitivejustice]

Tending a garden is about as hands-on as climate solutions get. On a basic level, putting plants in the ground helps sequester carbon. Vegetation can reduce stress and tension for the humans around it, and it provides habitat and sustenance for pollinators and other wildlife. Gardens can provide spaces for education, and, of course, sources of food. But the act of designing and planting a green space serves another, more metaphorical purpose: It gives the gardener agency over a piece of the world and what they want it to look like — and a role in conveying of all those aforementioned benefits.

That’s the premise behind Wild Visions, a challenge launched in the DMV area (that’s District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, for the uninitiated) in January. The project invited university students to design gardens with all sorts of visions and themes, then bring them to fruition this spring with native seedlings from Garden for Wildlife — an offshoot of the National Wildlife Federation.

For every plant the company sells, it donates one to a community project, said campus engagement lead Rosalie Bull. This spring, around 2,000 went to Wild Visions.

“We’ll be creating in total nearly 6,000 square feet of new wildlife habitat in the DMV,” Bull said. “And that’s just this year. We hope to do it year after year.”

In Bull’s view, this project has a distinctly solarpunk framing — celebrating a literary genre and art movement that conjures visions of a sustainable future, where nature is as central as technology. Although part of the goal was to get more native flowers in the ground, the challenge also hoped to “activate the solarpunk imagination,” and let students offer their perspectives on what the gardens could accomplish.

For instance, a group called Latinos en Acción from American University wanted to focus on monarch butterfly habitat, as a symbol of the migrant justice movement. Others, like the Community Learning Garden at the University of Maryland, were interested in exploring culinary uses of the plants they received, which included sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, milkweed, goldenrod, and aster.