#what is a solarpunk conference

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

In 2023, the inaugural Solarpunk Conference was held in virtual space, bringing together over 150 attendees, 18 presenters, and creating a palpable sense of the solarpunk community. This episode, Ariel chats with conference organizers Charles Valsechi, Lindsay Jane, and Kees Schuller about the genesis of the conference, the inspiration for its theme, as well as a little preview of what they are hoping to see at the 2024 Solarpunk Conference: Rays of Resilience.

You can go to https://www.solarpunkconference.com/ to check out The Solarpunk Conference, access The Solarpunk Conference Journal, and buy tickets. You can also check out the channel  @solarpunkconference  on YouTube for recordings of last year’s presentations, and stop by Lindsay Jane's channel  @TheSolarpunkScene  for more solarpunky content!

[inebubble]

hey guys serious question

are there any utopias in contemporary literature and media?

I just realized today that most of the contemporary projection fiction pieces im familiar with are either dystopian or post-apocalyptic, and… idk it says something about our generation but also there’s gotta be some optimistic pieces of art out there??

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

#20yrsago AnarchistU, Toronto’s wiki-based free school https://web.archive.org/web/20040911010603/http://anarchistu.org/bin/view/Anarchistu

#20yrsago Fair use is a right AND a defense https://memex.craphound.com/2004/09/09/fair-use-is-a-right-and-a-defense/

#20yrsago Bounty for asking “How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?” https://web.archive.org/web/20040918115027/https://onesimplequestion.blogspot.com/

#20yrsago What yesterday’s terrible music https://www.loweringthebar.net/2009/09/open-mike-likely-to-close-out-legislators-career.htmlsampling ruling means https://web.archive.org/web/20040910095029/http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002153.shtml

#15yrsago Conservative California legislator gives pornographic account of his multiple affairs (including a lobbyist) into open mic https://www.loweringthebar.net/2009/09/open-mike-likely-to-close-out-legislators-career.html

#15yrsago Shel Silverstein’s UNCLE SHELBY, not exactly a kids’ book https://memex.craphound.com/2009/09/09/shel-silversteins-uncle-shelby-not-exactly-a-kids-book/

#10yrsago Seemingly intoxicated Rob Ford gives subway press-conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbcETJRoNCs

#10yrsago Amazon vs Hachette is nothing: just WAIT for the audiobook wars! https://locusmag.com/2014/09/cory-doctorow-audible-comixology-amazon-and-doctorows-first-law/

#10yrsago Dietary supplement company sues website for providing a forum for dissatisfied customers https://www.techdirt.com/2014/09/08/dietary-supplement-company-tries-suing-pissedconsumer-citing-buyers-agreement-to-never-say-anything-negative-about-roca/

#10yrsago New wind-tunnel tests find surprising gains in cycling efficiency from leg-shaving https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/the-curious-case-of-the-cyclists-unshaved-legs/article20370814/

#10yrsago Behind the scenes look at Canada’s Harper government gagging scientists https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/federal-scientist-media-request-generates-email-frenzy-but-no-interview-1.2759300

#10yrsago Starred review in Kirkus for INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cory-doctorow/information-doesnt-want-to-be-free/

#10yrsago Steven Gould’s “Exo,” a Jumper novel by way of Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel” https://memex.craphound.com/2014/09/09/steven-goulds-exo-a-jumper-novel-by-way-of-heinleins-have-spacesuit-will-travel/

#5yrsago Important legal victory in web-scraping case https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/web-scraping-doesnt-violate-anti-hacking-law-appeals-court-rules/

#5yrsago Whistleblowers out Falwell’s Liberty University as a grifty, multibillion-dollar personality cult https://web.archive.org/web/20190910000528/https://www.politico.com/magazine/amp/story/2019/09/09/jerry-falwell-liberty-university-loans-227914

#5yrsago Pinduoduo: China’s “Groupon on steroids” https://www.wired.com/story/china-ecommerce-giant-never-heard/

#5yrsago Notpetya: the incredible story of an escaped US cyberweapon, Russian state hackers, and Ukraine’s cyberwar https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russia-code-crashed-the-world/

#5yrsago NYT calls for an end to legacy college admissions https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/end-legacy-college-admissions.html

#5yrsago Purdue’s court filings understate its role in the opioid epidemic by 80% https://www.propublica.org/article/data-touted-by-oxycontin-maker-to-fight-lawsuits-doesnt-tell-the-whole-story

#1yrago Saturday linkdump, part the sixth https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/09/nein-nein/#everything-is-miscellaneous

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

[solarpunkaestheticweek]

Other Events During Solarpunk Aesthetic Week (Winter Solstice Edition)

As you can imagine, there's a good deal of events happening during Solarpunk Aesthetic Week this season! We wanted to highlight just a few other things that are happening, so they can maybe inspire some of what you do for Solarpunk Aesthetic Week!

Arabic Language Day is on December 18th, and aims to promote and recognize the importance of the Arabic language, encouraging linguistic and cultural diversity and foster understanding. There's often conferences, workshops, and cultural performances held on this day.

It's important we consider the important role and contributions of Arabic people on history and the world, as well as the present and future of Solarpunk! It may also be a good day to jumpstart a new language learning adventure, if you want!

International Migrants Day is also on December 18th! It's a day that seeks to promote the well-being and rights of migrants worldwide, dedicated to recognizing the contributions and achievements of migrants and raising awareness about the need to improve conditions, safety measures, and social acceptance for migrant individuals and families.

Many of us like to imagine solarpunk societies as being entirely or semi-nomadic, traveling to different places depending on the seasons. But an important part of living solarpunk is supporting people right now. How can we support migrants in our communities and improve relations between Indigenous communities and immigrants in a solarpunk future? How would a solarpunk future welcome migrants while protecting and supporting indigenous communities and land? How does the reality of climate refugees in particular impact the development and ideals of a solarpunk future? How would a solarpunk society migrate across the land, and what would it look like?

International Human Solidarity Day is on December 20th, and serves as a reminder to the importance of unity in diversity and the need to work together to address global challenges. There may be various events and activities to mark this event.

Solidarity is an important tenant of Solarpunk, and of activism in general. Consider ways you can show solidarity through art, writing, music, or more. A story about people working together towards a common goal, of supporting one another in the face of a difficult obstacle? An illustration to support a current cause, or of a distant future's fight? Can you do a craft to show solidarity with others?

Winter Solstice is on December 21st in the Northern Hemisphere! It's the astronomical start of the winter season, and symbolizes the death and subsequent rebirth of the sun--the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Often when visualizing Solarpunk, we think of lots of plants and greenery on a bright sunny day. But this isn't what Solarpunk would look like everywhere, or all the time in most places. Let's visualize what we think Solarpunk would look like in fall and winter! How do you solarpunk in the colder months, what kind of crafts do you pick up when things get chilly? What do you imagine a solarpunk society's infrastructure and fashion would look like when the temperatures dip low? What would change and how when our current society is reborn into a more solarpunk one?

Summer Solstice is also December 21st in the Southern Hemisphere, marking the official beginning of the summer season! This is the zenith of the sun's position in the sky, and the longest day of the year.

While things are getting cold for some of us, the temps are just ramping up for others! Let the sun and its energy inspire your works, imbue yourself with the bright and blazing energy of our brightest star!

December 24th is Christmas Eve for those who celebrate! Many people celebrate by gathering with friends and family to enjoy feasts, exchange gifts, and generally enjoy time together.

In a consumerist society, there's a lot of emphasis placed on the gift-giving part of Christmas celebrations--how would it look in a Solarpunk society focused on community building instead? Are you doing anything Solarpunky this Christmas? Let us know!

Is there more we're forgetting? Want to share the way you celebrate a particular event? Sound off and let us know--we'd love to hear about other related events and how you're taking part!

[arielkroon]

Some updates...

It’s been a minute. Here’s what I’ve been up to… I published another article with Unsustainable Magazine on apocalyptic desire I have a few papers and conference presentations forthcoming; check my Publications pages for those The recording of my panel presentation at The Solarpunk Conference is now up on their YouTube channel. I’m now part of the Low-Carbon Research Methods Group I’m also…

[solarpunklunarpunksolutions]

Solarpunk Action Week Update!

Hey everyone! I wanted to update you all on how my Solarpunk Action Week is going. 

Today was my university’s monthly meeting of Engineers For A Sustainable World. I have been an active member of the group since I started college, but particularly this semester.

We had a special presentation from the Fab Lab in our city. This Fab Lab is part of the worldwide network of Fab Labs that was started by MIT. 

Some of the goals of the Fab Lab network are to work towards the UN’s Goals for Sustainable Development and make access to fabrication technology and education related to tech more accessible to the community.

Another goal is to have our city be classified as a Fab City. This is a city that is working towards becoming self-sustainable. To learn more about this goal, check out this link!  https://fab.city/ And here’s a list of the current cities that are classified as Fab Cities.

Some other things that my city’s Fab Lab has been involved in involve ready-to-print files for things such as beehives and planters. It started with the beehives and have evolved into about five different designs under the banner of “Aker.” Any of these can be printed by Fab Labs across the world and are made out of wood and linseed oil. I, personally, am really interested in seeing if smaller versions can be made so I could have one of the vertical planters.

The speaker (who was also the co-founder of the Fab Lab here) discussed the Fab Lab conference this year in Montreal, Canada. She is going to be a keynote speaker discussing her work on a short film related to the Fab Lab and some of the work that is done there. At this conference, many of the Fab Labs from the world meet up and discuss what has been done in the Fab community. 

Lastly, we officially got Engineers For A Sustainable World shirts! It’s a super cute little design that has part of our school’s logo, gears, and a sprouting plant. There were also pink shirts available, but it seems that we all flocked for the mint green. More eco-friendly looking, I guess?

Today seemed like it was a really good day for my Solarpunk Action Week. I hope that I can finish up the week up well too, especially since the first few days fell a little flat for me. 

[flowersandfutures-blog]

So in the past few months, I’ve gotten really into Sunrise Movement, a youth-led movement to fight climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. 

I am really, really excited about their work. I feel like this is the movement I’ve been waiting for for so long. 

I've been involved on and off with climate activism for at least 6 or 7 years, maybe more like a decade, but until now, I've never found a place I could really plug in and get excited about. I mean, I've met some great people, and gone to some inspiring protests, and followed a lot of amazing activists and writers, but not until now have I felt like I have a place in the movement and a group of people that feel like my people.

And not only that, but it feels like we finally have a mass movement powerful enough to push for the kind of change we so desperately need. It’s been amazing to see how quickly Sunrise has been able to change the national conversation and gain support both from everyday people and politicians. 

Within just a few weeks, we’ve gotten over 35 Representatives on board with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ resolution for a Select Committee on a Green New Deal, and reshaped the terms of the climate change debate to the extent that three presidential contenders for 2020 are backing the GND. Eric Holthaus, one of my favorite climate journalists, recently said that Sunrise is one of the most powerful political forces in America right now!

I feel like Sunrise is the best chance we have at getting to a solarpunk future, or really, any future at all. And it’s pretty great that their name and imagery is so similar to that of solarpunk.

TL;DR: Sunrise is amazing - check them out and get involved if you can! They have a lot of remote roles available for people who can’t make it to actions in person (like, I did email support for them during one of their big protests in DC), and they have a lot of conference calls so it’s easy to keep up with what they’re doing. I’ll definitely be posting more articles about them soon.

[Images: 5 photos from a Sunrise Boston training that I attended in October. 1.) A group of young people, with our arms raised in excitement, holding a orange ombre and black banner that says “Which side are you on?” and has the Sunrise logo. 2.) The same group with the same banner, holding up our fists. 3.) A group of young people, mostly the same as in the first two pictures, sitting outdoors on the grass during a break, with the Charles River behind us. 4.) A group standing in a circle and laughing, with our hands on our hips, while doing a physical exercise. 5.) A group standing and talking with each other, with a slideshow in the background.]

[sometimesrosy]

Ok so apparently the 100 is building a castle set w/a fancy staircase. And theres a few small red and yellow flagposts outside w/some christmas like trees. Wtf is going on?!? Lol the first thing that popped into my head when I saw it was the King/Knight and Queen/Princess reference for Bellamy and Clarke. Lol. I have no idea what's going on in this new planet. Or is a ball really happening like everyone is saying? Maybe like a peace conference ball type thing between Eligius and Earthlings? Lol.

OK, I wish y’all would post a link or site or search term when you come yelling about new information so I know where to go look and I’m not just going off second hand information. But I did find the bts pic.

I don’t know if that’s a castle, but the flags are banners and they are norfolk pines, not christmas trees.There does seem to be some pageantry involved with the banners and landscaping, which doesn’t fit either the wilderness or the high tech aesthetic, so it’s something DIFFERENT from what we’ve seen. There’s also topiary on the balcony.

 What I find interesting is the organic details on those stairs and backdrop, and I do not understand why the center of the set is orange while the outside of it is brown, which makes it look fake. So the conclusion I am coming to is that they will add special effects to it to make it also look…idk, more organic? Some sort of vines or lights or alien unusualness.??? There’s a bluescreen at the top, but the top edges are NOT finished and have no detail, especially not like the detailed organic shapes of the railing, which looks sloppy to me and will probably be fixed in post production. Which means to me, again, special effects. Also, there’s no place for anyone to stand near that bluescreen, so it’s just background. Maybe just the two suns, but maybe more. 

TBH, I don’t understand how any of you get Bellarke out of that. 

it’s a BUILDING. It’s worldbuilding, not character arcs. I wouldn’t use this to figure out an emotional narrative. I feel like this fandom wants to make everything about a clue to ships and that isn’t what everything IS. Sometimes a building is about…the setting. It gives us some aesthetic. Some background. Maybe history, mood. Relationships are details that exist WITHIN the world they build, but the background doesn’t tell us about relationships.

To me, with the late timing of that, this to me says alien society, or the hidden part of the Eligius society. Otherwise we would have seen this early on in the filming. But no, this isn’t part of the peaceful society we’ve heard about?? Or it’s a new part of it. I think it will be the strange part of it.

I’m still on the aliens thing. This is what we’ve been told would be happening. Whether that is alien world or alien planet. Eligius has been there about 200 years, and this building seems to have been there a while, right? Or I’m assuming it’s an established place, but it doesn’t look like something a technologically advanced culture post earth apocalypse would build, style wise. It’s slightly organic/gothic…. oh, maybe we’re going SOLARPUNK.

IDK. People’s frame of reference seems to be “prom,” or maybe Cinderella, but I have questions and thoughts about this all.

If it’s a ball or prom that they need a choreographer for, although unless it’s highly stylized group dancing (and why hire a choreographer who does contemporary/broadway numbers instead of a folk dancer or something?) then why hire only FOUR dancers for it?

Four dancers + choreographer makes me think more along the lines of performance, meeting, presentation of characters who are utilizing the dance to tell part of the story.

The choreographer and many of the dancers seem to have a strange element to their work. The choreographer has a straight up WEIRD alien like dance number on her website, one of the dancers dances off the ground. One of them DOES have a ball number in OUAT though. Yes I googled the dancers and choreographer.

Why is dance part of the story when it never has been before? That makes it strange to this kind of storytelling, which fits, as we’re on an alien planet.

Why is it introduced so late in the season? Again it is another unusual thing that our heroes haven’t seen yet. That makes it, to me, part of a revelation of story. Not actually about Bellarke, but about the planet, the alienness, the mystery of what happened to eligius 4, and the main plot and possible big bad.

This set is also introduced late in the season at the same time as choreographer, so the dancing and set seem to be connected. 

Perhaps there is a fairy tale element, or a dream element. They HAVE brought in fairy tales before, as early as the linctavia beauty and the beast storyline. BUT JR has referenced all movies and books that have an element of unreality, altered perception/time/reality, possible hallucination, dream or vision, so I find that just as likely as a ball. More likely. Do fairy tales have to be about princesses and balls? No. They don’t. Often they are about the deep dark woods, mystery, danger and magic. Even Disney does that. Fairy tale =/= romance.

What is with that weird orange color? At first I thought it was a sheet of plastic, but upon close viewing, there is a lot of textural and tonal detail IN the orange. However, the orange makes it look fake. Therefore I think it is one layer of what eventually will be some sort of digital effect. Maybe it’s like layers in a painting. Maybe that orange color is supposed to give the impression that the castle is GLOWING. ohhh. that would make sense.

Ok. The orange part of the castle kind of centers on that pretty organic archway with the kind of half mandala in it, that looks like a stained glass window, but it is not a perfect mandala or circle and the center of it is DEFINITELY organic like a tree root or octopus. AND the stone around it kind of warps like it is wrinkled or there is something growing under it. That shape is echoed in the bannister. Top edge of the castle also shows this wrinkle/warping, which is maybe why I thought it was a sheet of plastic at first. It’s not. It was designed to look like something organic, but in stone. where we can SEE the stone building blocks.

The castle is human sized. The steps are human sized so are the doors. This is a building for humanoids. However there are super tall archways that are NOT human sized. Why build an archway that tall when the others are human height?

A thing growing through a stone castle is not humanoid. 

A thing growing through a stone castle and then echoed in the architecture of said castle is not an enemy, but something that is honored or worshipped or followed. 

You know how Avatar (the movie with blue people) had that mother tree that was, like, the center of life and spirit?

Binch. If the alien on this planet is THE ACTUAL PLANET someone needs to come over here and do an exorcism to get Jason Rothenberg out of my head because I wrote this in a novel 12 years ago, which was ALSO about cryo sleep, which was part of how they got to the new planet to colonize it, which just so y’all know, I suggested as a way to be saved from praimfaya before season 4 started. BEFORE. In january. Also, my current series based on the same universe as that space colony one is called The Mandala Series. The first one was The Mythos Series. That thing in the center looks like a mandala. 

If the alien beings on this planet are actually part of the planet, or a non human entity, AND we get choreography that is weird and dancers that can dance while hanging in space off of poles or ropes or vines or tentacles, then I suggest that there is a hybrid human/alien element, and the dancers will represent that new hybrid. Again, another idea from my novel. I might just be too deep into my novel to separate, and am reading into it, but that is how I came up with cryo theory and it turns out I was right. 

JR is in my head. 

Honestly, I don’t know how you guy come up with Bellarke and commence freaking out. I come up with living alien planets and hybrid alien/humans and commence freaking out. No offense, but my idea is more interesting than a ball. I mean. Maybe it’s a ball. That would be…. fun. 

[himluv]

I’m so excited to share this new layout with all of you! I really like this one. It’s crisp, super easy to navigate, and very professional looking. It also feels a bit more dynamic than last year’s. I’m not sure if that’s because of the contrasting aqua and purple (my favorite colors), or the widgets, or the site logo, but I do know I like it a lot.

Now, let’s get down to business and talk about what the heck happened in 2018!

In 2018 I said I wanted to:

Finish The Steel Armada

Finish Santa Sarita

Submit 2 short stories

Publish 52 blog posts

Read 65 books

Maintain my yoga practice

 How’d it go?

Finish The Steel Armada

…Yes! As far as I’m concerned, right now, this project is stamped ‘done’. It turned out nothing how I planned, and became almost a complete rewrite halfway through 2018. The Steel Armada became Exodus: Descent, a SolarPunk novella. I sent it to Tim the Agent™ back in August, but have not heard from him. I’m shelving it for now, though I have plans for future novellas set in the same world. So, final status of this project is: Done for now.

Finish Santa Sarita

No. I thought so, and then BAM, another sequel appeared. I bit off a lot with this one, and I’m a little worried about it. So, this will be a pretty high priority in 2019. I don’t want this project lingering over my head anymore. Project status: In Progress.

Submit 2 short stories

Heck yes! This was much easier to do than I thought when I made this goal. So much so that by the end of 2018 I had three stories out for submission.

Publish 52 blog posts

Yep. And then some. This was, hands-down, the best year the blog has ever had. 119 posts, an average of one comment per post, and over 5,000 hits this year has really blown my mind. Consistency really is key.

Read 65 books

Yes! I read 67 books this year! It wasn’t easy, by any means, but I had just enough time and graphic novels to really pad my Goodreads Challenge.

Maintain my yoga practice

Hahaha. No. I got bronchitis two weeks into 2018 and fell out of my practice. I’m contemplating trying again this year, but with two jobs and some lofty writing goals, I’m not sure if I can dedicate the time.

2018 Total Word Count: 149,331 

Honorable Mentions

2018 was an eventful year, both personally and in my working life. I received a scholarship to attend the Oregon Writer’s Colony Annual Conference in April, which really affirmed that I’m on the right track and making strides in this whole writing life thing. Right about that time I started submitting my short stories for the first time in over four years. That was a roller coaster all its own, and has been a great learning experience and growth opportunity for me.

June saw my traditional wave of summer depression. I coped by binge-playing Horizon Zero Dawn and eating way too many Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

But, July and August were some of my most productive months of the year, with the completion of Exodus and the rough draft of my newest short story, That Which Illuminates Heaven.

September was the least productive month of the year, and reasonably so because we spent 12 days in Germany! It was an amazing trip, the exact vacation we so desperately needed, and our first journey abroad together. We hope to spend more time in Munich someday, especially for Christmas. And of course, we have other travel dreams! Ireland, New Zealand, Italy, the UK! The world is a big place, and I want to see as much of it as we can.

October was spent readjusting to working two jobs and outlining and researching for my new novel. Writing was limited and that sucked, but it was all part of the plan. It worked out, because I met my word count goal for November, with a startling 25k words! That’s about a third of the planned manuscript, which is kind of crazy if I think about it too much.

December is a busy month in our house, what with my birthday and the holiday. Add in the mental recuperation from Nanowrimo and it meant I just didn’t expect much from myself that month. But I did finish my reading goal while I let my writing muscle relax!

I read 16,300 pages across 67 titles in 2018!

I also flexed my editing muscle this year with The Audient Void. We released two issues this year, and are on the cusp of releasing a new chapbook of some of David Barker’s previously unpublished short stories, Half in Light, Half in Shadow.

2018’s word was FOCUS. It was my mantra, the thing I came back to when I felt out of control or like I was drowning in my workload. Based on how well my year went, I think it worked. So, I want to pick a new word for 2019:

INTENT.

I want to be purposeful in my writing, I want to take the time to better learn my craft and write with more intention. I don’t really know what that will mean for my writing just yet, but I bet I will by January 1, 2020.

What am I doing in 2019?

I am finishing the Tavi rough draft. I’m already a third of the way there. In an ideal world this rough draft will be done by the end of March/beginning of April. Realistically, this will take the first half of the year.

I will finish Santa Sarita. This is a big job still. I think, right now, I’m really stuck in my head about it. I need to sit down and start writing this story again and let it take the reins. I honestly think that’s the only way it’ll get done.

I will revise Cards. This is the project that comes after the Tavi rough draft. I wrote Cards back in 2014, and I’ve learned a lot since then. Much like The Steel Armada, I anticipate Cards will require extensive rewrites. But, I’m ready. I learned how to do that last year and I’m equipped with the skills and knowledge to do it again this year.

I will publish something! This is a tricky one. I don’t actually have much control over this goal. There are a lot of factors that go into getting a piece published and almost none of them are decided by me. But, I have three stories out right now. I want at least one of them to find a home.

I will publish two blog posts a week. I’ve got this into a rhythm now, so I’m confident I can do it again.

I will read 70 titles. I exceeded my reading goal this year, it only makes sense to increase it in 2019.

If time allows, I’d like to…

Make considerable progress (30k words) on From the Quorum. This novel is the first in a planned trilogy, and is my longest-lived idea. I first met these characters in 2009, and they are still around, patiently waiting for me to tell their story. I don’t know if I’ll make much progress on it this year, but  it will definitely be a priority in 2020.

Write a new short story! I have three out now that are performing well. It’s just a matter of time before one of them finds a home. It’d be nice to have one waiting in the wings and ready to go when that finally happens.

Submit Exodus to novella markets. I actually think this one is pretty likely to happen. But, with Tavi and Cards looming, this won’t be on my radar until the later half of the year.

There’s a lot to do in 2019. I probably bit off more than I can chew, especially since I’m working two jobs right now. There’s also always the reading and editing for Madhu and The Audient Void to consider.

So, in short, I’m a busy busy lady and nothing about that will change in 2019. I look forward to sharing that journey with all of you in the coming months.

I’ll be back later this week with the Monthly Recap!

Until then, Blogland.

  BZ

New Year’s, New Look – 2019 I'm so excited to share this new layout with all of you! I really like this one.

[thejaymo]

“Dirt Behind Our Ears” : On Solarpunk and the Need for New Futures

I was asked to submit a talk to a HUGE conference over in Berlin to talk about Solarpunk and what it’s like to have been involved in the genre from the very beginning as an admin over on @solarpunks​. I found out this week that it wasn’t accepted, but some other solarpunks were - watch solarpunks.net for more info.

I’m posting my talk proposal below as it’s the first time that I’ve written something on solarpunk. Some of the wording and phrasing as become important to me especially the lines about not being able to speak for other solarpunks.

“Dirt Behind Our Ears” : On Solarpunk and the Need for New Futures

Give a short and catchy idea about your main argument. This text will be used publicly once your session is accepted, so it's worth proofreading it.

500 Char Public Thesis - ~ 75 Words

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 future does not passively ‘arrive’ fully formed  from the aether, we must first meet it the way humanity has always done: though dreams, stories and song. This session will cover the story of the nascent genre of solarpunk and the communities attempts to ‘remake our present and future history’.

Please describe what your session is about, how you want to proceed and what methods you are going to use. Be clear and check orthography and grammar. This text will be used publicly once your session is accepted, so it's worth proofreading it.

2000 Char Description - ~ 300 Words

The emerging science fictional genre and aesthetic of “solarpunk” begins with ‘Infrastructure as a form of resistance’.

In 2014 the EIA, CIA, & World Bank published a graph charting the falling cost of solar energy and titled it ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’. The upcoming 21st Century shift toward clean energy opens the future to an age of ‘innovative dissent’.

But we don’t see terror in this future. Solarpunk envisions a world where the drastic technological shift towards renewables and decentralisation empowers movements for social justice and economic liberation. It attempts to foster a socio-cultural environment which emphasises individual autonomy, consent, unity-in-diversity, with the free egalitarian distribution of power. It creates a multitude of spaces for indigenous sovereignties, reproductive justice, and radical queer politics. Of course with these principles comes polyphony, one cannot speak for other solarpunks, only be in dialogue and occasional chorus with them. Some solarpunks recognize it was a great tragedy that the alternate historical genre of steampunk was not decolonial to its core from its inception. Others call for the recognition of rights for the ‘non-human’: trees, rivers and mountains. And technologists building decentralised P2P social networks are doing so under a solarpunk banner. The genre provides a rich soil of ideas and action from which our struggles en route to a better world can grow.

This session will briefly explore the history of the genre, some of its central themes and principles and offer a present that can help us begin to see a future with a human face and dirt behind its ears.

[peilinsirpale]

We've got it good here

For the @solarpunkstoryexchange Prompt: solarpunk in SPACE (in space colonies, in deep space)

Author notes: I got really excited about the prompt, but fell a bit short due to not being able to work out a plot or time to write. Because of these reasons, this has been mostly left on the brainstorming stage - It starts with a bit of a story and changes into brainstorming bullet points, which span about 3 generations (or more) of people living in the place. I hope you enjoy reading it!

A couple wants a kid. Or, to be more precise, a lesbian couple on the Mars colony decides they want to try getting a kid. Their friends and local colleagues agree to the plan. The Mars colony is a close-knit community, and they collectively decide that they will love and support the kid, whatever they are like. Whether they are rowdy or quiet. Whether they’re scientific or artistic. Whatever gender they are. Whether they're disabled or not.

The earth control doesn't like the idea, but they can't control what the Martians do, only do their best to adapt and help.

The first try- no. Second - another loss. Every pregnancy is keeping the whole Mars base at their toes. Constant checkups. Mental wellbeing regulated as well as physical health. The possibly pregnant woman is given less intense work and sports. She isn't allowed out of the areas with best radiation screening. She does still work, she has to, but she also spends a lot of time studying various things. Stuff about pregnancy, about children, but also music and literature and other kinds of arts. About all kinds of problems that may arise, but also about how to best take care of a child in general.

Her wife does a lot of studying, too, just as everyone else on the base. But she also takes the extra time to be with her pregnant partner. In all honesty, so does everyone. In some way, the child will be all of theirs. While in some way, they will be a child of all of humanity.

When the pregnancy doesn't end near the beginning, and then continues well for months, they are hopeful. And when a baby is born, after several years of trying, the Mars base celebrates. And far away, people on Earth celebrate the first human born off-planet.

As a small kid, the Mars-born child is unaware of their celebrity status on Earth. They will learn what it means, but not yet.

Brainstorming:

"what do you mean i can’t have a hydroponics in my room"

Mars!!

Planting plantsies; Bacterial protein; Critters?

"Is this something I can plant in? What if I add compost?" "Hey can we do smth of this plastic? Melt it? Sun? New packages?" Wind power in Mars?

"Uh-huh wanna be the dad of my kid?" "I'm gay" "It is dangerous™ but I want a kid let’s do it" "Ur their dad but also godfather"

Aka a lesbian couple and a gay guy decide to get kids. The kid lives with lesbians but dad is integrated in life and lives in the neighbourhood

How is it solarpunk? Do they decide to do it or something else despite being prohibited?

Closed loop system

Growing culturally significant stuff even though it’s inefficient - Doing, too

Everything that can be recycled, is recycled

Outside soil made usable via mixing with compost and growing stuff that can extract nutritients from it

3d printing

What plot? Everyday life plot?

Is there a lot of scarcity?

Do they have their own internet places? Earth internet connection, but slow? Friends at earth or other space colonies???

What if someone wants to move there? Exchange student? Could someone from earth be?

Friend with the aforementioned Mars-born kid? A science enthusiast - space kid more of an art person

Jump jump!! Very popular and also healthy. Climbing too!

Exchange students bring lots of Earth stuff with them. Some personal items, but mostly small things. For all, some spices not grown on mars, and other stuff they may need/ want / have requested.

Exchange students/new residents, how many? Five or ten? An nb person too!

Had lots of stuff to digitally read when on long travel. Travel is tiring and they ate mostly packed food bc it’s easy in zero-gravity (but also fresh vegetables that grow fast, and stuff grown in poo made compost - or is it just collected for use in mars? Probs. Other grown veggies)

Getting to know each other on the flight, also gotten to know each other on the before-launch stuff. One had to drop out at the last minute due to health problems :(

When on mars: “whoa there’s gravity!! How do I get used to this again??”

People of different professions. Some doctor, some scientist, some engineer, some person person like psychologist or smth

People exercise but also do crafts. Lots of 3d-printed stuff. Games!! Also on space flight! Full body sport games! Brain games! Very regular favorite games!

Lots of lag on online stuff though :( But lesser quality = ok and faster

Gardeners!!

So much focus on learning. And everyone got to do something, whatever they can. Even if they’d rather do art? Are ppl forced to exercise? Ableism what? How much is there of it?

Growing lights and lamps. Some, in living areas, syntethise daylight and night, some, in agricultural areas, are continuously on

Mostly plants that are small but wield lots of fast food, but some less fast food for special treats (like fruits from small pruned “bonsai trees")

A large open hall for sports, including stuff like soccer, tennis, and various team sports

At first the place is very small. It grows. The amount of ppl grows from less than 10 to more than 30. When the exchange students come, more than 50 - maybe around 70?

Someone rich gets there with their money? But is made to learn to do work and use the money not for themself but for the community. Is taught social and coworking skills etc.

Most people: problem? Research!

Several do digital art to some degree - or blog! Blog a lot. Or tweet or such. Videos! Of what life on Mars is like. Everyone must be aware that the public is interested.

Most time is spent in public areas. Work is often done in small groups. All specialised in something, but can do basics in everything.

Solar panels! Lots! On top of where the hub is underground.

Marswalks done rarely, and remote-controlled robots are used a lot. Robo bees! Roombas! Farming robots!

“Exchange students" the first few with not much previous experience. A bit less that 200 into tests, then maybe a hundred into further ed and evaluation, then a few dozen into training. Finally, about 10 best chosen. This way, younger people. Around 25 to 30 when to Mars. With a few more qualified people.

Biologists manage gardens. Engineers manage repairing and building new and 3d-printers.  Doctors manage health. Chemists manage various stuff. Earth can always tell info and such when needed.

Downloaded books, online searches and videos though slow-ish to load. Calls and video conferences. New clothes from hemp grown on Mars!

Induction stove. Lots of food made by once. Stable food: beans? Sugar from where? GMO is used a lot. Sugar beets? Lots of new seeds brought every time something arrives - about every 2.5 years or longer. Good thing: no/few pests. Not many animals, possibly rats?

Most walls filled with stuff, esp. in older areas. Everyone owns not too many clothes. Maybe up to 5 outfits. Every time stuff is brought, they can wish for some. Not much though. A lot is 3d-printed on-site. Few personal belongings - most is co-owned. Works when there are few people and everyone knows everyone.

Baby gets clothes, most made of stuff grown on mars. Cutting made so it doesn’t trash fabric. Clothes are mended because making new takes a lot of resources. Kids’ clothes made a few sizes too big or so they can be easily expanded when they grow.

When exchange students come, there are a few kids. Maybe 3 who were born on Mars.

Kids are familiarized with work on Mars. Curriculum specialised for life on Mars. Made in unison with teaching experts on earth. No rigid school days, but a lot of learning. To work with the adults, though with an extra person to make sure they don’t mess things up.

A lot is automated. Taking care of the automated stuff is important.

Kids are not let into older parts. There are lots of things they may accidentally pull, and worse radiation filtering. They have some toys, 3d-printed. A few plushies, part or mostly made of extra fabric scraps

Space travel done in sleeping bags, they keep them when they come to mars.

Phones/laptops/equivalent for all. VR for games and learning! AR glasses?

Jewelry? Someone likes making it. Clothes, too - and customising! Recipes have to be fitted for Mars. Some people love trying them out.

Kid has a bit bad eyesight.

Main languages English & Russian

When did ppl first decide to *stay*? And not just spend a few weeks/months/years? “Hello we're looking for people willing to live on Mars" or “Hello we’re not leaving" ?

Mars colony grows. Also “Hey we’ve lived here for ages and I like my home planet I want to be independent"

There have been a few generations. Maybe this is the third gen. Someone child of one of the first marsborns. Is older - in 20s or 30s or smth

There is a growing community. Mostly scientists. But maybe a few other professions there too

Someone gets to make food! Communal eating almost daily or more - lunch or dinner? Dinner probably. Lunch often in work groups

Cultural feasts and celebrations are shared if applicable. Seasonings are valuable

Lots is made in laboratory. Even food like meat, but mostly medications etc.

People have to do some work and learn new stuff as long as they can. However most get significant osteoporosis when older. Eyesight loss is another difficulty, but there is an optical station that can make glasses. Things also start being adjusted for use with reduced eyesight.

Should it be somewhere else than Mars?

Over the years, parts of the base are adjusted to become as natural as possible, introducing new species into their ecosystem. Main agricultural areas are kept hydroponics, and some get turned into aquaponics systems (=includes fish, which also can occasionally be used as food)

Settlement at around equator or at middle to pole, on a flat area

Room- or apartment-like parts connected to each other by hallways. Old parts and newer parts. 1 floor and sometimes 2 OR MORE!!Like a department store!! Especially some housing areas. Or like a cruise ship with a “promenade" and rooms with windows there? Elevators?

Climbing is loved and easy because of the lower gravity, but it needs to be made safe because breaking a bone is very not good.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

This episode’s guest is Dr Anne Pasek, Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture, and Environment, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies and the School of the Environment at Trent University. Dr Pasek is co-founder of the Low Carbon Research Methods Group, and she talks to Ariel all about what Low Carbon Research is (and can look like!), the “carbon footprint” of academic research, new innovative ways for research to respond to the climate crisis, the importance of zines, and even hosting her own solar server in her backyard!

Links:

https://www.annepasek.com/

http://lowcarbonmethods.com/

https://emmlab.info/

http://solarprotocol.net/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Lost Cause prologue, Part V

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

In my upcoming solarpunk novel The Lost Cause (Nov 14), we get an epic struggle between the people doing the repair and care work needed to save our planet and species, and the reactionary wreckers who want to kill the Green New Deal and watch the world burn:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks, which means that I make my own indie editions and pre-sell them on Kickstarter, along with ebooks and hardcovers. I narrated this one! It came out great! You can back it here:

http://lost-cause.org

This week, I've been serializing the prologue to give you a taste of what you can expect from the book, which Bill McKibben calls "politically perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful."

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/06/green-new-deal-fic/#the-first-generation-in-a-century-not-to-fear-the-future

And part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/07/met-cute-ugly/#part-ii

And part three:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#lost-cause-prologue

And part four:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#super-soaker-full-of-hydrochloric-acid

And now, part five:

Look, I had weeks to go until graduation. I had a life to live. I had stuff to do.

Gramps and his friends would stew and shout. Idiots on the internet would make dank memes out of Mike Kennedy and deepfake him into a million videos, turn him into a main character whose image would be around long after he left the world.

I just had to keep my head down, collect my diploma, and get the hell out of Burbank. I’d already been provisionally accepted for a Blue Helmets AmeriCorps spot down in San Juan Capistrano, helping to rebuild the city’s lower half a mile inland, up in the hills. I was going to do a year of that and then go to college: I had applications in to UCLA, Portland State (they had a really good refugee tech undergrad program), and the University of Waterloo, where my mom did her undergrad in environmental science. They’d let me declare my major in my second year, so I could take a wide variety of courses before settling on something, and if anything, Canada’s free college was even more generous than the UC system or Portland’s, with a subsidy for dorms and meals.

To tell the truth, I’d be glad to go. My senior year hadn’t been anything like I’d anticipated. Gramps’s health had gotten a lot worse the previous summer and his shitty sexist and racist remarks chased away any home help worker Burbank sent over within a week or two, so I’d been trying to keep my grades up while picking up after Gramps, getting him to take his meds, washing his sheets and cleaning his toilet—­not to mention making sure he made his doctor’s appointments and even bringing him into the office a couple of times a month for the kind of exams you couldn’t do by telemedicine.

I wasn’t sure what Gramps would do without me to take care of him, but at that point, I was running out of fucks to give. Let his asshole Maga Club buddies look after him, or maybe Gramps could figure out how not to offend everyone that came over to wipe his ass and do his laundry. He was—­as he was fond of pointing out to me—­a grown-­ass adult, and this was his house, and he was in charge. So let him be in charge.

I put myself to bed stewing about all of this, thinking of San Juan Capistrano. Some of my older friends had graduated the previous years and had gone down there and I’d followed their relocation of the old mission on their feeds. It looked like hot, sweaty, rewarding work, the kind of thing where you could really measure your progress.

For the second night in a row, I was woken up at 2 a.m. This time, it wasn’t my screen, it was Gramps, who’d stumped into my room with his cane, flipped my lights to full on, and started shaking me and calling out, “Get up, kid, get up!”

“I’m up,” I said, getting up on my elbows and squinting at him.

He was shaking, and he reeked—­of both booze and BO, and I felt a flash of guilt for not getting him in the bath that day.

“God dammit,” he said, and staggered a bit. I leapt out of bed, pulling the sheets off with me, and steadied him at the elbow.

“Calm down, okay? What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. No one is all right. Fuck all right and fuck you.” I’d had Gramps tested for early dementia the previous year, by showing his doctor videos of moments like these. The doc had run a battery of tests before pronouncing, “Your grandfather isn’t senile, he’s just ornery.” Which was undeniable, and also pissed me the hell off. “Ornery” was a polite word for “asshole.” What the doc was telling me was that Gramps didn’t have to be cruel. He was cruel by choice.

I untangled myself from the sheets and piled them on the bed.

“What is it?”

“It’s Mike Kennedy, that asshole. Someone shot him.”

“What?”

He shoved his giant screen into my hands. I tapped the video window. It was from the POV of a car cam, that weird fish-­eye view of a self-­driving car, split-­screen with the passenger in the front seat, and it was Mike Kennedy, looking even worse than Gramps, bloodshot and trembling, with that under-­chin camera angle that makes everyone look like they’re half dead.

I tried to watch both halves. There was Kennedy, whispering something to him. There was the cul-­de-­sac he was parked in, false-­lit with IR from the cameras. The timestamp was 1:17. Less than an hour before.

Then the external image flickered for a second and resolved itself into a man, who phased in and out. He was wearing a ghillie suit like the one Kennedy had worn on the roof, covered in telltale CV dazzle stripes, designed to exploit defects in the computer vision system. You had to wear a different specific pattern for every algorithm, but if you got the right matchup, the computer would simply not see you. The man was flickering into existence when his posture crumpled up the ghillie suit and made the pattern stop working, then out again when he straightened up.

He straightened and disappeared and Mike Kennedy’s eyes widened as he noticed the man for the first time—­computer dazzle worked on computers, not humans—­and he started to say something and then a round hole appeared in his forehead, his head snapping back against the headrest, then careening forward. The flickering phantom appeared again as the man in the ghillie suit turned and disappeared.

I dropped the tablet to my bed.

“Jesus Christ, Gramps, I didn’t need to see that snuff movie—­”

He tried to smack me then. I was ready for it. I was faster. I stepped out of his reach. I was shaking too.

“You don’t get to hit me anymore old man. Never again, you hear me?”

He was purpling now, and a decade’s worth of fleeing and defusing his rages rose in me, made me want to apologize. After all, I rationalized, he’d just seen a friend murdered.

But I’d seen that friend murdered too, videobombed with a snuff flick at 2 a.m. without warning or consent. It was a traumatizing, selfish, asshole move. I’d be watching that movie on the backs of my eyelids for years to come. And the friend who’d died? He’d been ready to kill me. Gramps had no right. He was a grown-­ass adult. He had no right.

“Listen to me, you little shit, you think you can live under my roof, take my charity, and talk to me like that? Now? With all the shit that I’m going through? No sir. No. Get out, you little bastard, get out now. Get out before I kick your goddamned teeth in.” He was vibrating with rage now, literally, actually shaking so hard his wispy hair swished back and forth across his forehead.

I didn’t say another word. I picked up some jeans and a jacket, put a pair of socks in a jacket pocket, and jammed my feet into a pair of sneakers without bothering to unlace them. I shouldered past him—­still vibrating, stinking even worse—­and banged out the back door and stomped through the nighttime streets.

My feet automatically took me up to Verdugo, and then across the empty road. I turned toward school—­as I did every morning—­and autopiloted in that direction. By the time I reached the Verdugo Aquatic Facility I had calmed down enough to realize that there was no reason to go to school at two thirty in the morning, so I stopped and headed for the playground in the park behind the pool. I sat down on a bench and kicked my shoes off and shook out the playground sand, pulled out my socks and put them on, then put my shoes back on properly. I was still furious, but now I could think straight and my hands weren’t shaking. Gramps and I hadn’t had a blowup like that in years, mostly—­ okay, entirely—­because I’d backed down every time we’d been headed in that direction. I wasn’t in any mood to back down. Not ever, to be fully honest.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/11/equal-opportunity-class-war/#part-v

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[13thpythagoras]

Dear Dystopian Writers,

Science is not on your side. 

There’s a magic and also a politic to every aspect of our lives, so it’s more a question of attitude than scientific ability. Given Nikola Tesla’s work, humanity has no further need for the chains of capitalist slavery. It’s just a question of tastes and preferences.  

We choose the future. Embracing this, we must ask ourselves how we want humanity to turn out. 

Here are some excellent quotes by Buckminster Fuller to help illustrate where I’m coming from:

“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.“

“Love is metaphysical gravity.“

“Either war is obsolete or men are.“

“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.“

“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.“

Solar punk’s got a lot to deal with when it comes to nuclear weapons.

To be honest, solarpunk cities are the most vulnerable targets and this culture has to take the attitude that is is truly an oppressed, erased, voiceless culture struggling to be heard at all in any way by history. Not this bullshit about how GMOs are going to save us or some kind of garbage about how Monsanto-batman will rescue us all with their capitalist white privilege and ability to give people cancer. 

Violent people tend to be the most ideologically conservative and colonial, so a decolonized capital city free free of obligation to dark energy-overlords is truly doomed to nuclear weapons attacks and terrorism, IF there aren’t strong and truly deep safeguards and counter-offenses built into the science of the fiction - how deep you go on this duality struggle is a dangerous exploration for plot progression if we aren’t talking to your absolute core as a human being, then what’s up, because playing into the chess-matches of the oppressor robs our ability to transcend duality altogether, or as Albert Einstein said,

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” -Einstein

Geeks who want to see fancy robots may be disappointed by solarpunk to be gently reminded that robotics and technology are here to serve and suit humanity, and I beg the questioning of why robots-as-humanoids ever was introduced by pop culture mainstream influencers. 

I’m a human’s human. 

I want humans to be the humans on this planet, so to speak, and rather than building legacies on sand or the banks of a flood-prone river where some other species of hominid will be the human on this planet- I encourage every writer to probe deeply in the science and find the firmest ground to stand on possible - the sooner we reveal the truth behind the lies we tell ourselves, the sooner we experience our own apocalypse and awakening - like sports as an outlet for testosterone-based aggression, may philosophy and spirituality be the outlet for your armageddon rather than the material world where I’m tryna fuckin live heah!

If we feed too much into robotics and A.I., it would be worse than nuclear weapons research.

Hear me out though, fam!

WHY IS DYSTOPIA THE CRAZE AND UTOPIA THE CRAZY?

Yes I call dystopian writers lazy. In the intellectual sense, you just have to be rigorous and patient enough, and dammit, in love with yourself enough, to get to a level of wanting a good future for yourself and your grandkids, their robots, and so on. Truly in an AI-dominated robotic world, there would also be no need for nor existence of robots that resemble humans; we are a truly unique thing to behold.

We’ve also witnessed entire nuclear missile silos be shut down remotely, and this was later verified by a retired United States Air Force personnel.  CBS News is the source of the above link and below verbatim quote: “One of the more out-of-the-ordinary press conferences held in Washington this week consisted of former Air Force personnel testifying to the existence of UFOs and their ability to neutralize American and Russian nuclear missiles.” I have known about this phenomenon for a while but didn’t know about that CBS article until researching this one. The phenomenon of nuke-shutdowns by UFOs is widespread, and well-documented, and I encourage sci-fi writers to research this in great detail. 

I am here to lift the fog of scientific illiteracy, while asking of our attitudes as well, do we want humans to have a place on this planet? As world-building writers, we have to be responsible in our world-building, as these magical scenes drip-feed into the subconscious shared-awareness (zeitgeist) and reality we share.

Twin studies show that quantum physics and entanglement work from the embryonic levels, as identical twins often report feeling each other’s feelings at a distance - essentially proving that telepathy, or telekinesis of neural firing patterns, is a material phenomenon we have to live with and get used to. If you don’t believe me, just Google-search “twin studies feeling at a distance” and I won’t patronize you but I beg you to understand with me here where the science has matured and progressed - we have propaganda coming out of “How Stuff Works.com” saying stuff like “The twins scored nearly twice as many correct answers as would have been by chance, while the non-twin siblings scored just below the chance expectation of 25 percent” and then turning around and concluding that no, twins do not have any special abilities. This is worse than the CDC logic back in February telling us that N95 masks only work if you are a licensed medical professional. I don’t highlight this to lambast a hardworking woman and freelance writer- I am encouraging you to realize this is a propaganda war, and dark energy overlords DO NOT want people to be aware of these abilities in twins or ESPECIALLY non-twins and everyday folks. Humans ourselves have vast (and I mean FUCKING VAST) untapped potential. So maybe we can explore that before obliterating the world with ye olde dystopian bullshite? 

I find it super-interesting to unpack solar-punk culture indeed going into the viral lockout and subsequent economic depression we indeed are all going to have more time to write and share ideas online, so it’s vital to truly gut-check our attitudes and scientific awareness as we forge ahead.

Do we want the world to be destroyed or heroically saved?

This is pretty much a personal question, and it’s about attitude not scientific viability. 

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Behind the Scenes with The Solarpunk Conference Organizers

In 2023, the inaugural Solarpunk Conference was held in virtual space, bringing together over 150 attendees, 18 presenters, and creating a palpable sense of the solarpunk community. This episode, Ariel chats with conference organizers Charles Valsechi, Lindsay Jane, and Kees Schuller about the genesis of the conference, the inspiration for its theme, as well as a little preview of what they are hoping to see at the 2024 Solarpunk Conference: Rays of Resilience.

You can go to https://www.solarpunkconference.com/ to check out The Solarpunk Conference, access The Solarpunk Conference Journal, and buy tickets. You can also check out the channel on YouTube for recordings of last year’s presentations, and stop by Lindsay Jane's channel @TheSolarpunkScene for more solarpunky content!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Lost Cause prologue, part III

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a solarpunk adventure about "the first generation in a century that doesn't fear the future." It comes out on Nov 14, and its early fans include Naomi Klein:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

Amazon won't sell my audiobooks, so I made my own, doing the narration this time around. I'm running a Kickstarter campaign to pre-sell the audiobook, ebook and hardcovers, including signed, personalized hardcovers – I hope you'll consider backing it:

http://lost-cause.org/

This week, I'm serializing the prologue to the book.

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/06/green-new-deal-fic/#the-first-generation-in-a-century-not-to-fear-the-future

And part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/07/met-cute-ugly/#part-ii

I woke at noon, the house hot because Gramps had left the blinds up in the front room, and ever since the big live oak had been cut up and taken away for blight, we’d lost its shade.

I used the bathroom, pulled on shorts and a tee, and went looking for breakfast, or brunch, or whatever.

“Gramps?”

He didn’t answer. That was weird. Gramps was a late riser and he rarely got up before ten, and then he took a long time to get going, listening to his podcasts and drinking coffee and sending memes around to his buddies with his giant tablet, with the type zoomed way, way up. He didn’t like going out in the heat, either, so in the summer he rarely left the house before four or five, once the sun was low to the hills. He’d left his coffee cup in the sink and his tablet on the table, so I knew he’d gone in a hurry. He hated dirty dishes and hated dead batteries even more.

I put his stuff away and thawed out some waffles and got a big iced coffee from the cold-­brew jug I kept in the fridge and started the process of becoming human.

I gobbled my first waffle before the emotional weight of the previous night settled on me. Those emotions were way too big, so big that they all layered on top of each other, leaving me with nothing but numbness.

I did the reflex thing and pulled out my screen, giving myself a brief sear of shame for my mindless screen-­handling, just as I’d been trained to do in mindfulness class. That was enough to prompt me to run through the checklist: Do I need to look at my screen? Do I need to look at it now? What do I hope to find? When will I be done? I answered the questions (Yes, yes, news about last night, when I’ve looked at two or three stories), and then unlocked it, but didn’t look at it until I’d poured myself another glass of coffee.

Two hours later, there was no coffee left and my eyes hurt from screenburn. I dropped my screen, came out of my trance, and stood up.

I’d gone viral. Or rather, Mike had.

My post had been picked up, first in Burbank, then statewide, then nationally, then internationally. Amateur comedians had edited the footage into highlight reels, moments chosen to demonstrate just how idiotic and hateful he was. Someone made a White Nationalist Bingo Card whose every square had a quote from Mike Kennedy. There were lots of jokes about inbreeding, hillbillies, musket-­fuckers and ammosexuals, master race masturbation, senility, removable boomers—­all the age-­and class-­ based slurs that we weren’t allowed to say in school, but that everyone busted out as soon as we were off the property. It was pretty gross, but on the other hand, I couldn’t exactly argue with them. Bottom line was, Mike Kennedy had been up on that roof for no good reason, and he’d been ready to kill me to let him finish his stupid, senseless project. So yeah, fuck that guy. I guess.

I was pleased to see that I came off as a hero, with strangers around the world praising me for my cool head, saying I’d saved his life.

I put my plate in the dishwasher and wiped up my crumbs and checked the clock on the kitchen wall—­I’d always loved its plain analog face with its thick and thin lines, the yellowing AC cord that came off it. It had belonged to Gramps’s own parents, and it was the only thing in the house I considered anything like an heirloom.

It was coming up on one and if I showered fast and ran, I could make my physics class. I decided to go for it, had the fastest shower in history, pulled on whatever was on the top of my dresser drawers, and sprinted for the street.

I was just jogging up to the entrance to Burroughs when I got a screen chime, which stopped me because, like all the students, I’d installed the school app that turned off audible alarms while I was on property during school hours. It wasn’t mandatory, but the punishment for having an alarm in class was confiscation, so . . .

I pulled out my screen as I panted by the doorway, mopping my face with my shirttail. It was a text from Burbank PD, informing me that Mike Kennedy was headed for a bail hearing in two hours, and I was entitled to present a victim impact statement, either recorded or in person. I’d known that the police could override the school app (there was a kid in my class whose parole office sometimes paged him, and the fact that he audibly dinged was just part of the package, I figured—­a way to remind us all that this kid had fucked up bad), but I hadn’t expected them to ping me, let alone on school property.

I tapped out a quick thanks-­no-­thanks, and headed to physics.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#lost-cause-prologue

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!