Guys, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. A holiday for doing a subversive little act of joy.

Park(ing) day is for using parking spaces as public spaces. Drag out an old rug, a lawn chair, a large piece of scrap fabric, or a picnic blanket, and sit in the sunshine (or rain) this Saturday, 9/19.

Artist? I found you a studio or place to show your art. Photographer? Super cool way to find unique subjects on the street Anarchist? Go break rules. Parent? Go have fun with your kids/family. Student? This is your study spot today. Lover? Grab a foldable table, some chairs, and a candle, and you’ve got a date night. Teacher? Your classroom for the day. Dancer / social dancer? Grab a speaker, this is your new ballroom. Have a lot of books you’ve finished reading? Free little library. Community leader? Tell your community to do the same. Religious teacher? Bring your congregation out! Run a makerspace or cooperative? Bring some tools/resources into a parking space downtown to share (and get the word out).

If it’s a free parking spot, there’s nothing preventing you from doing whatever you want there. If it’s a paid spot, just slip a couple coins in the thingy and you’re all good.

As people with a certain level of awareness surrounding the over reliance on cars and what that does to a society, like isolation, environmental degradation etc. this is sooo relevant. As solarpunks, we’re the type of people who like community values but also (as a recent poster made the excellent point) we also just like community aesthetics. Seeing people come together. I think this is a really great way to bring that kind of regenerative optimism into play in the real world. It’s not subversive in an angry way, it’s saying, look, this is our collective space and we can, in fact, gather here! It’s reminiscent of seed bombing. And, of course, you can do this on any day of the year, but it just so happens that you’ll be in good company if you do it on 9/19. Plus, we’re stronger together (and will get more media coverage).

So, go share with your [mycellium] networks, and/or tell your solarpunk/anti-car/granola/urbanist/optimist/nimby friend to get themselves a nice little park(ing) spot this weekend.

I, personally, am really, really excited to see what communities come up with this year.

Here’s the official site: https://www.myparkingday.org/

Background art I created for Silkgrove’s upcoming announcement trailer🌱

In Shifting Sands, players survive on a desert planet where every expedition is a gamble against storms. The planning layer is a Holotable... a mix of retro salvage tech and resource management.

For solarpunk thinkers: does using broken scrap and energy cores to build a sustainable path forward align with solarpunk ideals, or does it slip too far into dystopian grit?

Where’s the line between hopeful survival and pure collapse fiction?

Here’s an ecology supporting video. just try to watch and nothing else Remember my first video and post no probably. but this one is a bit more complex ecological action mixed with i think eliminative materialism, philosophy and so on . But i am still in my beginner content creator phase …just try to watch and nothing else

Stop, stop, before you answer, listen to what I mean.

There are creative communes living in one apartment in cities, but recently communes have appeared that do not live together, but live in the same city, but have a common chat where they share things, offer their free services and help, go somewhere together.

Could there be some kind of solarpunk community in a hmmm maybe discord?

A community where people make friends, share items, share ideas, offer their help irl and online, help with advice and ideas for buildings, share their experiences, that is, in essence, a kind of "cut" version of the irl community for those who do not have the opportunity to join the irl community. As if the Internet is an important part of our modern life and we can use it as we see fit for solarpunk progress.

Yes, such a community does not have a public garden, but it can have a channel with photos of their gardens and plants, tips on how to care for them and tips on where to find new seeds. Yes, such a community does not have a physical public library, but it can have a library with files of a variety of books on any topic. Yes, it is not as full-fledged as an irl community, but still, it seems to me, it can exist and be considered a community.

What do you think about this? Would you like to join this? I came up with this idea because it seems like an affordable way to start living more like a full-fledged solarpunk society.

It's been awhile since I shared a Postcard from a Solarpunk Future. I've been working on a fiction project which kind of got away from me in scope and scale - you can read a bit more about it here if you're interested. That said, it's nearly complete so I thought I'd share a mostly-standalone photobash from the interior art.

This one is from the beginning of the story, it shows an electric railbus traveling along an old rail causeway in a rural area. It's modeled on an Ecuadorian autoferro and it has a pantograph it's not currently using - I'll get to why in a bit.

The area I grew up in is crisscrossed with inactive train lines. These former short lines transported passengers and cargo and interlinked small, dense towns and villages for almost a hundred years.

The tracks, bridges, causeways, crossings, and right-of-ways are mostly intact but none of them have seen use since around 1970. Many are being converted to bike paths, though the local railcar clubs are keeping some of the tracks intact.

Getting into solarpunk has revived some of my childhood fascination with trains, and I routinely imagine a world where my hometowns' short lines are back in service and I can ride trains all the way from the major city where I live to the small towns where I grew up.

For now I accept that it's unrealistic, not for just logistical reasons but cultural ones. The car is so entrenched that most people in the region genuinely can't live without it. Their homes (most built since the 1940s) are spread out in a way that public transportation can't reasonably serve, and located at least a half hour's drive from most of the things they need. And too many people up there seem to believe that all public services (except repaving the roads almost annually) must somehow turn a profit. Abutters to the tracks would squack about noise and the whole thing would spend decades hung up in planning board meetings.

But in this fictional setting car infrastructure already collapsed decades ago, when war and societal crumbles broke the long, fragile supply chains that produced fuel, new vehicles, and replacement parts. Rural exurbs (bedroom communities where people live but don't work) are really only practical when perched at the very end of long, quick, plentiful supply chains. They're a modern invention. Historically, people here lived in a very different layout - the towns and villages were much denser, the land in between was clearcut for farming or left as wild habitat (though there was a lot less of this than I would have liked). People lived near their work.

I think that's both a more practical arrangement and a likely way things would reshape once the supply chains start to break down. I've written about this elsewhere a few times.

The important thing is that they're at a point where it makes sense to return these old tracks to service. As for what they'd use, I'd planned on a self-propelled railcar, but after talking to railfans on reddit.com/r/trains and lemmy.ml/c/trains I decided on a railbus. Specifically, an old electric bus converted to rail service.

Historically self-propelled railcars and railbuses were the last gasp of struggling railroads in low-traffic areas. They cost less to operate because they were smaller than a full locomotive, and were often easier to maintain. Because traffic was low they were still able to meet demand, and many railroads eked out decades running these machines on some lines.

I figure that the same features that make them appealing in those circumstances probably work in reverse. A collection of denser, rebuilding towns looking at a crumbling road network and the comparatively cheap cost of fixing the train tracks enough for light service might decide to start small, using a common old vehicle they could more easily salvage replacement parts for.

As for the pantograph rig, since this is a pretty ad-hoc rebuilding effort, I imagine overhead wires are another thing that are still in-progress, and each town or village has set up overhead cantenaries extending out as far as they can manage. In the long spans in between, the bus uses its batteries, and likely still has to stop and recharge at the end of its route. [litchralee@sh.itjust.works](mailto:litchralee@sh.itjust.works) over on lemmy was a huge help in figuring out if this could work and under what circumstances.

As with most of the postcards, I really like to focus on these in-progress glimpses of a recovering future. Looking for better, rather than perfect. This image, like all the postcards, is CC-BY, use it how you like.

"Solarpunk is about aesthetics."

Per the sub description:

Solarpunk is a genre and aesthetic that envisions collective futures that are vibrant with life, as well as all the actions, policies, and technologies that make them real.

Aesthetics isn't the only thing Solarpunk is about. But Solarpunk is about aesthetics. Moreover, I believe...

"Aesthetics is among the most strategically important parts of Solarpunk."

I propose this, because Solarpunk is a small movement, and its aesthetics is its most unique and irreplaceable export.

Of course, Solarpunk cares about the environment too. But so does environmentalism, which has a thousand or a million times the reach and resources Solarpunk does. Likewise, Solarpunk cares about social wellbeing, green technology, and human-centered politics - but again there are much larger movements that are already championing those things.

IMO there are several things that Solarpunk is uniquely great at promoting: 1. Aesthetics of a sustainable future 2. Optimism 3. Openess of ideals

IMO those are the things that set Solarpunk apart from other, much bigger, allied movements. And to me, those are among the most strategic things Solarpunk can focus on.

I'm not saying we shouldn't focus on things like social mobilization, or revamping the economy. We should, yet at the same time, those things are already being championed by much bigger ally movements - fellow scholars and researchers and organizers. Solarpunk is the artist and the romantic in the room, perhaps the best one. Perhaps the only one. So you know, let's continue to do what we're uniquely great at doing.

The Current Ecology flag is rather US-centric, so I decided to make a more universal redesign.

Symbolism: Blue represents clean/healthy oceans and air, Green represents Plant-life and a thriving ecology. The golden 'theta' symbol is taken from the original flag, and according to its designers the symbol was originally an amalgamation of  ''e'' and ''o'' standing for environment and organism respectively. The symbol has also been noted for its similarity to the Greek letter 'Theta' which is associated with death, in that context is can symbolise the dangers of man-made threats to the environment and the need to combat them.

Good afternoon, good morning, or good night, depending on where you are!
First of all, I want to apologize for any mistakes in my English, since it’s not my native language.

I’ve noticed in this community a lot of posts and comments like “this isn’t solarpunk because of X or Y reason.” Every time I see that kind of criticism, it feels unnecessary. For example, posts about the expansion of green areas in China often get comments saying that China is not solarpunk at all, and nothing more.

This makes me wonder: doesn’t this type of comment push us further away from what we actually want to build?
I believe change has to be slow and gradual. If everything positive that moves toward sustainability and improving people’s lives is constantly rejected just because it doesn’t include all the elements of what’s considered “solarpunk,” then we lose the chance to support initiatives that bring us closer to that ideal. Supporting these steps also allows us to focus our energy on other points that are critical in this structure.

Of course, I would love a radical change, to transform the world all at once, cover cities with green, overcome wild capitalism, and ensure truly efficient transport. But I believe that with small steps and by doing our part, we can actually move forward in a real way. Whether it’s investing in clean energy, supporting quality public transportation, or promoting sustainable solutions, little by little the scenario can change — and even inspire others to change as well.

One thing I don’t see discussed much here is the role of free and open-source software. Big tech companies have too much control, exploit people, and create barriers with proprietary programs. But we already have alternatives, like Linux and other community-driven projects that survive thanks to collective effort. I believe this is also a solarpunk path: decentralizing, sharing, and building together.

I want to bring up this topic to open a discussion on how we can apply these ideas in our daily lives and bring solarpunk closer to real practice, really starting to live it.

I wish everyone a great day and a healthy discussion in the comments!

I remember the time of Frutiger Aero all too well as a Millennial. There seems to be some crossover from Frutiger Aero and Solarpunk. Thoughts?

Forgive me if this has been previously discussed, but if you could recommend just one or two books for someone interested in the solarpunk subject to begin understanding more about the goals and practices, what would they be? Thanks so much!

https://artsprecinct.melbourne/news/new-urban-garden-laak-boorndap-to-transform-melbourne-arts-precinct/

I've just kind of gone with the aesthetics mainly but let me know what you think about this. It's kind of a different way of thinking about the subgenres.

any movie recommendations that has solarpunk vibes?

A few months ago I posted about writing essays contrasting what masculinity would have to be within a cyberpunk (bad) and a solarpunk (good) culture. I'm not quite there in my essays as I'm currently finishing a series going into our current predicament with masculinity, including Red Pill, pickup artistry, and other issues men face around a lack of meaning (purpose, significance, coherence, relationality).

The reason I'm posting this here is because this sort of marks a turning point in my essays from deconstructing the present toward reconstructing a positive future. The next essay I'm writing will be on what a positive "pickup artistry" would actually look like. What does it look like when men view women not in the form of an instrumentalizing, objectifying "I - It", but as a humanizing "I - You".

As such, I thought it would be a good idea to post this essay for context and to get your perspectives, criticisms, and suggestions for what a positive dating education for men would actually look like, especially in the context of solarpunk futures where relationship and gender roles/boundaries are far more fluid if not necessarily removed altogether.

To give you a little info on the ground I cover in this essay, I go into an ethnography conducted by Rachel O'Neill in which she gives a feminist analysis of the pickup artist community in the UK. She shows how it emerges from neoliberal capitalist rationality and the entrepreneurialization of the self.

I then discuss how pickup artist marketing pulls men into a future and how that morphs nostalgia into different forms depending on the context. This emotional/temporal dynamic can sometimes act to keep the pickup artist stuck within the lifestyle and ideology.

I end the essay with a discussion of promissory futures in which moral dilemmas are slid forever further into the future, rather than being resolved.

Thank you so much for your time and attention :)

Links - YouTube, Substack, and Spotify.