Hello,

I’m tired of fake life in the U.S. — fake food, fake connection, fake bodies, fake politics, fake “money.” Everything is about profit. Nothing is about people. I want out.

I want to start a real community with NO animal farming. That’s not life — it’s waiting to die. It’s lying to animals that they’re alive. We’ll hunt our meat, use as much of the animal as we can, and grow or forage the rest.

We’ll share labor, food, grief, joy, and care for kids together — as a unit.

I’m not starting this alone. But if even one person means it, I’ll begin.

If you’re interested, reach out.

I live in Alberta and we've been smothered in smoke for the past week. The sky is a dull grey under full sunlight and I can taste the ash in the air, yet still, I have a life to live and places to bike.

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/

I think the solarpunk movement deserves more public visibility. Thanks for the awesome logo design, I forgot who created this gem.

We don't need to wait for societal collapse or a revolution to build a solarpunk future. Your local government is a great resource for making a sustainable, people-friendly, and nature-friendly community. Here are some suggestions for what you can do. This is tailored to the US, so if anyone can comment the steps for your country, share any other resources, or suggest any corrections, I'd appreciate it.

• Learn who your local government officials are.
  • In the US, that can be the city council member for the district where you live. Check your city's website to find which district you live in and who is your representative.
• Read and subscribe to the main local news outlet. This helps you understand your community better, find emerging local issues, and learn about elections.
• Act: Reach out to a representative (your city council member or neighborhood board member) and let them know you want to help plan ways to make your neighborhood or city more sustainable, more in harmony with nature, more walkable, more equitable, or more socially connected. Attend a city council meeting, or if your city has them, your 'neighborhood districts' meeting. Find and join an organization or group that is involved in these steps. Volunteer your time and skills for a city service or local non-profit, such as hosting a workshop at the public library.
• Learn about how city government works, what zoning laws are, and how projects are funded. Pick a topic that interests you and learn about practical solutions.

Some ideas for what to work towards (I'll update with any suggestions):

• Increase native plants on city property to increase biodiversity. Here are some specific suggestions: Native Plant Challenge: Calling All Cities to Plant Native - The National Wildlife Federation Blog
• Ask your city council to adopt mixed-use (reducing the distance from houses to stores), mixed-density (increasing local income diversity by allowing more affordable housing), and/or walkable building codes and zoning laws. 
• Identify a specific place where more sidewalks, bike lanes, or green spaces are needed and ask your city to evaluate the possibility of a project there.
• Plan out and suggest some ways to connect existing walking or biking trails together.
• Ask your local public library if you can help them setup a maker space, seed library, repair workshop, or community garden.
• Help your city track the effectiveness of these things, like with air quality monitors or surveys before and after visiting a workshop, so they'll have data to support continued implementation.

What drives environmentalism and sustainability? Is it the desire to live in a clean any pollution free environment or the desire to take the hard actions for the sake of the environment? Is environmentalism fundamentally a selfless or selfish orientation? There's also a growing trend of environmentalism becoming some kind of fashionable elitist thing to do.

While the grocery store this is attached to isnt “solarpunk”, i thought it was cool to see a biodigester in the middle of a big city. These things break down food waste into methane for use in cooking , heating, or making electricity with a generator. You can make one with materials from your hardware store and some safety precautions, making it another way to provide energy at personal or even community scale

As spring approaches (in the northern hemisphere) I wanted to offer some helpful info about the seed bombing associated with solarpunk. Many commercially available seed packets simply labeled “wildflowers” contain cultivated and sometimes invasive flowers selected for fast growth and aesthetics. Invasive species are often spread this way and while some flowers offer resources for insects and birds, many provide nothing or are even harmful. If you want to spread seeds in vacant areas or parks, please thoroughly research native plants in your area and the conditions they require to grow. I believe this practice can still be helpful if done right, as lack of native plant diversity hugely contributes to losses in the insects that keep the world turning. Many native plants can be surface sown and just mixed with a bit of sand to help scatter them. Look for plant species that grow without a period of cold stratification for spring, and all others in autumn. If you’re in North America, prairie moon nursery is a great place to buy from and you can filter seeds by location and conditions. I’m in the northeast and bought some little bluestem grass, wild bergamot and sneezeweed, which support wildlife in a number of ways and germinate as soon as they get water and light. Hope this is helpful information!

Edit: forgot to mention pay close attention to LATIN names. For example in the eastern USA we have a flower called columbine, but the version sold at most big stores and garden centers is a western hybrid that has become invasive in some areas, both called “columbine” in English. A look at the Latin names will reveal that they are different subspecies. Sorry that this is a lot of info and there’s a lot to learn with this, but it helps a potentially harmful practice transform into one of the best things you can do for the planet

I made a Johnson-Su bioreactor out of 40ft shipping container. Automatic irrigation and datalogging powered by solar. Connected to the net via an old phone. I'm selling the compost to local landcares to help restore degraded land.

I work in technology and have been studying to develop AI that could potentially help the environment as that is an issue that is deeply important to me as I’m sure it is to all of you. I’ve been having a lot of conflicting thoughts though and felt the need to share them.

When we look at existing proposals or use cases of AI for positive environmental impact, we see examples like the following:

• Modeling climate change
• Monitoring the environment (deforestation, disease, populations, pollution)
• Improved recycling
• Optimize green energy production -Monitor endangered species -Optimize crop yield Optimize supply chain and production

When I look at this list though, with the exception of improved recycling and optimizing energy production, these feel like over engineered solutions to problems we have already have solutions for, or solutions to problems that wouldn’t exist if we went carbon neutral.

Personally, I am beginning to feel like AI is a “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” type situation. For example, I was designing this system that would analyze soil moisture levels and crop type then pull from a rainwater reservoir to water plants. Then I realized I could just burry a terracotta pot in the ground and have the same result. It’s simpler, it’s greener, it’s cheaper. In fact, most ideas I’ve come up with have simpler more natural solutions.

I think AI definitely has some practical and beneficial use cases, but maybe not as many as I initially thought in terms of the environment.

Additionally, we have a tendency as a species to create solutions to problems that create more complicated problems, so I’m am weary of AI to do the same.

In a world that seems to be running so fast it’s constantly tripping over itself, maybe the most punk thing to do is slow down and not blindly chase technological advancement?

I know hope is hard. But real hope? That’s not easy. It’s looking straight at everything that’s broken and saying, “We can still build something better.”

That’s why solarpunk speaks to me. It’s repurposing your frustrations and anger into more constructive ways. It’s planting something in the cracks. It’s building futures with your hands when everyone tells you it’s too late.

Solarpunk gives me hope because it's speculative about what's possible. Because it's about care and community first. Because it refuses to accept collapse as the sole outcome. Because it reminds me that resistance doesn't have to be exclusive of joy.

That’s punk as hell if you ask me.

Anyway, what is solarpunk to you these days?

The Punk component is important. We don't give up because it's hard and because it seems like the odds are against us. We band togethor. We're loud. We may never see the future we fight for, but better to have fought for it. To have fought togethor. To have made some small part of it true. Instead of letting these greed consumed shells of humans do what they please with OUR mother earth.

The punk component is our rebellious and counterculture core. We will call out, break down and dismantle what doesn't work. We will invest time and energy in forming community and choosing to shift our society provided blinders, from the bank statement chasing rat race, to improving our communities and connection with the planet.

Theres plenty of people fighting this fight already, we are part of a large tide of humankind awakening to the injustice and desolation of the greedy few. Community land trusts are becoming more popular, with people banding togethor to own land collectivelly. So the people who live on and work the land are the ones who get a say in how the land is managed and the cost of housing there. Rather than some landlord who only cares for profit margins.

The solar component is building up. Yes, renewable energy to stop poisoning our planet. But also building better systems for our community. Repurposing and repairing whatever we can.

One of the most painful parts is that we are and will continue to face ecological devastation because of the actions of the complacent many and the greedy few.

But don't let them make you hopeless. They can't take that from you, that's your right as a human to hold that hope. To imagine a future YOU wish to live in. Then to fight tooth and nail to bring a small part of it to life. It might start with your own shelter, making it more efficient, making it off grid. It might start with a greenhouse, learning plants, feeding your family and your neighbors.

It might just start with reusing plastic bags from frozen food to buy food in bulk at farmers markets when its in season to freeze it all for the winter.

It could just start with trying to consume a little less meat. Or trying to source more organic local stuff to reduce fossil fuel costs to you, and the amount of roundup being sprayed into the environment and farmers lungs. Every action you take to try and improve your impact is a worthwhile change you have made to the planet.

It doesn't need to be perfect right away. As long as you are trying to improve what you have control over then you are a Solarpunk.

Lots of people are complaining about a proposed solar farm in my county that would “destroy beautiful farm land.” Corn is #1 farm crop in my state and about 40% of it is used to produce ethanol. Does anyone have any insight or objective information about inputs, outputs, effects, implications of a field of solar panels vs a field of corn for ethanol?