Solarpunk

Just finished the stellarbook, by James Arbib and Tony Seba (from RethinkX). They make a very interesting case on how we can move from our current extractive societies to one of abundance. It touches on many themes that are well known in the solar punk community, still it brought together a clear overview and model of where we are now and how to get to a better world.

I was wondering if anyone here has read it as well. And what your take is.

Sod is the upper layer of soil held together by (usually grass) roots. It was used as a building material, in a similar way to soilbags.

Hello! I wanted to do my first project with solar panels and I don't know where to start.

I was thinking of make some transportable solar panel with a couple of outlets where it will be capable of charging cellphones or laptops, not sure if with a battery or not.

Any recommendations of easy to follow guides?

Edit: Also, what do I need to do a standard plug "type I" (10 A, 220V)

Basically, I was thinking of maybe creating capsule hotels/hostels/boarding houses that are engineered for social/communal living, but zoning wise it is likely extremely difficult. This was just an idea, but I was wondering if there are any communities (leftist/libertarian[international, not USA]/socialist/anarchist) that focus on hacking zoning codes/laws to try to help the poor/homeless/oppressed/fight against NIMBYs. This would be for the US as far as my concerns. But others can absolutely chime in.

Welcome to the 2025 edition of the collaborative solarpunk art project! This year’s theme is Life of Learning, focusing on education, teaching, mentorship and research in a better climate future!

The goal of the project is to welcome everyone to collaborate together, share ideas and get inspired by each others’ works! This is not a contest - there are no prizes and no winners, outside of everything we learn from each other and the visions of a better world we create!

Among the flood of AI-generated content all over the Internet it’s hard to imagine a coherent vision of a better future, especially one hopeful in the face of the Climate Catastrophe.

I believe that to be able to create a sustainable civilization and stop destroying the planet we need to find a new story for ourselves. Such a story could only be crafted by humans, as no neural network is capable of creating coherent symbols for values absent from our mainstream, Western culture.

For the last few years I witnessed many well-meaning writers and academics try to write about a better climate future - be it under a name of Solarpunk or any other - and struggle to find art illustrating their work. It saddened me to see them turn to the most thoughtless AI-generated images, trees growing from concrete buildings - just to represent something.

I hope that with this Library, thanks to the artists who generously donated their art under copyleft licenses, we will be able to go towards meaningful symbols, planting them like signposts towards a better future.

For anyone stuck looking for a story idea, good conflict or tension in a realistic near-future setting, I hope that the seeds will kickstart their creativity. Be sure to also check out the Solarpunk Prompts podcast by the awesome tomasino for even more writing inspirations!

The best daily transportation isn't a car/truck at all, but there is still some need for freight/hauling to be done.

I'm posting because this truck feels like the opposite of modern trucks. I mean the CyberTruck (literally the icon of Cyberpunk dystopia) and other trucks like Rivian are:

• extremely anti-right to repair
• brag about their 0-60 (instead of practicality/efficiency)
• a privacy nightmare
• massive in size
• have high prices across the board
• are absolutely crammed with manadory luxury features like air conditioned seats or motorized trunks

This truck, with manual roll-up windows, seems to be about getting work done. Its not trying to be the biggest baddest fastest most-techo-advanced thing money can buy.

I bet, in less than 1 year, hobbyists will have solar panel array mounted on the back of these.

At Panchsheel Inter College in Uttar Pradesh, students now study inside a new school wing built not from concrete or traditional brick, but from sugarcane. The innovation was born at the University of East London (UEL) and its creators argue it could reshape how buildings are made and how the planet pays for it.

Sugarcrete combines the fibrous residues of sugarcane, called bagasse, with sand and mineral binders to produce lightweight, interlocking blocks. Lab tests show that Sugarcrete has strong fire resistance, acoustic dampening, and thermal insulation properties. It’s been tested to industrial standards and passed with flying colors. In terms of climate impact, the material is a standout. It’s six times less carbon-intensive than standard bricks, and twenty times less than concrete, by some estimates.

Yet the real excitement doesn’t only come from what Sugarcrete is, but how it’s made and used. It is purposely ‘open access’ in order to establish partnerships to produce new bio-waste-based construction materials where sugarcane is grown. Unlike conventional building materials locked behind patents, Sugarcrete can be made by anyone with the right ingredients and basic manufacturing tools. That choice decentralizes construction innovation, allowing small-scale producers — especially in the Global South — to lead.

I commissioned Seth Rutledge to make concept art for a Solarpunk neighbourhood and I think it is just right. Walkable and bikable streets. Solarpanels on the roof and places you can just sit and chill.

Feel free to use the image, if you need stock footage for presentations and such. reference the original artist of course.

(I also have a higher resolution file I can provide)

I joined Mastodon over on mastodon.social, which has served me well. But I’d like to migrate to another instance that is more tailored to my interests. Are there any particular instances that run on clean energy and are focused more around ecology and sustainability?

I don't know if this is the right community to post this video, but the community they are (building) seems very solarpunk to me!

I'm finding it harder and harder to tell whether an image has been generated or not (the main giveaways are disappearing). This is probably going to become a big problem in like half a year's time. Does anyone know of any proof of legitimacy projects that are gaining traction? I can imagine news orgs being the first to be hit by this problem. Are they working on anything?

Time and place

19th-26th of August 2025, first two-three days are buildup.

Podebłocie 100km south from Warsaw, Poland.

what is solpunk?

Solpunk is a gathering for anyone interested in creating anything solarpunk with others!

What does that actually mean? Is it an un-conference? Is it a festival? Is it just some punks in a field? A wise guess is that people here are interested in many of the following things:

Lowtech and community tech, energy reduction and renewables, sharing resources, temporary nomadic community, dancing, alternative economy, creating a just future, hackathons, dumpster diving, opensource hardware, software and production, means of care and solidarity, community

Source

A Solarpunk Compass

https://corvodsx.any.org/a-solarpunk-compass

#blog #en #solarpunk #ecology

@solarpunk

The current model for funding advancements in tech in the 21st century is: quantitative easing-doped venture capital hungry for investments -> startup uses initial money to make actual tech advancement (this is the good bit) -> hypes up idea, does IPO -> ideally market monopolization and vendor lock-in -> which allows them to enshittify and extract arbitrary rent from both the supplier and consumer side of their user base and return money to the investors, for ever.

The fact that this funding model applies to tech in general is demonstrated by the broad range of fields where it has been used:

• for software, things like Figma or Medium
• for hardware, things like the Juicero (a great example of how venture capital values trendiness (juicero was wifi-connected, required an app, god forbid if AI existed at the time) over real-world utility (the juice capsules could be opened by hand))
• for biotech, things like GMO golden rice, where Monsanto disabled propagation so that farmers would have to come back to them for seeds (that's not exactly what happened, but I'm trying to make a point).

The obvious alternative to this is touted to be open source, ie. people making things for free and sharing it with others.

Unfortunately, the amount of things you can achieve for free, possibly relying on donations, is very limited. If you want to become a serious business, you need a serious funding model. I am convinced that the choice between open source and the Sillicon Valey model is a false dichotomy, and other ways of funding advancements in tech must exist (after all, the Sillicon Valey model has not always been the modus operandi).

Are there any hybrid business models for funding tech developments, that eg. even allow the developed tech to be open source? Has any research been done into the design of novell funding models?