Solarpunk

Hey folks, appologies if this has been asked before (although surprisingly I couldn't find a similar post) - what solarpunk book, film, game, tv, etc recommendations does every have?

I'm only just discovering the genre, looking for some good starting points!

I’m designing a solarpunk city for my next novel and am exploring my options for streetlights. On the one hand, light pollution harms wildlife and humans. It also uses energy. On the other, well-lit streets increase the perception of safety. This is not to say good lighting prevents crime. If anything, it facilitates it. Further, you would expect crime to be less in a solarpunk city that prioritizes mutual aid, minimizes wealth disparity, and fights toxic masculinity. However, we should not discount the feeling of danger from darkness.

Personally, I’m male presenting, actively seek out dangerous situations, and have a high tolerance for horror movies. My first inclination is that streetlights should go. That said, once I got caught out at night in the woods. I was immediately terrified. And I had my phone light with me. In short, if a city is not lit, I suspect few people would venture out at night.

1- Mostly Dark-

A city could remove all street lights. People would instead rely on personal lighting: head lamps and flashlights. This would be more efficient and less harmful. Curbs and other critical areas could be marked (not illuminated) by glow-in-the-dark paint or bioluminescent algae or plants. There would be some light from open windows.

2- Lightly Lit-

Streetlights with caps that aim light downward, wavelengths skew into the redder side of the spectrum, and the minimum illumination required to see. Amber light is less harmful. Brighter lights create more shadows. An example of a city using this minimal approach is Canberra, as light pollution would jeopardize local observatories.

3- Cinderella Lighting -

Bright streetlights switch off at a specific time, such as midnight. This would allow people to enjoy some nighttime hours, while leaving others to more natural darkness. This is the scenario I used in my previous solarpunk novels.

Do let me know your preference and awesome ideas.

I read this book while I was sick with a fever, and then started trying to convince people online to be more optimistic and think about possible futures. I basically used it to argue with Lemmy users.

Intro to The Really Beastly Joke Book by John Byrne:

What's that m-moving in the undergrowth? Oh - it's just you, the r-readers. Yes, it's m-me Quentin Quiver again and I'm in my very favourite place... as far away from modern civilisation as I can possibly get.

It hasn't been easy getting out here - even with my map and compass I got lost three times and thought I'd never be heard of again. And that was just on the way out of my bedroom! But at last I've made it to this peaceful, green spot where there's nobody else but me and Mother Nature.

So if you too are looking for something a bit different to those h-horrible rude joke books which sadly seem to be so popular with young people nowadays, you've come to the right place.

Because the book you're holding in your hands is going to be called Quentin Quiver's Book of Gentle Jokes and Flowery Fun and I'm about to start writing it right now. I see you're not laughing very much yet - never mind. Because the whole point of me coming out here is so I can work on it in complete peace and quiet, with nothing to disturb me but the gentle whisper of the wind in the trees, the soft ripple of a jungle stream and of course the savage growl of that huge man-eating tiger...

Hang on - did somebody say t-tiger?

We have a past which is chequered, like veryone else's. Successes, failures, and things which have changed in our thinking and our values.

The systems we have produced are incomplete or not current - they don't match up to what we need or want. And there is stasis and inertia in them; they have not changed for a few generations. Change will come at some point though, whether we have a say in it or not.

What shall we do to define, advocate and enact our stake in that change? What are the frontiers that we need to acknowledge and approach?

What are the spirits/ideas of our culture that we can harness to make Earth a better place?

I spend too much time commenting on and witnessing failed ideas and the consolidation of power to no worthwhile end. It's now my belief that the only earnest thing to do is to move forward with an imagining and an eventual implementation of systems which emerge beside those which are already established. None of us want to go against the system in our own lives because it punishes us if we do. So, let's make another one beside it which is better. That the old one doesn't apply to.

What are your thoughts?

Let's first have a discussion about our principles and concepts.

Please speak openly, freely and optimistically - it might be the most important thing you ever say.

The dissemination and distribution of solar power might seem minor today, but if you model solar growth as roughly exponential - as is typical for new developments - then solar could become the dominant power source in 2036 - which is not far into the future, even on human timescales. I ask you to keep your head up high, and believe into the future, because I care about you, and I don't want you to suffer from depression and anxiety.

Sources: solar energy growth and energy mix

two signals drive the human spirit: positive and negative vibes.

while at first glance, both might seem like legitimate ways to actuate people, one (negative) is devouring, the other (positive) is enhancing. that is why positive news should be preferred here instead of negative ones.

I'm saying this because I see a lot of very dystopian headlines being pushed around here.

(while at first glance, negative news might seem to get more attention; in the long run, positive news is what sticks with people. be encouraging, not discouraging.) :D

All the food will be vegan. All the loos will be compostable. If they're really observant, people might spot (electric) vans containing large batteries occasionally recharging other large batteries around the site, instead of having diesel generators to power the stage and stalls.

Perhaps the biggest difference will not be in the show but outside. There's no car park.

Instead, the 34,000 attendees are strongly encouraged to walk, cycle or get public transport - including on one of five special trains laid on to take people back across the south-west at the end of the bank holiday Sunday night.

I recently started making solarpunk postcards again, and I had a lot of fun with a quick scene of a solarpunk cargo ship (a steel-hulled, four-masted barque) in a storm. I'd like to do more but don't yet have any strong points to make or designs I'm excited to feature.

So what would you like to see? What scene is missing from solarpunk art of humans interacting with oceans, rivers, lakes, canals? What weird idea, or old, practical design should make a comeback?

I can't promise that I'll make everything but I really do try to include as many suggestions as possible.

So far suggestions from reddit and discord have included:

• Showing more of the mooring ropes and foundations festooned with underwater life (perhaps in another storm or low tide?)
• Boats or ships with soft wing sails which are apparently good (in theory) when it comes to performance as they maintain their shape regardless of wind conditions.
• edit to add: a clipper ship

I'll state up front that I'm not a nautical kinda guy. I like to pick up terminology and learn but I've never sailed anything larger than a sunfish and I see the ocean maybe once every five years. So feel free to spell out practical considerations and realism stuff because I probably won't think of it.

And thanks!

Reticulum is an elegant engineers approach to networking. It’s a complete replacement of the network stack, it’s entirely encrypted, and can communicate and can correctly organize global-scale mesh-networks over any connection >5b/s without the need for distributed hash tables, or any resource usage besides bandwidth. This makes it far lighter than GNUnet, and friendly to low-power, low bandwidth, embedded networks and devices.

This makes it viable as a global network, as it is super cheap to interact with. And it can run on any device, including your smartphone natively.

Bandwidth is a physical resource of the natural world. Reticulum is based on the principle of creating systems that (as far as is possible for a computer program) understand the physical limits of real-world resources, and manages them responsibly and intelligently, with well-thought out algorithms.

When that is ultimately not possible any more, human beings have to step in and expand capacity or make other thoughtful decisions on how to manage the available resources. I believe this is the most efficient, holistic and human-friendly approach to creating technologies that actually help us and better our lives.

• someone from forums

What are your backup plans for an internet and telecom shutdown?

I don't believe trusting in satilite internet companies (especially one owned by a fascist) are very practical.

Outside of radio and ad-hoc networks however, I'm not sure what other options would be feasible for the average person that wanted to prepare for something like this.

The scalable model keeps thousands of bicycles out of landfills every year, and helps cyclists fix their rides on the cheap.

Just noodling around with what majors/classes would be available in a solarpunk world. Open to suggestions!

When looking at the majority of comments going on certain online forums you can end up thinking that the vast majority of solarpunks all think the same way on certain issues.

Whether it’s plant-based diets, or the role of traditional media it can seem like 80%+ of the people are in agreement, sometimes very strong agreement and denounce alternative interpretations as not solarpunk at all.

This is why the pioneering research by Benjamin Maldonado Fernandez is so interesting. As part of his studies at the university of Leiden he conducted a survey of people in the solarpunk scene which gained 571 respondents, making it one of the largest, if not the largest so far. It had a wide range of questions which you can see all of in the published results here.

We interviewed Benjamin to unpack some of the findings of the survey.