I Think It'd Be Fun To Imagine A Solarpunk Society Where Most Buildings Come With A Greenhouse, Whether

I think it'd be fun to imagine a solarpunk society where most buildings come with a greenhouse, whether its attached or a separate but nearby structure, and people take great pride in their greenhouses' looks and vibe.

Like imagine personalizing your/your family's greenhouse, and visiting your friends' greenhouses. How you use it in different seasons, what you have growing in it, the spaces dedicated to hanging out.

Imagine you go to a friend's house and they have a greenhouse with green and yellow panels interspersed, light shining through the glass and onto a nice warm floor on a spring day. There's a rug and some pillows tucked into the corner with a small table, so you can sit or pull up a chair to enjoy snacks or just hang out.

You go to another friend's. Their greenhouse is dedicated to output, with dwarf citrus trees and strawberries and peppers and tomatoes and herbs growing in neat little pots on the tables. Some of them will be planted in the beds outside, some will be given to friends, some will live their whole lives within the glass walls and be perfectly happy. Sometimes your friend opens the panels, and the greenhouse comes to life with all kinds of butterflies and bees stopping by to visit.

There's a nice greenhouse by the library, which has a few fragrant herbs and tea plants growing inside, but is mostly a cozy space. A nice table and a few chairs are inside, for students who like to use the space to study or hang out together. There's one great big chair that's nestled in the perfect spot to read in the warm sunlight, or to listen to the sound of gentle rains tapping against the glass in summer. In fall and winter, they keep a healthy supply of warm hot cocoa and coffee for visitors to enjoy, but in the summer you're more likely to find fresh lemonade.

You know someone who uses their greenhouse as more of a gathering place, its perfect for parties. Plenty of tables and chairs, string lights along the walls so get-togethers can last well into the night. The various panels in pink, orange, and yellow make the room feel magical as light filters through.

Some families turn their greenhouses over to the kids quite early, and it quickly becomes a place full of toys, tiny seedlings of their favorite flowers in colorful pots, a few study books tucked away in a study corner. Or a popular hangout spot for them and their friends to post up with snacks after school.

A few couples may grow a few plants, but keep the area mostly clear--perfect for times where they just want to turn on a small radio, and slowdance with one another well into the night.

And your greenhouse? You can use it however you'd like after all, make it your own.

times, places, and practices that I want to learn from to imagine a hopeful future for humanity 🍃

the three sisters (squash, beans, maize) stock photo - alamy // anecdote by Ira Byock about Margaret Mead // art by Amanda Key // always coming home by Ursula K. Le Guin // Yup'ik basket weaver Lucille Westlock photographed by John Rowley // the left hand of darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin // photo by Jacob Klassen // the carrier bag theory of fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin // article in national geographic // the dawn of everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow // braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer // the birchbark house by Louise Erdrich // photo by John Noltner

I'm looking for more content and book recs in this vein, so please send them my way!

I'm sure this makes it's rounds every now and again, but I will never not post this. Being an anarchist is about being involved, not in your scene, or on your computer, but in the world around you, and where you live. It's not supposed to be easy.

I normally don't share my stuff with my sister, but yesterday I remembered that she like a few of my clothes so I told her she could wear whatever she wanted from my closet. I also told my mom I wanted to share her clothes and she agreed 😁

My sister complains a lot about not having enough clothes so I thought I'd help her out. I also get to share 2 shirts of hers which fit me :)

Yahoo Finance

This futuristic ‘solar highway’ for bicycles is already making an impact: ‘Could power about 500 homes’

The image shows a highway with a row of solar panels traveling down the median and, underneath them, a protected bike lane.

The image shows a highway with a row of solar panels traveling down the median, and underneath them, a protected bike lane. Protecting and encouraging bike travel while gathering clean energy at the same time? Sounds like a win for everybody.

In 2022, South Korea announced plans for a clean energy future that involve converting its current usage of renewable energy sources from 15%, where usage stands now, to 40% by 2034.

Although coal power accounts for 40% of the country’s total energy usage (as of August 2022), the South Korean government has undertaken several initiatives to bring that number down, including introducing a carbon tax, stopping financing of overseas coal plants, and building charging stations for electric vehicles.

In addition, the capital city of Seoul has made a major push to ramp up the usage of solar panels.

As far back as eight years ago, in 2015, South Korea and the Netherlands both incorporated solar panels in road construction. In particular, both countries have built solar bicycle lanes where dedicated roads for cyclists are lined with solar panels. In the case of Korea, the panels went on top. But in the Netherlands, the panels went to the bottom.

In South Korea, the panels work as a solar-powered roof that shelter cyclists from the sun and rain. At the same time, they generate electricity to power lighting and vehicle charging stations along a 32-kilometer highway with three lanes on each side. The bicycle lane is at the center island of the highway, protected by steel crash barriers. Cyclists use underground tunnels to enter and exit the bike lane.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, opted to use the solar panels as the bike lane itself, rather than its roof. Website Science Alert refers to the lane as the “energy-harvesting bike path.” It reports, “engineers say the system is working even better than expected, with the 70-meter test bike path generating 3,000 kWh, or enough electricity to power a small household for a year.”

Science Alert notes that the Netherlands was the first country to put the solar road idea into “practice” with the bike path in Krommenie, a town north of Amsterdam. “The solar panels used on the Dutch bike path are sandwiched between glass, silicon rubber, and concrete, and are strong enough to support 12-ton fire trucks without any damage. Each individual panel connects to smart meters, which optimize their output and feed their electricity straight into street lighting, or the grid,” Science Alert reports.

But the project took a lot of work, with engineers reportedly spending five years “creating the system to be durable.” And then more than 150,000 cyclists were asked to test the solar panels by riding ride over them. The panels were said to have been designed to take in as much sunlight as possible, and to also match the life of rooftop solar panels.

And while the Koreans and the Dutch have taken the lead, the Chinese are not far behind. China has constructed a one-kilometer “solar” road in the Shandong province capital city of Jinan. Website Solar.com reports that the road spans 5,875 square meters and covers it with “a top clear concrete layer, a middle solar panel, and a bottom layer of insulation.”

Source

pv magazine International

Germany launches 33 kW prototype highway PV system

Germany has deployed a 33 kW prototype highway PV system in collaboration with Austria and Switzerland. The system aims to harness solar ene

German Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing visited the first PV system to cover Autobahn 81 at the Hegau-Ost service area in Germany in June 2023, as the pilot project is nearing completion.

The installation is a collaborative research effort between Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, supported by participating research institutes including Fraunhofer ISE, Forster FF, and the Austrian Institute of Technology. While the original plan was to directly cover the motorway, the adjacent through lane was chosen instead.

The PV roof area, consisting of solar modules on a steel structure, was supplied by Solarwatt. It has a total output of 33 kW. Completion of the PV system is scheduled for July 2023.

Legit though, we should start turning ecosystem restoration and work to make our world more tolerant to the effects of climate change into annual holidays and festivals

Like how just about every culture used to have festivals to celebrate the beginning of the harvest or its end, or the beginning of planting, or how whole communities used to host barn raisings and quilting bees - everyone coming together at once to turn the work of months or years into the work of a few days

Humble suggestions for festival types:

Goat festival

Besides controlled burns (which you can't do if there's too much dead brush), the fastest, most effective, and most cost-efficient way to clear brush before fire season - esp really heavy dead brush - is to just. Put a bunch of goats on your land for a few days!

Remember that Shark Tank competitor who wanted to start a goat rental company, and everyone was like wtf? There was even a whole John Oliver bit making fun of the idea? Well THAT JUST PROVES THEY'RE FROM NICE WET PLACES, because goat rental companies are totally a thing, and they're great.

So like. Why don't we have a weekend where everyone with goats just takes those goats to the nearest land that needs a ton of clearing? Public officials could put up maps of where on public lands grazing is needed, and where it definitely shouldn't happen. Farmers and people/groups with a lot of acres that need clearing can post Goat Requests.

Little kids can make goat-themed crafts and give the goats lots of pets or treats at the end of the day for doing such a good job. Volunteers can help wrangle things so goats don't get where they're not supposed to (and everyone fences off land nowadays anyway, mostly). And the goats, of course, would be in fucking banquet paradise.

Planting Festival and Harvest Festival

Why mess with success??? Bring these back where they've disappeared!!! Time to swarm the community gardens and help everyone near you with a farm make sure that all of their seeds are sown and none of the food goes to waste in the fields, decaying and unpicked.

And then set up distribution parts of the festival so all the extra food gets where it needs to be! Boxes of free lemons in front of your house because you have 80 goddamned lemons are great, but you know what else would be great? An organized effort to take that shit to food pantries (which SUPER rarely get fresh produce, because they can't hold anything perishable for long at all) and community/farmer's markets

Rain Capture Festival

The "water year" - how we track annual rainfall and precipitation - is offset from the regular calendar year because, like, that's just when water cycles through the ecosystems (e.g. meltwater). At least in the US, the water year is October 1st through September 30th of the next year, because October 1st is around when all the snowmelt from last year is gone, and a new cycle is starting as rain begins to fall again in earnest.

So why don't we all have a big barn raising equivalent every September to build rain capture infrastructure?

Team up with some neighbors to turn one of those little grass strips on the sidewalk into a rain-garden with fall-planting plants. Go down to your local church and help them install some gutters and rain barrels. Help deculvert rivers so they run through the dirt again, and make sure all the storm drains in your neighborhood are nice and clear.

Even better, all of this - ESPECIALLY the rain gardens - will also help a ton with flood control!

I'm so serious about how cool this could be, yall.

And people who can't or don't want to do physical stuff for any of these festivals could volunteer to watch children or cook food for the festival or whatever else might need to be done!

Parties afterward to celebrate all the good work done! Community building and direct local improvements to help protect ourselves from climate change!

The possibilities are literally endless, so not to sound like an influencer or some shit, but please DO comment or reply or put it in the notes if you have thoughts, esp on other things we could hold festivals like this for.

Canning festivals. "Dig your elderly neighbors out of the snow" festivals. Endangered species nesting count festival. Plant fruit trees on public land and parks festival. All of the things that I don't know anywhere near enough to think of. Especially in more niche or extreme ecosystems, there are so many possibilities that could do a lot of good