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what is permaculture? an illustrated introduction // maddieraithby.co.uk

Do y’all ever just get ANGRY about how cool technology is inevitably used for evil. Like, smart homes could be such an exciting concept?

Imagine: your home is entirely voice activated. You can run yourself a bath when you’re exhausted and sore without having to get up to turn the water on. You can alleviate your anxiety about having left the stove on without having to leave work. The roomba can find your glasses for you when you drop them and all you have to do is ask.

Now imagine that this is all on a closed circuit! Your TV can predict what shows you’ll like, but it won’t give that information to a company that will use it for disturbingly specific advertisement. And everything has manual overrides, just in case.

Can you imagine a future where every car is self-driving? Maybe even solar powered? Or better yet, apply those same concepts to widespread public transportation! We could almost completely eliminate traffic jams.

My house could feed my cats while I’m on vacation! My fridge could tell me when I’m low on milk! I could brew coffee without getting out of bed!

Hell, most of this stuff already exists!

But nooooo, I can’t have any of it because there are people and companies out there who will actively use that stuff against me and I don’t want fucking Amazon to know what kind of underwear I own.

I’m not bitter or anything.

i think some of the phrasing we use when discussing human environmental impact wrt energy production and agriculture and human habitation can influence the way we think about these things

when we discuss certain energy production methods or agricultural methods or architectural methods or any other elements of human habitation of a given area as “disruptive” to the environment, without sufficient context for what that means, it sets up this dichotomy where our habitation is either disruptive to the environment OR has no effect on the environment, and i think for many reasons thats obviously not a healthy or realistic way to frame it

as human beings, we are organisms, we are part of nature, we are PART of our environment, we are not separate from it, we are not above it. human habitation of an environment will have effects on our environment, in much the same way that ANY organism inhabiting an environment will necessarily affect its environment

so framing it as “are we going to be disruptive to the environment in the way we inhabit this space, or are we going to leave the environment be” is, in a way, setting us up for failure from the start. as long as humans live and exist in an environment, we WILL have an impact, so we need to question what kind of impact we want to have, what kind of an impact were willing to have

this isnt to say that things we do that are normally called disruptive to the environment are suddenly all okay, or that everyone calling them bad is engaging in this kind of dichotomy. hydroelectric power is often called disruptive and it IS, it has massive detrimental effects on local ecosystems, monoculture farming is called disruptive and it IS, this is not apologia for these systems

but i think when discussing possible solutions and alternatives, it often gets framed as “well, will this have an environmental impact, cause we dont wanna have an environmental impact” and im sorry but the answer is that any large scale energy production, any large scale food production, any large scale human habitation IS going to have an environmental impact, its not a question of impact or not, its a question of what kind of impact, how will this impact local species, how will this impact climate, how will this impact local weather systems, how will this impact soil, how will this impact erosion, its COMPLICATED

and the impact isnt always negative, we as humans can provide for ourselves and help shape the world we live in in ways that are BENEFICIAL to the world around us

we can live in harmony with nature, but living in harmony with the world doesnt mean isolating ourselves from cause and effect

what if we did large-scale mutual aid. like what if everyone in a community contributed, idk, like, a percentage of their annual income into some kind of a mutual aid fund. they could appoint community leaders to allocate funding for community needs like health and other social services, rental aid, transportation to get to work and other places, maybe even for building community spaces that would be free to use. has anyone thought of this

I’m having to help with some kind of campaign with a Big Hort company this year for some of our nursery stock and I do not enjoy being able to see this deep into corporate Hort. It is all ad revenue and pdfs and interfaces and sales reps down here. hellish

Giant floating islands that turn atmospheric CO2 into fuel could prevent climate change, scientists say

If rolled out globally, the islands could offset the total global emissions from fossil fuels.

Scientists in Norway and Switzerland have proposed that “Solar Methanol Islands” could use solar energy to recycle atmospheric CO2 into methanol fuel.

The idea arose when scientists were trying to find a way to provide electricity to future off-shore fish farms without access to power grids. Solar energy could power hydrogen production and CO2 extraction from seawater, which would produce gases that could be reacted to form methanol.

The team of scientists wrote:

“Humankind must cease CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning if dangerous climate change is to be avoided. However, liquid carbon-based energy carriers are often without practical alternatives for vital mobility applications. The recycling of atmospheric CO2 into synthetic fuels, using renewable energy, offers an energy concept with no net CO2 emission.”

Currently, the team of scientists is working on prototypes for the floating solar islands.

Thanks to @sabre-fish for sending this in! 

More on solarpunk education:

So I made a big post about cooperative, age-appropriate games as a solarpunk education method, but in my ideal solarpunk world that would only be one aspect of education. Here are some other education ideas bouncing around in my head. Like cooperative games, they all require a lot of time, knowledgeable teachers, and community investment, but I think they would lead to healthier, enthusiastic people, fully prepared to live well and be lifelong learners.

Food Science Education: Starting at a young age with simple gardening and cooking, stuff that young kids can get really excited about. As kids age, folding in the complete science of where food comes from, its relationship with the ecosystem, how to preserve it, and how to prepare it.The idea being that by the time you’re an adult you should have the tools to competently feed yourself even if you end up focusing on other things.  

Relationship Education: An improvement on sex ed. Much of the same content, but expanded with more information for all genders and sexualities, and good, non-scare tactic science on the human body, reproduction, contraceptives, stds, and common communicable illnesses. Also, workshops on healthy relationship communication, self-care, meditation/introspection/self-knowledge, basic first aid, how to help friends in the midst of crisis or mental illness, how to recognize predatory/manipulative/abusive behaviors (in sexual situations and otherwise oh my god it’s so important, why aren’t we taught this early and often?), some basic childhood development stuff. 

Artistic Expression & Upcycling: Art classes which would cover art theory and allow for a lot of self-expression, but would also teach young adults to make and repair their own clothing, use basic woodworking tools, work with ceramics, safely fiddle with metals and basic electronics, and other practical “specialty” skills necessary for a world with less waste. 

Rotating Apprenticeships: Starting out as small group field trips for younger kids, and evolving into longer choice-based apprenticeships in areas of interest, maybe taking up one day per week for high school aged kids. The community members involved in this experience wouldn’t necessarily give lessons on their livelihood – for example a farmer with a deep knowledge of medieval history and geology could focus on one of those subjects if they chose. This would give adults in the community a chance to delve deeper into subjects they loved, and kids a chance to learn a subject from someone truly enthusiastic.

Questing/Journeyman years/other travel: I know there are plenty of posts on solarpunk travel, but in an educational context I imagine it as a continuation of rotating apprenticeships. This would be a time for young adults to visit people and places related to their areas of interest. It could be very specific (like meeting and working with 5 scientists on 5 continents while studying food sustainability) or a more general exploration (visiting some great museums, WOOFing, contributing to public art, and journaling about the experience while trying to decide what to do next). 

Independent Project Salons: This would be a way to tie together celebration, community, and education. Informal salon settings would be a great place for young adults doing independent study or in the midst of travel to meet and talk about their experiences and ideas, and maybe show off their work. Possibly hosted by retired folks who could organize food and drink, introduce topics and guests, and add the benefit of their own experiences.

What other kinds of solarpunk educational programs do you love the idea of?

Gloves that can translate sign language into speech/text

hm, i feel like there’s a big problem when we try to visualize a sort of “solarpunk”-like society where we assume that every place a gonna be a grassy, tree-fillled, green city and that’s like fine and all but it’s very inauthentic to the diverse landscapes of our planet. for example, i live in southern california and ive seen trees and grass but i’ve also seen desert with cacti and bushes and dry land. when we associate our future, our “progress”, with a certain landscape we are not treating the land with the respect it deserves. deserts, plains, mountains, marshes are all apart of the world we live in and we need to invision a future with those lands too

also with all this in mind, a lot of this aesthetic and line of thinking can be damaging to indigenous communities. thinking the desert is just “empty space” and thinking the plains should be replaced with forests go hand-in-hand with colonialist ideology. no land is empty land, it is always someone’s home. we need to make space for indigenous people in our solarpunk, cottagecore, vegan, etc. ideologies if we ever want to truly make progress and not perpetuate the same shit with a different brand on it