Solarpunk

Solarpunk is a sustainable future

[alraunahomestead]

Sara Tasker (@me_and_orla)

[iknowuthink-blog]

Expanded Consciousness

[moniquill]

Growing food instead of laws is good, but can we PLEASE stop with the condescending bullshit that implies that people who choose to grow lawns must only being doing it for shallow ‘sheepish’ reasons?

Maybe instead of snidely saying ‘trying to impress your neighbors?’ give people instructions on how to work with and/or fight their home owner’s association, how to appeal to a landlord, how to address local ordinances, and how to grow stealth food crops as ornamental plants in areas where food gardening is banned. Seriously, they will come bulldoze your shit and then bill you for it.

We need more posts instructing people how to guerrilla garden and found community gardens, and fewer posts saying ‘You only have a lawn because you’re shallow and vain and stupid!’

[systlin]

Okay. Gardening 101; or “Auntie Sys I have a yard that’s currently a yard and don’t know SHIT or FUCK about how to make it not be a boring-ass yard.”

Step 1; go to your local landfill and get all of the newspaper you can. Cardboard will also work. If your neighborhood puts them out for recycling, go around and grab them all like a little newspaper goblin.

Step 2; acquire mulch. If you WANT, you can go pay for it at a garden store, but we’re all cheap lazy bitches here so screw that. Most landfills will collect yard waste and branches and chip them into woodchips, which you can get for PENNIES or FREE. Go load up on that good shit.

I like straw too, which I can get for barter because I am related to half the people around here and a solid 65% of my extended family are farmers. I give Uncle Daryl three quarts of elderberry jelly or a couple pounds of morels in spring and he loads me up with straw bales.

Step 3; figure what parts of grass you want to be not-grass, and cover that shit in newspaper, good and thick. 5-10 layers. It helps to wet the newspaper to keep it from blowing away as you work.

Now, cover that newspaper with a good thick layer of mulch.

Congrats, you’re removing the grass. It’ll starve to death under the mulch and newspaper and rot into compost. You now have garden beds and have not dug one single bit of sod.

If you can’t wait for six months to plant, pull the mulch aside, cut a hole in the newspaper, and dig out a plug of sod the size of the planting hole. Throw some compost in there and plant. Tuck mulch back around plant. Water well.

There ya go. Garden beds. In a year, when you pull back the mulch the newspaper will be almost rotted away, and the soil underneath soft and loamy.

[systlin]

I like to edge garden beds like this with rocks, which I can ALSO get for free because I live in the part of Iowa dotted with limestone quarries. Just, pick that shit up along the road and

I’m collecting flat ones for a FREE crazy paving path too.

[aquatixwitch]

I love you for this.

[systlin]

No prob.

Protip; the best way to do a large area without killing your knees or back is to load up a bucket of water with newspaper, sit down on the grass, and sorta scoot your ass along as you drag the bucket with you, newspapering as you go.

Then dump buckets of mulch on that and spread it out with your feet. Just sorta kick it where you want it to be.

Source; my 61 year old mom with bad knees.

[gallusrostromegalus]

AAAAAAAYY my mom did the much-to-get-rid-of-lawn thing over the course of a winter- she’d read the paper in the morning then go spread it out on the lawn and toss muclh on it.  By spring it was ready to cut holes ans dump irism day lillies and peonies into.

and all this BEFORE she got her hip replaced.

10/10, recycling, enviornmental stewardship, loos baller AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO MOW.

[systlin]

Reblogging for Solarpunk Action Week!

[cosmicastrogazer]

Also! Don’t be afraid to get dirty! Gloves exist and come highly recommended!

[audientvoids]

hot take: urbanization is good, cities are good, industrialization is good, population growth is good. living self-sufficiently in the wilderness is an option availible only to those who are able-bodied and reasonably wealthy and places the desires of the individual for a more primitive lifestyle over the needs of our collective society. densely populated green cities are the best way to fairly and efficiently allocate resources. additionally, by concentrating the population in a few specific areas (which is already occurring organically) we can allow urban sprawl and rural areas that would otherwise be populated to be overtaken by wilderness. urbanization has lead to greater technological and cultural advancements and a better quality of life and will continue to improve our society if we can make it sustainable

anyway stop building tiny houses and start building green cities 2k18

[wingstocarryon]

hotter take: self-sufficiency doesn’t exist, but living off the land collectively is vital. there’s nothing wrong with cities, but i think your real problem is with the colonial, capitalist dream of self-sufficiency –I’m totally with you that that’s a nonsense –and you’re overlooking that collective survival within intact ecosystems is just as possible. it’s possible to live in community on the land just as it is in a city. 

indigenous societies have been living in natural ecosystems and practicing collective survival and looking after old, sick, and non-able bodied community members since time immemorial. and we’re all indigenous to somewhere, and we all lived in similar ways once, according to anishinaabe elders i’ve met. the archeological record supports this, as remains have been found of disabled and sick people from the stone age who were looked after by their community and who lived to a ripe old age.

the idea of “the wilderness” is a colonial invention, in fact there have always been people living in intact ecosystems who simply harvested sustainably and actually helped the ecosystems to thrive (and still do: see the book Braiding Sweetgrass; where indigenous basket weavers use a certain species of tree across the united states, those trees have survived better than where there have been no basket weavers. that’s because they have a practise of planting the seeds of the tree when one is felled. the praries exist in part because buffalo were herded; controlled burns were used to keep wildfires in check and forests rejuvenating.) “a more primitive lifestyle” is also kind of a problem description. it’s not “primitive” to live close to the land, it’s highly skilled. and in fact what we need is more people learning how to live in collective community and close to the land in sustainable ways (as well as making cities greener).

destroy capitalism, but destroy colonialism too! learn from our indigenous neighbours what they’re willing to teach. that’s how we survive.

<3

[the-barn-rat]

real tired of hearing the vegan vs. omnivore arguments when the real superior diet in terms of both cruelty and ecosystem is locally sourced

beef and pork from a farm 10 minutes away from you is more ethical and less detrimental to the environment than quinoa grown in ecuador. the future is food forests. the green revolution is food forests. if we manage to survive this apocalyptic hellscape all of your food, plant and animal, is going to come from within half an hour of where you live. plant a vegetable garden in the meantime

[clouddoggo]

As a trained conservation biologist this is the most important step we can take. You do not understand how many issues we could solve if people bought most of their food from local sources.

[sew-much-to-do]

DIY Reusable Makeup Wipe

✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖

sew-much-to-do: a visual collection of sewing tutorials/patterns, knitting, diy, crafts, recipes, etc.

[solarpunk-aesthetic]

Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla Gardening is the act of illegally gardening in spaces that are not technically yours to garden, to make subversive statements, protests, or as a form of direct action. The idea goes all the way back to 1973!

In other words, guerrilla gardeners take unloved or neglected land and assign it a new purpose – to make things pretty or useful. Cities are full of waste land and unused public spaces which people walk past every day without noticing. Spaces which would look a lot better if they were green!

Some guerrilla gardeners prefer to work at night when they can be more discreet. Others are activists who’ll do so in broad daylight, when everyone can see what they’re doing. Some choose to grow flowers to make places brighter. Others choose to grow fruit or vegetables (though care should be taken not to grow anything edible in places where plants might absorb toxins).

I don’t know why I haven’t posted any guerrilla gardening things on this blog yet, and I think I should change that. 

In the meantime, here are some links!

GuerrillaGardening.org

Guerrilla gardening: a report from the frontline

How to Start Guerrilla Gardening

Ron Finley: The Gangsta Gardener

What is guerrilla gardening?

[sunflower-avenue]

To reiterate others, when gardening make sure to keep accessibility, invasive species, and potential poisons in mind. 

Possible (and incomplete) list of things to keep in mind

1. Does it get it the way of paths or walkways? Consider what it would be like for someone walking, or with a wheelchair, stroller, white cane…

2. Check the species isn’t invasive in your area. If you’re in north america here’s a useful wikipedia page 

3. Try to avoid plants that have allergenic pollen. Here’s another list of plants to avoid

4. You might want to avoid poisonous plants. Of course, a lot of plants are poisonous in large quantities so this isn’t always of the utmost priority to completely avoid all of them. Here’s another list. 

5. Does the block access to or view of important information? For example, can people still read directions or access water fountains? Consider people at all different heights from little kids to tall people. 

Anything else people can think of?

[solarpunk-aesthetic]

Y’all are really great, you know that? @gayingupspace too, I saw your post.

Even while writing that, I was thinking about writing out some advice about how to be responsible about this, but it was late and I was tired. This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind!

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[marlbororeds100s-deactivated202]

i absolutely love when brutalist buildings are surrounded by and covered in a bunch of greenery. the juxtaposition……

[marlbororeds100s-deactivated202]

doesn’t get better than this

[morecolorfulmetaphors]

I know it’s trendy right now to say that adopting more of an eco-friendly lifestyle is pointless because the only way to save humanity is to destroy capitalism, but we should remember that many of those lifestyle changes help us build skills and social networks that would be important in a post-capitalism future. 

For example, if we’re going to end reliance on factory farming, it would really help for more people to learn to garden and grow food. Same for other hands-on skills like cooking, crafts, home repair, tech repair, etc. Even small things like using re-usable water bottles and bags or thrifting/swapping items to cut down on waste would be regular features of a post-capitalist society, so making them more widely practiced now is a great thing. 

Systemic changes are necessary for sure, but they *will* involve lifestyle changes too, and it’s important to do your part to create that from the ground up. We don’t get to a better system by destroying the old one, but by building up the new one. 🌱

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

[state-communist solarpunk banner by Surnem] The Watermelon Manifesto (solarpunk and a future worth fighting for) The culture around us, most especially the worlds of speculative fiction and indepe…

Absolute madwoman that I am I went and gone and done did it

[state-communist solarpunk banner by Surnem]

The Watermelon Manifesto (solarpunk and a future worth fighting for)

The culture around us, most especially the worlds of speculative fiction and independent music, is replete with trends ending in -punk, representing alternative visions of the world, and one of the newest, having entered the public discourse only about five years ago, is solarpunk. But aren’t there enough of these punks floating around already? What is it that makes solarpunk so special?

Put simply, solarpunk is a rupture with these other subcultural trends because it presents an alternative vision of the world which is both desirable and achievable, unlike its predecessors. For example, steampunk presents a Romantic vision of an alternative present based on a retrofuturist reimagining of the development of industry, while cyberpunk presents people moving through and surviving within a grim and dystopic vision of the future. The former is pure fantasy, whereas the latter, though imminently possible and becoming ever more relevant in these the waning days capitalism in decay, is deeply undesirable.

The world envisioned by solarpunk is imminently achievable, reliant on technological and social developments that are not only well within our reach but that, in many places, are already in use today. And from these building blocks, it presents to us a vision of the world that’s based in the most radical, most revolutionary of all human emotions: Hope.

Solarpunk is a rejection of the crawling chaos of Silicon Valley’s third-positionist technocracy as well as the liberal and settler-colonialist nature of mainstream environmentalism and the toxic and hopeless nihilism and creeping ecofascism and natioanl-anarchism of primitivism or so-called “post-civ” anarchism. Fictioneers dream of a world where technology is neither abused for profit and excess nor abandoned, but serves human need; where goods and services are produced not in service of profit, but rationally, in service of the needs of our communities; a world where we are no longer alienated, no longer have to live our lives alone, but can exist genuinely as a part of our community, free and equal, a world decolonized and repatriated where we no longer oppress one another on bases of race or gender or ability. And it’s a green new world, a world of social ecology, where we recognize that human beings with all of our constructs and our technology are not stewards of the natural world nor need be its expropriators, but are a part of it, blood and bone, as much as we’re a part of any human community.

And this can be more than idle speculative fiction. As I said above, solarpunk’s alternative vision of the world is based on futurist speculation of technology that has been developed, of sociopolitical structures that are already extant in miniature. For the movement to become a reality, to become a real force in the world, requires rational implementation. But, sadly, implementation will require a radical change in the economic base.

Our present mode of production will never allow this future to come into being so long as it stands, ever lumbering ahead under the oppressive weight of its own failure. All of the carbon taxes and Green New Deals the bourgeois state can dream up will not save us, for the rough beast of capitalism, ever-hungry to generate more capital and concentrate that capital into fewer and fewer hands, will ever lurch knowingly towards its own destruction so long as more profit can be squeezed out of our dying planet, so long as the bourgeoisie remain convinced they can weather the storm they are dragging us all into the heart of. It is incumbent upon us, the people, to save ourselves. As the coming crisis deepens, extreme weather ravages the land, populations are displaced, moribund empires shake at their foundations, it is incumbent upon us to learn how to weather the storm. 

And misanthropic nihilism gives us no liberatory solution. The retreat of the bourgeois state as crisis deepens will highten capitalism’s contradictions, will reveal more cracks in the armor, presenting ever more opportunities for us to assert ourselves. The rank defeatism of the post-left will pass these opportunities by, leaving capitalism unchallenged to adapt to the new conditions as it has done so many times in the past; is it not the great failure of Marx, that he failed to anticipate how well and quickly capitalism might adapt? Moreover, the crises of capitalism in decay will cause, are already causing, mass displacements of human life, and the deep misanthropy of primitivism as well as primitivism’s wholly wrong and unscientific Malthusian ideological base provides a ready breeding ground for reaction; primitivism is merely the boneless cousin of national-anarchism and ecofascism.

Our revolutionary watchword is hope, hope based in the knowledge that we have to tools to save ourselves at our fingertips. We must dare to invent the future. Our job is first to dare to imagine a future that’s worth fighting for, and to then fight for it. The path forward, the road out of the darkness and into this new world, is simple enough to say: Organize.

This isn’t going to be an easy journey, not by any means. We are in for the fight of our lives. The place where decaying capitalism is leading us is not a good place. We will have to walk through wire and fire to make it through this, and we’re gonna bury friends along the way. But we will make it.

We can make it through together. All we have to do is organize, and we can fight, and when we fight, we win.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousandfold We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old For the union makes us strong

The best time for neighbors and co-workers to become friends, for friends to become better friends, for communities to come together, was yesterday. The second-best time is today. Soon, nothing else will matter.

But that’s not a message of despair. It’s a message of hope. Because when we fight, we win.

And we will win.  And someday the fight will be over.  And someday a new generation of babies will be born, and they’ll grow up knowing nothing but freedom.

Somewhere outside right now is a sapling growing up through a crack in the pavement. Someday it will be a tree, towering over the street, its branches kissing the balconies of the buildings nearby, with the pavement that once tried to restrain it shattered and thrown up in slabs to either side, crumbling in its shade.

But for now, it’s just a little sapling, just an acorn that happened to roll into a little crack, just a little bit of green barely visible in the smoke and smog. But every day, our little sapling gets just a bit taller, and the crack just a bit wider.

It knows hope, and it’s not afraid to dream.

“We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place, and better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie may blast and ruin their own world before they leave the stage of history. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.” –Durruti

LINKS:

Get organized, get involved!

Socialist Alternative Committee For A Workers’ International Industrial Workers of the World IWW General Defense Committee Food Not Bombs Food Not Lawns

More about solarpunk

Solarpunk: A reference guide What Is Solarpunk? Sunbeam City wiki Appropedia: Solarpunk On The Political Dimensions of Solarpunk

The ideological base

Karl Marx, Wage-Labour and Capital (text) (audio) Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (text) (audio) Lenin, What Is To Be Done? Trotsky, The ABCs of Materialist Dialectics Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (text) (audio) Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor In Evolution (text) (audio) Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom

How to invent the future

Guides to DIY hydroponic gardening Guides to DIY homesteading and backyard gardening basics Indoor herb gardening (x) (x) (x) Lifehacker Instructables Rebel Steps podcast How to organize a tenants’ union (x) (x) How to form an affinity group How do we fight gentrification?

Making Stuff and Doing Things: DIY Guides To Just About Everything

[diabetiquette]

My sister just sent me this????

Ive literally never seen a model wearing a cgm or pump,, especially for a company thats so big??? Im cry?????

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

They did a whole campaign with disabled and chronically ill models! (Source)

[0hi0is0nfire-deactivated2020041]

for all of you guys getting anxious about the environment and pollution

y’all deserve to hear the good news too, and yes i fact checked these.

7 miles of habitat for bees will be planted in london

the biggest coal plant in north america has been converted to solar panels

roads in edinburgh will close once a month to help pollution

maine has banned styrofoam

new york city and los angeles have both made “green new deals”

The london marathon replaced 200,000 single use water bottles with seaweed water pods

the bees in notre dame survived the fire, and the roof could possibly built in a more eco-friendly way.

the population of flightless kakapos (a cool bird) is rising

the carbon emissions in the uk are the lowest they’ve been since 1998

Another large bee habitat (.5 mil acres) has been created

there is a robot that delivers young coral to help repopulate the great barrier reef

portugal plans to stop using plastic on fruit, vegetables, and bread by 2020

106 new species of bees have been discovered in australia since 2010

a group of Sikhs plan to plant 1,000,000 trees as a gift to the earth

disney has made a mickey-shaped solar farm

Morgan freeman turned a 124 acre ranch in mississippi to a bee habitat

China plans on making a “forest city” to help clean up their air

An increasing amount of countries and states are beginning to ban single use plastics.

A couple replanted a whole forest in brazil (2.7 mil trees) in 20 years, and the animals have come back to live there

The hole in the ozone layer is repairing itself more each year

China plans on spending 360 billion dollars to improve renewable energy and has scrapped plans for coal powered plants that were going to be built.

A national park has been built in the amazon (3.3 mil acres in peru) to preserve the rainforest

Ireland and the uk have declared a climate emergency

The guy who played aquaman (jason momoa) has spent 31,000 dollars to help clean up plastic

South korea is now recycling 95% of food waste

There is a cleanup campaign being planned for mt. everest

Puerto rico wants to use all renewable energy by 2050 and is setting official goals for that

Some schools have special water bottle fill-up stations that encourage you to use refill and reuse plastic bottles rather than throwing them out after one use, these are becoming more common.

9 endangered species are thought to make a comeback this year

20 countries in africa are planning to make a “green wall” of trees and plants that will span the width of africa to stop desertification

recently, a lot of volunteers and organizations are planting a ton of trees.

Awareness about the environment and climate change is growing super fast right now among people and countries, which will only help us

Most pollution is caused by like 100 companies, but a few of those (like pepsi) are trying to cut down on that.

if this stuff keeps happening things will get even better, and the only thing stopping us really are those big companies who don’t want to pay the money to switch to more eco-friendly energy sources. i know the media tends to cause fear and stress about this stuff for a lot of people, but there really is hope.

easy things we can do: 

Recycle 

Plant gardens in your yard for bees if you can

Participate in community volunteer things that plant trees and gardens

Theres this search engine called ecosia that plants a tree for every 45 searches you make, it has almost 2 mil users. 

Pick up trash if you see it when you’re at the beach or in nature

If you have a fair amount of money, consider donating some to trustworthy environmental organizations

Start using a reusable water bottle (like those ones at target) rather than relying on single use plastic ones.

Cut the plastic rings on plastic milk bottles. You know, the little spiky plastic ring near the cap. Birds get those things stuck around their neck and die, so cut them so that they can’t get stuck on a neck.

If you can afford it, get some of those reusable grocery bags and sue those. most grocery stores have them, and it saves a lot of waste.

[swagintherain]

[theeangelox]

I love this

[junjiito]

http://www.hijabhouse.com.au/

here’s the store’s website since i haven’t seen any info on it posted by op! there are three locations in australia (two in sydney and one in melbourne) and one in tripoli, lebanon!

[swanmask]

Since I haven’t seen any mention of it yet, except on twitter, i’d also like to remind everyone that not only is June LGBT pride month, but it’s also Indigenous History month!

Please take the time to support, uplift and remember your Native, First Nations, Aboriginal and otherwise Indigenous friends and family. We are here, we exist! We have a long and winding history that deserves to be heard and respected! The word ‘Indigenous’ is so wonderful, and so expansive, and includes so many different cultures under its arms. Go out, learn about our histories and our cultures. Talk to the Indigenous people around you! We’re everywhere!

And not only that, but also be sure to give extra support to LGBT indigenous voices in this community. We are a minority that is scarcely acknowledged, and in desperate need of it. Too many times have I gotten strange looks for being so openly Native and so openly a lesbian. It’s as if that combination is impossible for people to understand. Support our content, buy from our stores! Or at least just include us!

I’d like to wish a happy LGBT pride month, and a happy Indigenous History month to everyone, but especially us LGBT Native folks. This really is our month to be open about ourselves, and I sure intend to. 💗🏳️‍🌈

[airagorncharda]

women’s clothes have fake pockets

or don’t have pockets at all, or if they DO have pockets they’re not big enough to actually hold anything useful. 

And that seems like a really ridiculous side effect of sexism, which seems fairly innocuous.  Annoying but not a real problem right? And I’ll give you that it’s not as bad as many other issues of institutionalized sexism, but the more I think about it the more messed up it actually is.

Without pockets women have no way of carrying their wallet, keys, phone, tampons, loose change, or anything else. The solution is, of course, a purse. Pants not having pockets means women are forced to buy and rely on purses (which men then mock them for). 

Women (who are paid less than their male counterparts, and are less likely to be hired for high paying jobs they are qualified for to begin with) are required to spend extra money on purses (which are expensive), yet another expense men do not have. 

This falls in line with women’s clothes being much more expensive AND less durable than men’s clothes, women’s clothes cycling through fashions much faster, and women’s fashion requiring more layers and more variation from day to day, women being expected to have a variety of different shoes (also expensive), women (especially in professional settings) being expected to comply with fashion standards in order to be considered respectable (while men can go their whole career wearing the same generic suit/outfit and no one makes a judgement), etc.

With all their essentials in a purse, it becomes easier to steal from women, and easier for women to lose their belongings (ID, credit cards, phone, money, etc). Women are then stereotyped as being both easy targets, and less competent/reliable. 

Women are forced to be hyper vigilant, cautious, and fearful of being stolen from/attacked, and then blamed when they are targets of theft, despite it not being their choice. 

I think it’s likely that companies don’t think past “if they don’t have pockets, they’ll have to buy a purse” or even “they don’t need pockets, they’ll just use a purse” but the effect is the same. Another potential reason for clothing companies to put fake pockets (or no pockets or useless pockets) on women’s pants is that putting things in your pockets changes your silhouette. 

Men’s ability to control/consume women’s appearance is valued over women’s practical needs, and ultimately over women’s autonomy and safety.

[musicallychaos]

Fucking preach

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

Hey, listen: We’re not gonna get anywhere with this “socialism” stuff unless we can establish solidarity networks that provide real, tangible aid. And I do mean “tangible” in the sense of “you can fill up a box with it.”

Back in the old-timey days, when we didn’t have things like a minimum wage or government assistance, folks didn’t think twice about paying union dues every month out of their meager paychecks. And in those days, when it was a regular, everyday occurrence for union people to get beat up or outright murdered for their union-ing, the unions still managed to win a lot of their fights. Reason for all that? The bigger part of them union dues I mentioned *went into a strike fund*.

Time on a picket line means time off the clock. And as for me, in this economy, if I go a week without a check, my family don’t eat. I go two weeks without a check, and we’re homeless. And them’s the brakes.

[jenroses]

In my community we started a co-op in order to, in part, purchase things with mass buying power (i.e. we can get things at wholesale if we order enough of them, so we can, for example, eat organic food for about what conventional costs a lot of the time.) But we also set aside a little money each time we order, and that money helps pay for donation boxes… and the social network we created when we created the co-op means that if someone has a crisis, someone else probably has the answer. “This family just lost their job and can’t afford to buy presents for their kids” may get a response of “Here are presents for every single family member” or it might end up with finding a job for the people looking for work, or both, because the co-op membership is diverse and represents a lot of people who are otherwise very connected in the community. When a part of town is out of power, it’s usually possible to find a co-op member who can run for ice or bring a meal, or offer use of a washer/dryer for the evening. We had one year where we were making donation meal boxes for a holiday, found out on the last delivery about a family in severe need, talked about it in the co-op group and ended up showing up at their house with not only a meal, but enough dry goods, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. for a month, plus a credit with the co-op for fresh fruits and veggies. I cannot overstate the power of networking in your community. This one started out in a natural parenting group, but quickly spread beyond that, from college students to retirees. It’s like a small town, only more open-minded. We started with about 20-30 families. There are now hundreds of people involved. I had a trans kid land with me at one point and asked if anyone had size whatever clothes and within a few hours we had a box on my porch, within a couple days we had a bunch of things he needed. The co-op keeps a lending library of tools and weirdly specific kitchen devices like an Æbleskiver pan, a food dehydrator, a capsule maker and a carpet cleaner. The kinds of things people need once or twice a year, but might not have the room to store. We periodically do a buy of sensory toys and sensory bin supplies, for example, because we have a lot of autistic members and parents of autistic kids. I have bought socks from the co-op that were purple with unicorns farting rainbows on them. We recently got in Black History flashcards and we’ve done a lot of Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home lawn signs. Pretty much if people want it and we can find it at wholesale, the co-op will order it. It even spawned a side-business (more than one, actually, but this is the relevant one) of an online app for co-op managing, called http://managemy.coop so that other communities could take advantage of our experience and start out with an easier tool than the google spreadsheets we started out with. Anyway… if you want to network within your community, this is a really, really good way of connecting with a broad cross-section of people.

[nyshadidntbreakit]

All that stuff about unions still applies, too. Unions have hardship funds. If you’re a union member and you’re broke, or you’ve been fired, or whatever, you can apply to the union for a grant to help you out. The binmen in Birmingham pulled off a months-long strike recently thanks to the union paying their living costs. Unions force employers to pay decent pension contributions and have safe sick leave policies.

If you’re employed, join your damn union!

[solarpunk-gnome]

You might check out http://www.transitionus.org/transition-towns too. They’re trying to build resilient communities by getting neighbors to talk with each other about stuff.

[scottishwobbly]

also join a grassroots workers union like the IWW (US) - IWW Uk Site, the Independent Workers of Great Britain, Solidarity Federation, the CNT (Spain & France). Get involved with Food Not Bombs, who gather food that’s to be thrown out from supermarkets and from donations & make meals which they’ll share with anyone, rich or poor, sober or otherwise. Check to see if there’s a community garden near you, and if not how you can set one up to build self-sustainability within your community - Food Not Lawns may be useful.

[ultraviolet-techno-ecology]

Concept - Your smartphone breaks. You can take it to any appropriately skilled person to have it fixed. It has been designed for easy disassembly and repair. The parts are available and standardized. You are not forced to buy a new one or spend extreme prices for a replacement part. Planned obsolescence doesn’t exist and things are designed to last a long time - to be upgradable and customizable without needing to invest in an entirely new unit every year. 

[zoobus]