Solarpunk's Guide to Surviving Gaia, Solaris, and Everything in Between
Basic Solarpunk Activities
Everything we have as humans comes from the sun. The ability to eat, see, and be warm as we humans are accustom to is, apparently, quite hard to come by. And we can do better! Not for love or hate of any particular place or organization. Not even in the name of any particular cause. It's just.... so much wasted, free energy! Let's get some more of it!!! Better "solarnomics" means more resources in your house and brighter futures for those you hold dear. For already established solarpunks, feel free to skip ahead and check out the Advanced Guide!
Below is a quick navigation bar with links to free resources for new solarpunks. Some of these are charitable organizations, some are passion projects, all with the good of humanity at heart as far as we can tell. We are not affiliated with any of these organizations.
Here are some basic videos that will help get your solarpunk-junk in gear! These videos (or videos like the ones that I watched, but can no longer find) have personally helped us accomplish real world impact. Big or small, if you grow food or produce electricity then you are a solarpunk!
Advanced Solarpunk Activities
For those looking who have grown bored of simply tending to their plants and energy harvesters, we have curated a list of open-source to help you get to high degrees of solarpunkery. If you follow this course from start to finish, your life will improve so dramatically that you may even consider it a spiritual experience.
If you are rich enough to not have to worry about bills and have spare "mech-money" in your pockets, then doing all the following hands on and learning will be a piece of cake!
For those of us that have bills instead of mech-money, same team club. Please understand we are going to be living the long, hard life of a scrapper. The scrap business can be a monster. It has swallowed kitchen tables, garages, and even marriages whole. Or maybe it won't impact you much. Either way, you have been warned. My conscience is clear.
Alright! Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, welcome solarpunks to the advanced course!
Generating Electricity
Solar is a great and now accessible option, where costs previously prohibited most from being able to invest. Even with their wider availability today, solar panels are not always an option. Wind, water, and gravity may make up some or all of your electrical generation. Not all of these are meant to be built, but each of these projects teaches a lot of scrapper knowledge!
Scrap Batteries
A solarpunk must always be ready and able to repair, replace, or re-evaluate a battery system.
Armaments
Walk softly, but carry a big stick.
Stick Option #1
Stick Option #2
Stick Option #3
Conserving Energy
They say 'a penny saved is a penny earned', and that hold true for solarnomics. Any conservation of energy is a savings you can't beat!
Transportation
The greatest joy a solarpunk can feel, using the sun to be lazy af. Juice your ride! Or build a new one entirely.
Scrap Batteries
A solarpunk must always be ready and able to repair, replace, or re-evaluate a battery system.
Food Production
Food is supposed to be free, or damn near.
One of the most influential things you can do in life is grow food for yourself and for others. Beyond growing food for self and others is growing year round, followed by growing remotely. For full remote food growth that is NOT a food forest, one would almost certainly need computer automation. The academy's official approach to automation and hydroponics is start small. If it is a truly automated system and/or a very tight hydroponics system then it will scale up no problem.
Production
Time is money, so automation it is. Lets get to production!