Solarpunk Collective

Do you know the futures cone ? It's used to give an understanding of what we mean when we talk about the future. Anything "could" happen. Even the preposterous and impossible ;  Aliens landing.  The second coming.  President Biden.  A successful Brexit.  The AI singularity.  WW3.  A new ice age...  Preposterous. The one we usually worry about is the "projected" future. The default outcome if we pursue business as usual. That one has pretty unpleasant results even within the next few decades.  BAU If anything, some of our earlier projections were too optimistic and too cautious. Scientists wanted to be absolutely sure of their findings, so they erred on the side of caution.  Now we face a projected future that's even worse than we previously imagined.  Unlikely? Paradoxically, this future is probably the most unlikely. The very nature of that future will force us to move away from busine...

Reading books makes kids smarter , and when parents read to their children it can have other benefits . The books we read as children stay with us for life. Those simple morality tales we hear as bedtime stories can shape out biases and prejudices through the rest of our lives. Looking ahead the the future, what kind of stories should we be telling our kids, to give them the moral foundation to understand the world? Let's look at two examples, one good and one bad, to see how we might be setting up our kids with preconceived notions that could stay with them for life. Both stories are about sharing cookies... Pat Hutchins might be better known as the presenter of the British TV show "Rosie and Jim", but she was also a prolific writer of children's stories. My favorite of her stories is a book published in 1986 called "The Doorbell Rang". In the story, Mother has just baked 12 cookies, and the two children have to share the snacks between them....

The following is a fictional conversation between my confidence and paranoia . That inner voice that always tells you that you are wasting your time making anything... You know what would be really great? If we made a magazine about all the things we're interested in, and wrote articles for it and made some art and illustrations and... and... !!! Yeah, that would be awesome, but... I'm not really that good at writing, or drawing, or anything. What makes you say that? Well, I see lots of art around these days which is really amazing, it just blows my mind. And there are so many great writers out there, people like Kim Stanley Robinson or Cory Doctorow... Wait! Are you comparing yourself to professional artists and writers??? Sure.  Shouldn't I?  I mean, I'm just not that good. Listen, I'll tell you a secret; Everyone has to start somewhere. Even the all-time-greats have that first piece of art, or story which is just kind of so-so, or ev...

“Kind of conspicuous for a private detective, aren’t you?” The man delivered his statement and then stood by my table, as if he expected me to reply. It was a Monday and I was slumped in a chair in the Portway Heights Humanist Club. I was hard at work, nursing some bruises, sipping gin and watching the sun rise. Or I had been. Now I took time to look out through the open glass walls, I noticed that the sun was well up, floating over the azure sea like a fat drop of molten gold. The man was still standing there, watching me expectantly. “I mean, it’s a tad theatrical, wouldn’t you say?” I checked my reflection in the mirrored drinks cabinet against the wall. Black coat, white shoes, black hat, Cadillac. Yeah, the girl’s a time bomb. Actually, I didn’t have a Cadillac, but I did have a necktie with piano keys on it, and I figured that was almost as good in the present circumstances. The man was still standing there. My plan to let him get bored and wander off wasn’t...

I recently submitted some ideas to the consultation being undertaken by the Labour Party for a kind of "Green New Deal" for Britain. Unfortunately, my submission was lost due to a server error and I had to resubmit. It did allow me to revisit some of my ideas, and record them here. Opportunities in the low carbon economy Please describe any industries, sectors, or projects that you think are well suited to your region, city or town, that would help to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse Gas emissions are not limited to any one sector but are spread across all aspects of our society. From land use to transport, from construction to energy production. Each sector contributes a share. Reducing any one sector to 0% net emissions would only return our emissions to start of the 21st century levels. There are many ways that each sector can be addressed, and experts should be consulted on any possibility. Just one example that springs to mind is the proje...

Reginald watched the ants scurry up and down the line of seedlings, tending the little plants with their appendages. Every so often, one would pause and shake its little blocky head, looking this way and that, waggling its antenna as it received an update or new instructions. “I don’t know about you Reg, but I think I’m going to call it a day.” Suzy peered over her gogz at Reg, obviously waiting for a reply. Reg kept watching until one of the ants stopped for a longer period. He walked over to the bot and flicked open its access cover. Just as he suspected, it was shutting down for its evening update cycle. Reg waved his hands about, throwing shapes for the gogz to interpret as data. He signed off with a flurry of fingers and turned to Suzy. She had already headed for the locker room. They met again outside the farm cube near the lifts. Both of them were fresh from the shower and ready for an evening of relaxation or excitement or whatever was on offer that night in the...