Solarpunk Collective

This week there have been a lot of discussions about defunding the police and what would take their place. All of the discussions tend to be based on certain assumptions, and so it's difficult to talk about that one issue in isolation. In fact, it might be counter productive. One very interesting article published on Medium took an even more radical position: Defund (and redesign) everything. Broadly speaking, “policing” in the United States has become a bad combination of corrupt and obsolete. This is not, however, a problem that is either exclusive or unique to policing. Quite the opposite. When I say corrupt here, I do not necessarily mean things like bribery, brutality and self dealing (though to be sure these are widely present). Corruption at its most fundamental is the simple consequence of time and entropy working at things. An old rubber hose left out in the sun becomes corrupt and unable to hold water. Our vascular system becomes caked with plaque. Our institution...

-From a children’s fairy tale book in a Solarpunk library 2062 Once upon a time there was a great dragon. It lived in a mountain cave and slept all day on a vast hoard of gold. At night it flew out and gorged itself on a goats and cattle. Sometimes it ate villagers or burned towns. Eventually, the dwarves who lived in the valley grew tired of being terrorized by the dragon, so they assembled an army and marched on its cave. They defeated the dragon and imprisoned it, but no mortal can slay the great primordial beast. The victorious dwarves soon fell to arguing about what to do with the dragon’s hoard. Such a great treasure was difficult to divide. Every dwarf had fought in the battle and many had died, but some fought harder than others, and without the help of the sword smiths and armorers, there could have been no victory. Guards were set while the dwarves decided what to do with it. The sly dragon lay on its pile of gold, grinning at the tiny dwarves who thought they h...

I got the call on my beeper just after lunch. Not much of a lunch, just an old unlabeled tin that turned out to be beans and vegan sausages, cooked on our solar stove on the roof of the squat. Downstairs I waited in line to use the community deck, anxiously tapping my foot and looking at the old patched LCD of the beeper, waiting to see if a second call would signal that the run had been cancelled. It hadn’t. When I finally got to sit down at the ancient computer and check my mail, the coded message was clear. I had barely enough time to put together a team and run the five blocks to the target. There was Otter, our physical pen expert. A tall, lanky dark-skinned bloke, he got his name from his unusually extensive body hair. That and the fact that he was the only one of us who could swim. Jewel considered herself to be a ‘leet hacker and at least had a discerning eye. She usually acted as appraiser for our runs, helping us decide what was worth taking and what should be left ...

Solar power is often discussed as one of the most promising forms of renewable energy, but it has a problem. It only generates energy during the day. This isn't too much of a problem, because a lot of our energy needs also happen during the day. However, there is a peak of energy consumption in the evening, when everyone gets home from work and sits down to watch Netflix and eat their microwave dinner for one. You can see the effect above, in the famous duck curve. So called because it looks like a duck. As well as a lack of energy in the evening, you can see that increased solar capacity leads to an excess of capacity during the day. My immediate thought is that we need to reschedule our day. Let's make sure we do all the high energy activities in the middle of the day, and accept that evenings are going to be an expensive time to plug in and play. But what if we could mitigate that problem a little? If we could extend the peak of solar by just a few hours, it ...

"Our aim should not be to secure a somewhat thicker slice of bread today, even if this would make us happy; we must not forget what our real aim is. Our main duty is to consider the needs of others. If we become alive to this duty, there will be no unjustly treated people in our midst, and we, in turn, shall not be treated unjustly. Our day-to-day motto should be: "Your problems are also my problems." We must extend our friendship and strengthen our solidarity." Anna Walentynowicz A few months ago, I started working on an idea for a Solarpunk Role Playing Game. At the time, I felt it was possible to leave the setting completely open, so that GMs could design their own worlds. It can be hard work though to create a compelling universe for people to visit, and having some backstory, shared elements and persistent elements which wouldn't change from game to game would be something that would appeal to hosts and players alike. Since then, I've ...