Solarpunk

A global snapshot of the health of our planet and its people

https://planetaryhealthdashboard.org/

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Acquiring solar panels at home can be an expensive hassle for people in the US. But small, simple, plug-in solar panels for use on balconies are soon to become available for millions of Americans, with advocates hoping the technology will quickly go mainstream.

Earlier this year, Utah became the first state in the country to pass legislation allowing people to purchase and install small, portable solar panels that plug into a standard wall socket.

Its winter where I live and winter means cold. Currently its below freezing outside. My offgrid heating is limited to the point I have to sometimes layer up to be comfortable.

I discovered a technique that helps me out a lot this season. A 12v car blanket wraped around your shoulders like a poncho and then put a heavy coat layer. Its a really effective way to insulate both yourself and the blanket.

You might be wondering why a 12v blanket instead of a house electric blanket. For offgrid power a 12v blanket is much easier on limited battery systems. Also, 12v blankets dont have 8 hour safety shutoffs they stay on forever.

In the picture is my polar grade Baffin booties most comfortable Cold weather slippies you can get I hightly recommend if you get cold feet.

The only other tip I have is good layering. Wool socks, multiple thermal underwear layers, hat and gloves. Each piece of clothing added helps even out the difference. Electric just amplifies h effect and makes it so you don't need as much.

Put thermally insulated blanketing on your furniture. Wool blankets are good and duvet type puffy blankets are useful. Consider making an insulated hot table.

Tldr: the author reviews Jeremy Brecher’s Green New Deal From Below, which calls for environmentalist activists to "outflank" Trump's anti-environment federal policies by engaging in “hundreds of arenas at state, local, and civil society levels.” The author compares this approach with green syndicalism and discusses many examples of local collective action, ultimately concluding Brecher's approach relies too much on lobbying politicians and working within the system but can help build the grassroots efforts, alliances, and working class social power necessary for a true green revolution.

I know it's a long article but I thought it (the review and the book itself) are/will be worth reading.

An amazing, hopeful story from Anarcasper over on Substack. #solarpunk #resist

Source: https://www.signmedia.ca/guinness-world-record-set-by-edmontons-solar-panel-mural/

By showing up in mass (especially for a small, rural town), Kalkaska, MI made it pretty clear that data centers weren't welcome there. It even drew attention of a senator. But it's an interesting case. Matt Rine, the person who proposed the data center project, was "playing nice" compared to other larger companies that head these kinds of projects. Instead of bulldozing into rural communities regardless of consent from local communities, Rine was scoping out public opinion first and taking it into consideration before moving beyond the conceptualization phase.

Data centers in rural areas need local support to supplement the labor to build and run these facilities which can give locals a lot of power to dictate if one is built there. But support and accurate representation of the people in these rural communities from the local government seems pivotal. This article describes a situation in the same state where locals and local government initially rejected the development of a data center. But after the company sued the township, the township turned back around and accepted the data center project. Township officials claimed they didn't want the costs of the legal battle to fall onto the taxpayers. But really, they just caused far more costly issues that will ultimately fall onto the residents in the future.

I'd love to hear of other success stories in rejecting data center building. If you have any, share them!

LOS ANGELES — To many locals, the Los Angeles River — hugged by concrete embankments and heavy vehicle traffic — hardly seems like a river at all.

The waterway bisecting the city was converted to a giant storm drain nearly a century ago to contain flood waters. Today, it's an extension of the urban network of concrete, running beneath freeways and bridges as it collects all kinds of refuse: spent tires, scrap metal, trash thrown from car windows.

But when Doug Rosenberg came upon a shopping cart tipped over in the river's shallow waters back in 2020, he saw the potential to meet nature halfway.

"It had begun to bloom some greenery around it, and there was a great blue heron perched on the cart, hunting in this little spot," Rosenberg recalled. "That was when it clicked for me — that any 3D geometry at all in that river channel will trap sediment, will begin a micro-bloom of ecosystem."

The 36-year-old artist saw an amusing paradox — life sprouting from the metal cart — that planted the seed for his next project: a pop-up wetland in the middle of the LA River.

In a desolate part of downtown, he pushed large rocks from the riverbanks into the water and arranged them in loose, concentric circles. The structure would trap sediment, allowing life to take root.

Data centres that supply domestic heating aren't new, but I've never seen a distributed model like this before.

Just curious, do you tinker with small solar panels to recharge batteries for your projects?

I bought a chinese one and its performance is abysmal, so I thought I'd better ask around before buying more ewaste :-/

I'd love a solar powered robot but that seems hard, but wifi modules and control systems should be able to work solar only, right?

“solar mamas” trained in Zanzibar by Barefoot College International, a global nonprofit, through a program that brings light to rural communities and provides jobs for local women. So far in Zanzibar, it has lit 1,845 homes [in 10 years].

The program selects middle-aged women, most with little or no formal education, from villages without electricity and trains them over six months to become solar power technicians.

Barefoot College International focuses on middle-aged women because they tend to have the strongest links to their communities while not often involved in intensive child care.

India’s solar additions surged 70% year on year to 29.5 GW in the first three quarters of 2025, driven by rapid utility-scale and rooftop deployment, according to JMK Research.

Thanks to our anti-social social order, many people are struggling with a lack of community in their lives. We can change that. Let's revisit the village of the past then sketch out a radical vision for the future of community.

In short, capitalism pays no price for nature’s gifts even though these gifts are immensely valuable. Yet they are valuable in only one of two key senses of value: they have use value but not exchange value. (Exchange value comes into play only later, after they have been harvested, extracted, appropriated, and offered on the market.) Because they have no exchange value, the “free gifts” are free because they are priced at zero.

And with that, we’re deep into the weeds with Karl Marx.

I think this is a very solarpunk-ish insight and look forward to reading this book.

The title's a little blunt, but the message is more "what is Solarpunk art good for", explaining how aesthetics can be co-opted, why art is important for the movement, but also some common criticisms of the aesthetic uses of solarpunk.