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Solarpunk can be an aesthetic / genre / movement / whatever. If you want to use it purely for entertainment, that's fine. But if you want to make a movement out of it, then you can do that by breaking it apart to mine for things you can do in your own life. This solarpunk ad by Chobani has a great deal of inspiration. [personal profile] alyaza's main critique of solarpunk is that "it is far more of a vibe than a praxis. and this leads to interpretations that totally defeat what i presume should be the point of solarpunk." That is often true, but not always true. Here is how you can pull practical applications out of a cartoon created to sell fancy yogurt.

This continues a discussion about solarpunk and the Chobani yogurt ad. Start with Part 1: Things I Like, Part 2: Things I Question, and The Chobani Solarpunk Ad Part 3: The Most Interesting Part.


* I want to know more about solarpunk living.

A Beginner's Guide to a Solarpunk Lifestyle

How to Solarpunkify Your Home

Solarpunk Living in a Rented Apartment

10 Ways to Thoroughly “Solarpunk” Society


* I want to own a homestead / farm.

First, make sure you have the necessary skills:

121+ Skills for the Modern Homestead

Agriculture -- Instructables

Basic Farm Animal Husbandry Skills

Farm Community Skills

Farming -- how to articles from wikiHow

How to Get Started Farming

Sustainable Living -- how to articles from wikiHow

Top 10 Online Homesteading Courses, According To Old-Timers


Then consider shopping and finance options:

Buying Homestead Land: How To Afford Farm Land

How to Buy Farm Land As a Beginning Farmer

Black Farmers' Purchasing Toolkit

Farm Loans and Grants for Women in 2023

Making Farm Ownership (Or Rental) Possible For Young Farmers


* I want to make it easier for young / female / farmers of color to buy a homestead / farm.

Donate to Black Farmer Fund.

Donate to Women, Food and Agriculture Network.
This organization also supports nonbinary food and farm workers.

Donate to Young Farmers.


* I want to work in / visit / buy from a farm kind of like that.

Explore collective farming.

Why you Should Join or Start a Farm Cooperative

Find a Community Garden.

Find Community Supported Agriculture near you.

Find Family Farms near you.

Find Farmer's Markets near you.

Find U-Pick Farms near you.


* I want my yard / homestead / farm to look like THAT!

9 Ideas For Creating Your Fairy Tale Cottagecore Garden

The 12 Permaculture Design Principles

Designing Forest Gardens

How To Start A Permaculture Garden: Beginner's Guide

Introduction to Edible Landscaping

Midwest Permaculture Presents Plant Guilds eBooklet

Polycultures and Guilds (A Sample For Northeastern USA and possibly other areas)

Contour Farming for Cropland in the Pacific

Enhancing Sustainability on Farms Through Solar (2024)

Agrivoltaics: Combining Agriculture And Solar Installations

How to Install a Solar Digester

Solar Powered Compost Drum System


Examples from my work that are not necessarily solarpunk, but resemble some of the tone and appearance shown:

"Sacrificed Part of Himself"

"Do Something Different Inside" mentions Bumbleberry Acres, a Vermont berry farm, detailed in the location notes.

"Clothes Worth Repairing" is one of several poems describing Emerald Mountain Glen, a hippie commune and farm outside of Rutledge, Vermont.

"Everything I Dream Of" describes the campground-come-village of Humboldt Haven and Pomona Moore's food forest in California.

"Mending the Broken" mentions the sheep farm Woolgather Hill near Omaha, Nebraska.

"Welcome to Hart's Farm"
This one is a free love commune in historic Sweden, but it shows what amounts to an ecovillage.

"A Perfect Cabinet of Oddities"
This farm is a fey haven.

"Laundry, Liturgy, and Women's Work" describes a commune in the setting Daughters of the Apocalypse, a series that some people have described as solarpunk and others as postapocalyptic hopepunk.


* I want to attract lots of bugs, birds, and/or other wildlife to my yard / homestead / farm.

BUILDING A BACKYARD WILDLIFE POND

Gardening for Pollinators & Beneficial Insects (Vermont)

Habitat Essentials Checklist Worksheet

How to: Improve a balcony or window box for wildlife

How to: Improve a patio garden for wildlife

How to: Plan a wildlife friendly garden

Pollinator-Friendly Native Plant Lists -- Xerxes Society (USA regions)

USING NATIVE PLANTS TO ATTRACT BIRDS IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C. AREA

Wildlife-friendly Gardening Guide (Canada)

Your Guide to Taking Action for Insects (United Kingdom)


* I want to cultivate a more diverse community / workplace / friend group / family like that one.

60+ Workplace Diversity & Inclusion Ideas

10 Tips to Encourage Community Engagement in Diverse Communities

Building Friendships Across Different Cultures & Backgrounds

How to Be Tolerant of Others: 11 Steps (with Pictures)

How to promote diversity and inclusion in the community

Intergenerational Community Building: Resource Guide

Intentional Neighboring

Intentional Communities: Beginners Guide to Life in Cooperative Culture

Starter Guide to Intentional Communities

Ecovillage: What Is It, And Would You Ever Live In One?

How to join or start an Ecovillage


* I want clothes that stand up to hard work, have pockets, and can be washed by flogging them against a rock.

15 Garden Apron Patterns and Gardening Sewing Projects

25 Clever Things to Sew With Pockets: all free!

25+ Free Jumpsuit Sewing Patterns (Rompers, Overalls, Dungarees and Playsuits)

41 Free Apron Patterns For You To Sew

99 Sustainable Clothing Brands By Budget (2024)

Affordable Clothing for the Homestead

The Best Clothing for Gardening

Category:Outdoor clothing brands

Clothing Brands That Last Forever

The Essential Farmer’s Workwear Guide

IT'S GOT POCKETS! FREE POCKET PATTERN ROUND UP & INSPIRATION!

Learn How to Sew 12 Types of Pockets for Dresses, Jackets, Coats, and More (Free Patterns Included)


* Now I'm hungry, and I want that vegetarian feast.

20 Healthiest Vegetables: Nutrition and Health Benefits

23 Most Nutritious, Healthy Fruits


13 Vegan Rainbow Recipes For Your Pride Celebration

22 Vegetarian Salads You Can Eat for Dinner

26 Healthy Vegetarian Bowl Recipes to Make Ahead

30 Sublime Vegan Salad Recipes

30+ Comforting Vegan & Vegetarian Dessert Recipes

35+ Best Vegetarian Salad Recipes

38 Recipes to Make with Yogurt

65 Vegetarian Recipes Everyone Will Love

Tagged "Vegetarian" Honey Recipes


* I just want yogurt.

14 Best Greek Yogurts, Tested by Nutritionists

These 22 Dairy-Free Yogurt Options Are so Tasty You Won’t Miss the Milk

50 Things to Make with Yogurt

A Guide to Yogurt Around the World

How to Make Homemade Yogurt (The Ultimate Guide)

How to Make Homemade Yogurt Without a Yogurt Maker

How to Make Vegan Yogurt at Home>

Ranking Every Flavor Of Chobani Greek Yogurt From Worst To First

We Taste Tested 9 Popular Brands of Greek Yogurt

What Is The Best Probiotic Yogurt? -- Organic Yogurt Brands


* I want to build a waterwheel for ... something.

For direct work:

Water Powered Sawmill Machinery

How the Ledyard Sawmill Works

Peirce Mill is a typical 19th century gristmill


For electricity:

Free Homemade Water Wheel: 4 Steps

The Waterwheel Project V1.0: 10 Steps (with Pictures)


For fun:

Water Wheel From Plastic Bottles

Water Wheel (from wood)


* I want to make / keep my water clean.

Harvest rainwater for irrigation and/or other purposes.

Use permeable pavement to reduce runoff and filter stormwater to the soil below.

Place rain gardens in soggy areas or as catchments for roof runoff.

Create a kidney garden or marsh filter with a meandering path to clean up dirty water, such as graywater.

Take steps for homeowners and for farmers to reduce agrochemical runoff.


* I want to use solar energy.

51 Most Popular Uses of Solar Energy in Daily Life

Solar Projects -- Instructables


* I want my kitchen to look like that.

30 Delightful Cottagecore Kitchen Ideas
Most of these are reasonably practical decor ideas. Use your common sense.

10 RULES FOR A HEALTHY, HAPPY KITCHEN

How to Harvest, Dry, & Store Herbs From the Garden

How to Make Herbal Tea Blends

How to Hand-Grind Ingredients Using a Mortar and Pestle

How to Keep Your Fruit Bowl Fresh

15 Pot Rack Ideas to Store All Your Cookware in Style

Houseplants for Beginners: How to Keep House Plants Alive

13 Of The Best Plants To Grow In Your Kitchen

DIY Kitchen Makeover Upcycle Ideas: 21 Ideas to Try

Amazing Waste: 50 recipes to use food scraps, repurpose leftovers, and reduce food waste


* And the porch, I want that too.

How to Bring the Cottagecore Aesthetic to Your Outdoor Space

How To Macrame: An Easy-To-Follow Beginner's Guide

21 Free Macrame Plant Hanger Patterns

How to Build and Tune a Wind Chime: DIY for Beginners
Yes, the tuning matters if you want it to make music and not a racket.

40 Relaxing Wind Chime Ideas To Fill Your Outdoors With Beautiful Sounds

How to Build / Make Mobiles / Kinetic Sculptures -- Marco Mahler
Physics is your friend.

44 Unique DIY Hanging Decorations for Outdoor Spaces

32 Front Door Plants for the Prettiest Entrance to Your Home

106 Of Our Best Container Gardening Ideas

20 Outdoor Upcycled Planter Ideas To Rock Your Front Porch

Old Household Items You Can Repurpose Into Functional Patio Furniture & Décor


* I want to travel by bicycle / other human-powered vehicles.

How to Choose a Bike: Picking the Perfect New Bike for You

BIKE SHOP MANUAL: A GUIDE FOR BASIC REPAIRS 2021-2022

How to Ride a Bike as an Adult in 6 Easy Steps

How to Carry More by Bicycle

How to Improve Your Town's Bike Network on a Budget

Bicycle Friendly Communities

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A BICYCLE FRIENDLY AMERICA

THE BICYCLE FRIENDLY COMMUNITY IDEABOOK

Human-powered transport


* I want a rainmaking machine.

First learn how weather and climate work so you don't break them any worse.

Meteorology: An Educator’s Resource for Inquiry-Based Learning for Grades 5-9

The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology (college-level, nontechnical)

Practical Meteorology: An Algebra-based Survey of Atmospheric Science
You do the math.


Geoengineering: Can we control the weather? Should we control the weather? -- Live Science

Weather and Climate Modification (from 1965)

Weather Control: Science & Ethics of Changing Weather


* And some farmbots.

First, make sure you know how to avoid abusing them. Yes, really. Simple robots can be dumb, but things like "Pull the weeds but not the vegetables" require more intelligence, and that can lead to sapience.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots

The Ultimate Guide to Learn Robotics (2024 Edition)

15 Agricultural Robots and Farm Robots You Should Know

FarmBot: Open-Source CNC Farming


* I want to plant a fencerow.

A Healthy Fence Row
You don't actually have to plant anything. You can just put up a fence -- or even a single wire -- then birds and other wildlife will deposit seeds for free. As a bonus, these will be plants the wildlife love eating.

Planting Living Fencerows for 'Linear Forest' Habitat

Shelterbelts for Wildlife


* Screw the farm life, I want to live in that city.

Solarpunk Cities: Notes for a Manifesto

SolarPunk Urban Planning -- SolarPunkd

Solarpunk Design

How to Design a Sustainable City

5 Ways to Improve Tree Equity in Our Communities

10 Ways to turn a city green -- Rethinking The Future

10 Ways to Create Green Spaces for Cities

10 imaginative ideas that are greening the urban environment.

How to Create a Gorgeous Green Roof: Your Step-by-Step Guide

What is Green Stormwater Infrastructure?


Examples from my work that are not necessarily solarpunk, but resemble some of the tone and appearance shown:

"From the Deepest Parts of Ourselves" followed by "How to Make Your Hometown More Like Bluehill"

See also "Value Per Acre" for an analysis of land use in Terramagne-American towns.

"The Evolution of Society as a Whole"


* Screw capitalism, I want to replace it with something that won't wreck the Earth.

12 Economic alternatives as strategies

Explore Cooperatives

Find Community Supported Agriculture

Find, Join or Start a Credit Union

Find a Worker Co-op

Food Co-op Finder

From freecycling to Fairphones: 24 ways to lead an anti-capitalist life in a capitalist world

Hour Exchange

Post-capitalism

The Richness of Giving (gift economy)

Top 19 Alternatives to Capitalism (video)

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