solarpunk traveler
I’m planning to fly transcontinental once every 8 years for the rest of my life, but I’m being pretty strict with myself for anything shorter than that and going train or bus. For me it’s not exactly about the personal impact as much as doing it to make it easier for others in the future to do better. So every time I “suffer” a little because I take an extra day to travel by train/bus, I just think about how my doing it makes it more likely that train service with bikes will get easier for the next person to do the same thing. (Also I live in the US so most routes are much much harder than pretty much anywhere in Europe from what I hear.)
Totally amazing and the very most solarpunk way of doing it imho. Especially that really beautiful classic train getting the retrofit.
This would be so lovely for some far northern/southern latitudes that need all the sun they can get to stay warm. With double or triple paned glass to insulate.
This is me except I spent a year working on farms and now I absolutely want to write code that automates farming because in reality it is backbreaking and quite monotonous. Hobby farms are leisurely but actually feeding yourself and others is exhausting.
Imagine upping the size, running the vacuums on renewables and automating it though. You could distribute farm fresh veggies to the doorstep of everyone in an entire city. I think that’d be solarpunk as hell.
I’m a pretty visible positive example I’d say. My objective is to provide reminders to reframe carnism as socially stigmatized. I think this mostly works because a lot of my friends are vegan, but there are a few “bros” who rationalize why they don’t need to change.
It sounds a lot like you want us to be silent so you don’t have to think about it.
Most people intellectually understand that torturing and killing animals is wrong and they don’t want to do it. But they can put it into the back of their minds unless the vegans in their life remind them of what they look like to us.
And personally, I firmly believe that getting those little reminders from my friends added up over years for me until I realized it was worth it to make the change.
Yeah, this is pretty much exactly what I do. People get uncomfortable for a second, but I feel like I have to remind them what their actions look like from my perspective. I’ve realized that if I don’t make jokes, they just never think about it!
Ah, I see that now on the site. I was also using jerboa which doesn’t seem to have that option yet. But I’ll use the site for crossposting then when needed. Thanks!
Ah, ok that makes sense. I’ll try that.
The challenge that isn’t covered here is that the grandeur of Singapore is far far easier to achieve with authoritarian centralization than the anarchic style of solarpunk. And people are compelled by the grandeur of a large expensive project in different ways than the DIY scale.
So how can a ragtag group in SF or Berlin make something that captures imagination just as well as Singapore?
I’m a huge fan of the ebike for camping too. In 2021, I took a year off work to ebike around the US.
This weekend’s adventure was low-key by comparison, just a 14 mile ride from downtown Madison, WI out to a county park campground.
If you’re around Madison, WI I’m running group campouts now! Have one coming up this weekend and will do more over the summer.
Oh my! That video is so freaking awesome. I have a butterfly. I only need to ride it less than a mile to my nearest lake. My trailer is much heavier because it was a converted car one.
I have 3 bikes right now. An upright ebike for around town and short trips, a recumbent ebike for 50+ mile trips, and a mtb/commuter (mostly to handle the winters). I ride everywhere around town, and I do lots of bike camping around my area.
Haha, no I flew last in 2019. Did a 6 month tour in the US in 2021 and have just been doing more local tours or renting bikes since then. I’m planning on saving up and quitting work for a 3+ month journey around Europe in 5 years or so. That’s the plan at least, we’ll see whether life says otherwise ;)