Solarpunk's Guide to Surviving Gaia, Solaris, and Everything in Between
Basic Solarpunk Guide
Step 1: Understanding Solarnomics
The tally of gains and losses in power derived from the sun, seen as a "somewhat" finite resource. Better "solarnomics" means more resources flowing in and less resources being spent. Sounds like a bright future!
Check out the Advanced Guide for more complex projects with higher solarnomic ROI.
Here are some basic videos that will help get your solarpunk-junk in gear! These videos (or videos like the ones that I watched, but can no longer find) have personally helped us accomplish real world impact. Big or small, if you grow food or produce electricity then you are a solarpunk!
Step 2: Community
After strengthening ourselves with knowledge and practice, we should be moving firmly from the pool of people most likely to be a liability, to the pool of people most likely to be an asset. The next step is starting a local community or strengthening your current one. I say current community only for those that move a lot (i.e. military fam), as your current community should generally be your long term community.
Below is a quick navigation bar with links to free resources for new solarpunks. Some of these are charitable organizations, some are passion projects, all with the good of humanity at heart as far as we can tell. We are not affiliated with any of these organizations.
Advanced Solarpunk Activities
Step 3: Moving
For those looking who have grown bored of simply tending to their plants and energy harvesters, we have curated a list of projects to help you get to higher degrees of Solarpunkery. You have a high chance of gaining the knowledge, confidence, or inspiration needed to move you into a pool of people beyond the average of today. This move is a "15 minutes to learn, a lifetime to master" type vibe.
If you are rich enough to not have to worry about bills and have spare "mech-money" in your pockets, then doing all the following hands on and learning should be a piece of cake!
For those of us that have bills instead of mech-money, same team club. Please understand we are going to be living the long, hard life of a scrapper. The scrap business can be a monster. It has swallowed kitchen tables, garages, and even marriages whole. Or maybe it won't impact you much. Either way, you have been warned. My conscience is clear.
Welcome, Solarpunks, to the advanced tutorials!
Solar is a great and now accessible option, where costs previously prohibited most from being able to invest. Even with their wider availability today, solar panels are not always an option. Wind, water, and gravity may make up some or all of your electrical generation. Not all of these are meant to be built, but each of these projects teaches a lot of scrapper knowledge!
Scrap Batteries
A solarpunk must always be ready and able to repair, replace, or re-evaluate a battery system.
Armaments
Walk softly, but carry a big stick.
Stick Option #1
Stick Option #2
Stick Option #3
Conserving Energy
They say 'a penny saved is a penny earned', and that hold true for solarnomics. Any conservation of energy is a savings you can't beat!
Transportation
The greatest joy a solarpunk can feel, using the sun to be lazy af. Juice your ride! Or build a new one entirely.
Scrap Batteries
A solarpunk must always be ready and able to repair, replace, or re-evaluate a battery system.
Food Production and Permaculture
Plants, the cave-solarpunk's solar panel.
One of the most influential things you can do in life is grow food for yourself and for others. Beyond growing food for self and others is growing year round, followed by growing remotely. For full remote food growth that is NOT a food forest, one would almost certainly need computer automation. The academy's official approach to automation and hydroponics is start small. If it is a truly automated system and/or a very tight hydroponics system then it will scale up no problem.
Mass Production
Time is money, so automation it is. Lets dig our way out, with capitalism!