I feel like I always think of solar punk as a macro thing where a lot has to change but there are still smaller wins we can implement, what have you been doing?
Besides gardening? I built a low-power, right-sized server out of an ancient phone. It draws around a watt of power, less when idle.
What are you using it for?
Offsite monitoring. It runs Prometheus, Grafana, etc, and watches the rest of my selfhostables. Sends me alerts when stuff goes down.
Any DIY links that you have found are useful for this (before I start re’searching’. )
I don’t have any handy “start to finish” guides for this. I suppose I should start a blog, or something :)
Basic steps:
- get a phone that can run PostmarketOS - https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices — it does not need to run it perfectly. Camera, cell modem, even screen are completely optional. It must charge and do WiFi, only.
- flash PostmarketOS on the phone. Get SSH access - if the screen doesn’t work, use USB ethernet emulation (during pmbootstrap init, choose USB mode = “developer”), log in, then
nmtuito enter your WiFi password. - optionally, reduce maximum battery charge/voltage, to prolong battery health. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Battery_Voltage_Reduction
- hooray, now you have a server. Proceed setting up as if it were a VPS. It’s a variant of Alpine Linux - any Alpine guide will work fine, or you could use Docker or Podman.
Now this is something I haven’t done, but you could - hook it up to a solar panel. Rely on solar during the day, and on the phone battery until it lasts. Write a shell script / cronjob / systemd unit to suspend the phone when battery level gets low. It’ll get a wakeup event from hardware, when solar comes back (hopefully).
Buying secondhand over new. I love thrifting so that’s a bonus for me! Also using what I have, repairing what I can, or just going without something versus buying something in the first place.
Eating less meat, and prioritizing locally grown veg when possible.
Taking public transit, walking, or biking everywhere. If going long distance, I try to take ground transportation (trains, buses) over flying.
Reducing energy use eg turning off lights when I’m not in the room. You’d be surprised how many people still don’t do that, haha!
I’m still building the habit of turning lights off when leaving a room hehe. I’ve learned a lot about those little things recently - turning the lights off, stopping the dishwasher before the dry cycle, and someone below said that a computer uses less energy when the screen brightness is down so I’m doing that now too c:
Also seconding on thrifting, it’s so much fun!! I also love repairing.
I do a lot more food related DIY stuff, like balcony gardening, food preservation (bought from local farmers directly), planning to grow mushrooms etc.
I bought a mushroom log last year that was sprouting so I harvested it. I haven’t got anything else from it since last spring. I’m bummed because I love mushrooms
Some mushrooms can be shocked into fruiting by dropping the log into a bucket of cold water for a few hours. Probably worth having a search to see if that’s relevant for the mushrooms you have.
Good idea!! I they grow in colder weather so I will have to wait. I think the log dried out maybe
Oh mushrooms, I wish I had time to get back to those!
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to get a rooftop solar set up and battery for my house. I absolutely love it. We’ve barely used the grid since it’s gone up, only our electric shower draws too much for the inverter/ battery to provide it all, everything else runs off solar. It’s been especially good in the UK recently with the weather because it means I can run my (also recently purchased) portable aircon without feeling guilty. Makes me feel happy every time the sun is shining.
I keep thinking about getting a ground rod installed so I can run totally off grid.
We’re trying to eat less meat and having at least a couple meals per week with veggies or fish as the main. We’ve reduced how much landfill waste we produce and are recycling more.
I’m also from the UK. Could I ask for a recommendation and price range for your panels? I love the idea of it and know the upfront costs are high but haven’t actually looked into it.
Of course. We have been with Octopus for a while now for our energy and went with them for solar because of good offers and finance deals. The price dropped quite a lot in the year or so we were looking. In March this year we got 10 panels a 10kW battery and a 5kW inverter for a little over £9k. We also picked a finance deal which worked out about £300 a month so it was affordable for us, that’s not including the electric buy back or the fact we don’t have an electric bill currently so it’s actually cheaper. For comparison we looked about 8 months before and they had 10 panels a 5kW battery and a smaller inverter for £13k admittedly on an interest free finance deal, our current one is not interest free. So the prices keep coming down.
Boycotting big business/unethical anti competitive practices. Businesses that lobby or have lobbied (aka legal bribery) for Republican officials or AIPAC democrats.
Easier said than done when you live in a rural area that only has a Walmart :-/
I try to be mindful of my purchases as much as possible but sometimes your only option is Walmart and that’s okay!
For me I admit not as much as I’d like.
I was unable to get solar panels for my house, due to the city’s rulings. My house being a dome lacks a traditional roof for solar panels, and the city has a lot of strict rulings against solar panels not on roofs, mostly because the city council hates solar energy. Of course, I have small solar panels with power stations in the yard.
The house also is specifically one that is efficient for such purposes, and we practice dressing it up during the year. Currently we have blackout curtains over the windows that get hotter during the day-time barring the south-facing in my office, where I simply close that door. We also have curtains over hallways. While we have to use a rolling air conditioner due to the house’s setup, we focus on only cooling the room that we are in or sleep in during the day-time, and during the night even if it is still 70s to 80s outside, we do what we can do to cool the rest of the house.
I have my own garden I grow vegetables and herbs in, as well as having an indoor garden in a south-facing window with a trellis shelf I built. I am able to grow plants year round. I pickle, dehydrate, and similar methods for everything I grow for the purposes of usage throughout the year, including using the brine from pickling for recipes. Also we make stuff during the night-time and put it to cool, making it able to be eaten several meals instead of every meal-time turning on a stove and cooking.
My spouse and I both have knowledge on repair, both around the house but also clothing, adding our own bits of charm when needed. I also have experience with repairing my bicycle as well as repairing my car, having been a mechanic in the past.
My house being a dome lacks a traditional roof for solar panels,
Can you solder? You could probably go that route if you don’t mind losing your round(?) dome aesthetics. I’ve seen some adaptations where regular rails were put in place and then additional supports soldered into the structure to lift it up and fit into irregular areas
Soldering alone wouldn’t work. The house is a monolithic dome, so it has over 20 inches of concrete for the outer most dome layer. I’d have to drill with masonry bolts and risk cracking the concrete of the house for it.
To add about the dressing house up or down,
During the last winter even when it was snowing and in the single-digits outside, we didn’t have to turn on the heating for the house using the boiler. By dressing the house up, and ourselves dressing up a bit, the house was plenty warm and comfortable.
I bought a portable solar panel and used it for like 2 days, before I stopped due to theft risk. Might start again, once we have the new camera around.
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I find it odd that legally it seems to be easier to live in a van than it is to buy some woodland and live there. You can buy the woodland and build a cabin just fine but its living in it that is near impossible to do legally.
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Does it count if I already did it? Could say being car free, I suppose I am by choice now.
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Moving my technological dependencies from big tech companies to self-hosted, open source solutions, running Linux on my machines etc.
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Gardening on my balcony. I am growing tomatoes, broad beans, peppers (chilis, bell) and an assortment of salads and herbs. I am mostly self-sufficient on herbs, during growing season I am fully self-sufficient on salads. Pretty far from it on tomatoes and peppers, and especially on beans as they are not fruiting :(
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In general getting more in touch with local flora. I’ve been photographing flowering plants in my neighborhood lately and identifying them, trying to learn what grows around here. Goal is to be quite well-versed in local flora, including what is edible (and how to use it) and not
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Contributing to OpenStreetMap, both in my neighborhood and also through tasks.hotosm.org where I help trace missing buildings in disaster-struck places for first-responders to use (and in preparation for possible disasters in the future). This kind of collaborative project I find to be very solarpunky.
Living in a rented apartment, there is only so much I can make changes here. There was an initiative to install solar panels, but it was voted down for some reason - not being an owner, I am not involved in those discussions. Dream is to find a small house outside the city to expand my garden and to become as off-grid as possible.
I’d never heard of OpenStreetMap and I’ve gone down the rabbit hole since last night - this is cool as hell, thank you for introducing me!!
I use it a little like Pokémon Go. Just download an app and complete the map!
Nice, cool to hear!
I have two favorite navigational applications that utilizes OSM-data: Organic Maps/CoMaps (there’s a lot of drama here that you can read up on if it interests you, but CoMaps was forked from Organic Maps after some mismanagement of funds was uncovered) for a clean, simple and quick navigation experience and OsmAnd~ for a very tailored experience that takes some time to get into, but gives you a way to set up different profiles for walking, hiking, cycling, public transport, driving etc. The premium version with a full feature set (~) can be purchased in Apple Store and Google Play Store, but is offered for free through F-Droid on Android.
I mentioned tasks.hotosm.org. Here is a cool writeup of the project which introduced me to it just some weeks ago, which was posted somewhere on Lemmy: https://sheets.works/data-viz/strangers-draw-maps
I also use StreetComplete to solve some outstanding questions about features in the neighborhoods I walk in, such as the quality of the road surfaces, whether a street is lit or not and speed limits. Organized as small tasks that show up as icons on the map. Kinda like a Pokémon Go-experience, as Wiz@midwest.social described it as. There’s another one called Every Door that is supposed to be better for adding information about points of interests (shops, restaurants, monuments, drinking fountains, etc. etc.). I have not tried that yet. I also have Verspucci installed that is a more full-fledged editor for Android, for when I want to make more detailed edits. A bit steeper learning curve. I have not used it that much yet, but I did update some very out-of-date restaurants in a city I visited earlier this Summer.
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- I’ve been vegan for 5 years and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made.
- I only buying second-hand clothing. This is a recent change.
- I mostly stopped shopping online, except for specific items like my injection supplies.
- Using my local library!
- I crochet clothing and items for gifts.
Cheers to using the library!! I don’t go often but I do love my Libby app
Libby is great! Checking out a book online and pulling it up on my e-reader is wonderful when I don’t want to make the trip to my physical library branch.
- throw away trash you see wherever you go.
- splash fecies into double parked, idling vehicles.
- cement huge rocks to the ground to block the entrances and exits of gas stations
- have your dog shit on trad-lawns
- write a message in Trad-lawn by stomping a green message in the morning when the grass has frost
- plant wildflowers, weed, apples everywhere
- graft fruit tree branches into useless urban landscaping
- don’t rake in the fall
Out of genuine curiosity, do you carry around feces mixed with water in your car or is there another method?
Organic gardening including composting
Shop the Co-Op and Farmer’s Market - diet is mostly organic vegetarian
Ride Bikes
Drive an EV when needed + solar panels on the roof - It’s like riding on sunshine!
I avoid un-neccessary travel.
Enjoy “The Great Outdoors”
Connect with my like minded community (getting off corporate social media is a piece of this)
I’ve just come across the term Solar Punk in the past year or so. A lot of SP has been what I’ve felt was the best way to live harmoniously on the Earth. I’m still learning, and hope to continue.
All of this sounds great, especially +1 for avoiding unnecessary travel! A lot of people start to drive more once they get an EV, as it’s “more eco-friendly”, in the worst case creating a rebound-effect. It takes willpower and thoughtfulness not to fall into that behaviour
An EV is never going to be more efficient than a bike or walking. My EV’s mass is enormous compared to my bike or a pair of sneakers. I don’t know about willpower, for me, as bikes are so fun to ride.
Let’s see…
- Ive got a bunch of small devices powered off USB battery banks that are solar rechargeable
- indoor and outdoor gardens, with sensors also powered by those little battery banks
- My kids do a bunch of sports throughout the year now, I bring my bike toolkit so I can help fixing bikes for the kids in their school that show up
- Sharing what we get from gardening with neighbors. Except potato. Potato is mine (seriously though, we go through them quick)
Nothing else I can think of off the top of my head
Potato IS Life! LoL
I like your mini bike repair service!
Its fun! And I show the kids and parents what I’m doing, which tools I need to do it, etc. Its mostly simple stuff too, like adjusting tension on a brake, set screw for the limit on the derailleur, or patching a tube and pointing out to not forget to check the tire before you put the tube back in. More annoying tubes (or if I’m out of patches) I pop into a small bin to patch later, I have a couple spares for 20" (kid size), including the ones I patched up since the last time.
I also really like that everyone kind of learns that these tubes are for everyone, you won’t necessarily get the same one back, and it really doesn’t matter because you’ve still got a working tire again. Good for the kids to learn that it doesn’t matter, and honestly good for some of the parents to learn that too.
Since I started doing it another dad has been learning too, and started doing the same thing. Though anything he’s not sure about he tells them to ask me.
Plus a really good way to meet a lot of the people in the area, I like doing it
Whatt it even inspired a copy-cat? That’s some wholesome community building and a good use of little league hours too
We were at the playground and one of the other parents asked me about my bike because my wife told her how much I liked bikes.
He said he’d need to ask me some questions because of a problem, I told him it was easy and described it and said I could bring my tools by (the playground is like two blocks from me, his house is like 4), and he got excited and asked if I knew what sizes he needed and that he would do it.
He just kind of got into it after fixing his son’s bike, bought a set of on the go tools to take with him when they all went for a ride, and he just… Kept going with it lol
So if I’m there doing my thing and another kid needs help he gets his tools out and helps too.
This community has always been really friendly, and I think things like the portable bike repair just adds onto it! I’m hoping to see more stuff like this happen, though I’m not sure what just yet.
We did see a few little libraries put in around town at the parks recently, and I’ve been chatting with others about natural lawns, so we’ll see where it goes next!
I purchase as much of my produce as possible from a farm co-op
I try to walk for errands as much as possible rather than drive
I’m slowly learning basic electronics repair
I have a small hydroponic garden that just about meets my salad needs
