#reaping week

[solar-sunnyside-up]

[solarpoweredpunkpossum]

having complicated feelings about the politics of rage

like that specific kind of debate bro whose videos are all "liberal DESTROYED raging feminist OWNED by calm facts and logic haha i'm so smart and cool" who thinks anyone not in a perfect stoic state must immediately be wrong (and by proxy their ability to "argue" about things that don't affect them divisive topics calmly means they must be right)

seeing people finding their ways to scream into the void for reaping week or vent the anger and indignity at how screwed up our world is... why is it so taboo? why is it so bad to be upset at, yknow, things that should upset any rational, compassionate person?

because yeah, anger isn't rational and tends to find targets rather than solutions, but for fluff's sake it doesn't just go away! you can't turn off your passion! and you shouldn't! you should be upset! you should be upset about climate change and billionaires and rising fascism! you should be upset that the world is unjust!

but we've created, or accepted, or failed to question, this framework where being calm makes you more correct and being visibly passionate or upset is a bad thing, where being riled up by someone who thinks you don't deserve rights is a sign of weakness, where caring loudly and vibrantly is somehow bad optics because being angry looks bad.

angry people are dangerous. angry people can't be trusted. angry people shouldn't be listened to. angry people can't control their emotions. angry people should just calm down. angry people should be subdued.

just shut up and take it already, won't you?

like. look. the doomerism and despair is strong outside of communities like this. so often i find myself asking where is your rage!? where is your hope?! your joy, your passion, your conviction that a better world will be made!

i spent a long time drowning in some pretty rough crap. when i managed to crawl out of it, the first thing i felt was relief. the second was burning, white-hot rage that i had lived like this, that i had been allowed to live like this. anxiety makes you want to shrink down, be as small as possible, as unintrusive, as unnoticeable. anger told me to be loud, be bright, be visible, shout from the rooftops that i deserved better, turn passion into action instead of wallowing.

yes, i am angry at the world and i should be. i am upset that people who have more money than i can even conceive of can run the planet into the ground and blame me for using too much plastic. i am upset that my existence is someone else's political fodder they can fearmonger about for engagement. i am upset that people are dying over numbers on a graph and lines on a map. i am upset that billions of dollars for guns and tanks gets written off without question, but the single mother of two on food stamps is what's draining the budget. i am upset and i'm not going to apologize for it, because that isn't "letting my emotions control me," it's having basic fluffing compassion for other people.

sorry i can't be calm like you while you're holding a gun to my head. it must be easier when it's your finger on the trigger.

[starrysolarpunk]

To all ruralpunks out there,

It's frustrating to not have a way to get involved with your local community. We don't typically have things like public libraries, community centers, farmer's markets, etc.

Something that's worked for me is getting involved with my local church. There is a church in every town here in the South, that is the one thing you can rely on aside from a post office. I'm not a Christian and never will be, but in my community the church is the center of getting involved and holds all sorts of events like soup kitchens, community yard sales, etc.

I go to a United Methodist Church, which is lgbtq affirming. I've heard episcopalians are too. I never feel pressured to do communion or convert. I go there to sing and help out people in my community, and people are respectful of that.

Use your discretion in finding a church to go to. Not all will have the same kind of environment mine does, but places like this exist out there and are helpful resources for those of us who do not have the same options as city folk.

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Glowing pathways and gardens side by side

24 hour cafes/librarys/working spaces

Celebrating moon cycles along with the seasons - with moonlit Lantern festivals

Lunarpunk Ideas

My insomnia makes me reflect on how a sustainable future needs to honor rest, leisure, darkness, and safe nocturnal movement for people and for animals. Here's a couple of ideas:

-reducing light pollution so we can enjoy the stars and so migrating animals can navigate

- moon gardens for native nighttime pollinators

- reducing urban noise so that bugs and frogs can hear each other

- walkable communities and better public transportation to reduce traffic

- changing the color/temperature of street lights to be less blue/cool so human and animal circadian rhythms are less disrupted

- workers gaining more leisure time and shorter working hours

- paid sick, parental, and bereavement leave

- accommodating a wider range of sleep patterns, including biphasic sleep and daytime napping

- public spaces with plenty of places to sit and lay down

- and of course, the decriminalization of drugs, sex work, and being unhoused

[fluorescentbalaclava]

Long shots

[dxnyarya]

do you know how miserable and tragic your life has to be to say that katniss everdeen is luckier than you and be correct

[chase-solidago]

Invasive Species and Xenophobia

Invasive species are complicated! People have a lot of feelings about them, positive and negative. Are plants that move "invaders" "colonizing", "immigrants", "citizens"? What does it mean to kill species that are from somewhere else? What if that species legitimately makes a poor neighbor and causes extinctions in other, native species? This complex, culturally-loaded issue is a foundational issue behind a lot of plant conservation and restoration.

This is a juicy and still actively disputed topic! The Guardian recently had a big article on colonialism in Botany, (tbh her views are dated and reductive, imo) and it’s come up again this week, to much hostility (cw: reddit). Yes, my region's native plant restoration came from literal nazis, but also, the impacts of some invasive species are real, not figments of a racist imagination. How do we balance these issues? What does ethical invasive management look like?

Since it’s such a juicy topic, I wanted to offer a few fun readings to share:

The Native Plant Enthusiasm: Ecological Panacea or Xenophobia?, Gert Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, 2004, Arnoldia.

THE CLASSIC 20th century German nazis and native plants paper. Made a huge splash when it came out, and you will still encounter people who paint all native plant stuff with this brush. Summary: yeah the nazis loved their native plants and used them as part of their conquering process. Also, the first prairie plantings ever, located in Chicago, were done by a racist probable-nazi for racist reasons, full stop. I’ll let him speak for himself: “The gardens that I created myself shall… be in harmony with their landscape environment and the racial characteristics of its inhabitants. They shall express the spirit of America and therefore shall be free of foreign character as far as possible… the Latin and the Oriental crept and creeps more and more over our land, coming from the South, which is settled by Latin people, and also from other centers of mixed masses of immigrants. The Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements was overgrown by foreign character. The Latin spirit has spoiled a lot and still spoils things every day.” - Jens Jensen

Botanical decolonization: rethinking native plants, Tomaz Mastnak, 2014, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Rather than viewing native plant plantings as an act of racially-pure occupation, Mastnak positions native plants in California as a decolonization of the sub/urban lawn. Uses a lot of quotations from 16th century English philosopher Francis Bacon, and is heavy on the philosophical musings.

From killing lists to healthy country: Aboriginal approaches to weed control in the Kimberley, Western Australia by Bach et al., 2019, Journal of Environmental Management.

This paper talks through some of the native vs invasive debate, and offers a different perspective on how to approach to plant invasive management based on cultural relations, rather than country of origin or behavior.

Beyond ‘Native V. Alien’: Critiques of the Native/alien Paradigm in the Anthropocene, and Their Implications, Charles R. Warren, 2021, Ethics, Policy, & Environment

DENSE but thorough, if you want to follow the entire history of the native/invasive debate, this has you covered. The most interesting stuff, in my opinion, is the discussion of invasive denialism, IE: the impasse of “You’re just being racist!” Vs “You know nothing about ecology!” I recommend the Discussion, which starts on page 13.

[metellastella]

Or get a box of bioplastic trash bags. They do the same thing as plastic but aren’t sourced from petroleum products.

Carry a Trash Bag With You

━☽【❖】☾━

Carry a bag to pick up rubbish that you see on the ground when going about your day and just empty the bag in the next bin you see, simple. I know it doesn't seem like it does much but in the long run it really helps out because those seemingly insignificant pieces of rubbish may end blowing into drains/creeks/rivers/animal stomachs etc. If you're with friends you could maybe even make a game of it and see who has the fullest bag.

I'd recommend using a material bag that can be washed cause uh rubbish is stinky and you definitely don't want a bag to smell.

Alternatively you could use those reusable and washable plastic bags that grandma's get for shopping. I'd just recommend something that can be folded or rolled up to fit in your bag and is washable.

━☽【❖】☾━

[solar-sunnyside-up]

[seaglassdinosaur]

Haymitch struggling to break the unspoken rules of the Hunger Games. Seeing opportunities to fight back but choosing not to, because it’s hard to cross that line.

He puts the knife back in the basket. He lets the Gamemakers charge for the access pipe. And he’s ashamed of it, because it isn’t fear of the consequences that stops him, but something internal inclined toward bowing down.

Because it takes conscious thought to make something ‘okay’ to do. To logic through why a rule is arbitrary, or to be fine with consequences—being a nuisance or a criminal, or to separate the rule from the moral implications. It requires active deconstruction, or very firm lines you refuse to cross, both of which require a lot of time and thought to do and form.

Without the time and practice, it’s difficult to do—difficult to do regardless—in the quick, immediate moment. And Haymitch feels ashamed, that despite his resentment for the Capital, his intentions of messing them up, he still hasn’t fully deconstructed.

[skylightangels]

I immediately knew people were going to start hating on hayffie because of the whole "mate for life" thing in sunrise on the reaping and I just need everyone to understand that we can have both. we can have haydove for life and death and hayffie post-canon romance. haymitch can love lenore dove his entire life and fall in love with effie 25 years after his old girlfriend's death.

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Punk can be glitter and sunshine and brightly-colored things!

Punk can be fighting capitalism by giving gifts freely and loving each other without money in the way!

Punk is joy in a world that they tell you "The world Will End so give in and stock up while you can!" It is planting seeds you'll never seen grown bc they want you to distracted to see a future.

Punk is DIY no matter how it looks! Sharing stories and lives is punk! Never let them tell you otherwise bc thats poser shit

The other day I saw someone try to argue that Solarpunk should be renamed "Solarcore" because Solarpunk is supposed to represent a utopia, and punk is supposed to be gritty and dystopian, and as I read that statement, my eyes rolled to the back of my head.

Punk isn't about being gritty and everything being black, the notion that it's about an aesthetic is antithetical to punk. Punk is about anti-establishment it's meant to be anti-capitalist. Imagining a utopia free from the chains of capitalism and with all the establishments that force people into a capitalist hellscape that also hurts the environment is very punk even without the explosions and violence.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[clearlyundefeyened]

Is anyone else afraid of SOTR being spoiled for them due to an early leak or am I just paranoid

[sejjiplinth]

“may as well say goodbye now, anyway. i don’t want it to come down to you and me.” — maysilee donner, catching fire.

[i-find-the-beauty-in-chaos]

once sotr is filmed and ppl start making edits showing the parallels between haymitch and katniss i will not be okay at all

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Ugggh Ai Bites!

One thing I've noticed as I've tried to enter other social media's for solarounk is it just isn't as active in meatspace. And I do think this is what ppl are talking about when ppl complain where all 'ideals and not work' bc they ran across an AI image of some green library.

I'd rather a thousand shifty hand drawn images, misspelled and unedited stories, I'd rather there be a soul attached. The entire point to me about this is reconnecting with ourselves and the world and each other. No form of easy way out of creativity is gunna do that! A computer cannot make the leaps we need to save ourselves from capitalism bc it is their tool built to destroy us and the planet.

It's amazing to see how many people on other platforms have found Solarpunk, but it's so disheartening that so many of them use AI generated images to illustrate their content, which defeats the purpose entirely.

So far Pinterest and TikTok have been the worst, but I've seen people knowingly sharing AI generated pics here in Tumblr too.

And I intentionally used the word "knowingly", because I think every one of us has probably at some point not realized that something they reblogged was AI generated. I know I have, in the early days of AI generation I even made a couple of pics myself before I realized how harmful it is. And I try to be better at spotting it, but unfortunately the AI generation gets more convincing too, so it's an ongoing battle.