Solarpunk Resources

Projects and Resources

• Repair cafes - create or join your local repair cafe! Repair stuff, learn how to repair stuff, teach others how to repair stuff. International.
• Map of Makerspaces - make some things! learn how to make some things! teach others how to make some things!
• Map of tool shares - this is just a partial list, but a good place to start looking for a place that shares tools
• Mens Shed Australia - find a mens shed, which is a combination tool share and place for men to be emotionally healthy / have friends
• Support your local farmers / local economy - Find your nearest farmers markets, CSA, etc. (US only link)
• Falling Fruit - international map of edible resources - Into gleaning or free food? Check this resource out.
• Endless Orchard / Fallen Fruit project - Project to plant fruit trees in cities all over the US.
• Community Garden Map - (note that this is US-only, and not a complete list) - join a local community garden
• Sustainable / bulk food eating website for Australians

Some groups and projects worth checking out and/or creating in your area

• Support or create a local Food Not Bombs chapter - many chapters, they dive and scrounge for food, and feed the hungry
• Joy's Kitchen - similar to FNB, rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste to feed the hungry
• Second Harvest - a Canadian version of Joy's Kitchen, legit nonprofit
• Support or create a local Food Not Lawns chapter
• Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity - as a bonus you can learn extremely practical skills
• Volunteer via 350.org to help the environment / the planet / the place we live and depend on
• Donate to One Acre Fund, which provides training and capital to farmers (making them more productive and pulling them out of poverty) in various east African countries
• Donate money, time, engineering expertise to Bridges to Prosperity, which provides technical expertise, money, and volunteers, to help local people build and maintain their own footbridges in extremely isolated rural areas
• Rainforest Action Network is doing excellent work and putting pressure on companies all around the world.
• Sunrise Movement - "We're building an army of young people to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process."
• Four Ways Anyone Can Take Climate Action - raise a ruckus, let everyone from your politicians to your family know that you care. #goodtrouble

DIY Indoor resources / Lifestyle

• Excellent-and-still-growing wiki from reddit’s awesome r/zerowaste community - great resource to learn how to live more lightly on the earth
• Spread the word about solarpunk, especially to engineering students. Show them projects like Open Source Ecology - Global Village Construction Set and Bridges for Prosperity
• Construct and design using the Replimat open source modular construction system
• Learn how to Patch a Hole, Mend a Seam, and Fix a Hem
• Wiki from r/sewing - some basics of sewing and sewing machines
• Learn how to repair a hole in the sole of a shoe
• Free USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision - cut down on personal food waste! Learn how to safely preserve food. Very useful if you suddenly harvest / purchase for crazy cheap in season / dumpster dive a ton of perishable food.
• how to fold a sheet of paper into an 8 page zine - simple graphic
• Solarpunk Press - this project has finished but text and audio formats are still available - fiction to get you inspired!
• Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation - solarpunk anthology of fiction stories. Proceeds benefit Boston's largest homeless shelter.
• Chelsea Green Publisher - small, independent book publisher that prints many interesting and useful books
• Timber Book Press - another small, independent book publisher that prints many interesting and useful books
• Want to Fight Climate Change? Eat More Beans - Consider eating more beans

Technology

• Without Net Neutrality, Is It Time To Build Your Own Internet? - Here's what you need to know about mesh networking - article

Urban Cities / Design / Infrastructure / Homes

• How to Make an Attractive City - video - 15 very thought-provoking minutes.
• How to start a car sharing cooperative - 2 pg pdf - some info from the Transition folks
• Sprawl Repair Manual - book - how to make suburbia more sustainable, step by step. Throw down full price direct from the publisher to support the author... or also know that there might be free PDFs available online.
• Learn some basics on passive solar design - clever use of the sun can create extremely energy efficient homes and buildings. You can use these principles to save on energy bills, even if you’re renting.
• The solar envelope: how to heat and cool cities without fossil fuels
• Affordable Passive Solar Planbook for North Carolina - PDF
• A Water Wall Solar Design Manual - PDF
• Guidelines on Rainwater Catchment Systems for Hawai'i - giant pdf on rainwater catchment systems. Specific to Hawai'i but enough info to be of help to those who live elsewhere
• First Earth - Uncompromising Ecological Architecture - video - This is a multi-chapter series on earthen construction. The first chapters are a bit slow / not so informative but it does pick up a bit and overall worthy of one's time.
• The Biggest Straw Bale House in Holland - video - Really fascinating look at some multi-family straw bale housing. 6 minutes

Outdoor resources

• My Urban Garden - this old ~30 minute film of an urban, organic Canadian gardener is packed full of great and frugal ideas
• [Open Source Ecology - Global Village Construction Set](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs%20-%20open%20source%20project%20on%20creating%20everything%20needed%20to%20(re)start civilization
• Farm Hack - open source project on creating and sharing farm tools.
• Open Source Information on how to grow Miyawaki Forests anywhere - dropbox
• 101 permaculture designs - picture heavy resource for the visual learners
• Removing Lawn to Make Way for More Habitat
• iNaturalist app/project - take pictures, learn about wildlife in your area, help scientists learn about how well certain creatures are doing where you live
• Butterflies and Moths of North America - take pictures, learn about butterflies and moths in your area, help scientists keep up with how they're doing in your area
• Pollinator Friendly Plant Lists from the Xerxes Society - Want to help the pollinators? Here's some recommended plant lists for different bioregions - Includes US and International info!
• Figure out birds by shape - and lots of other bird knowledge, the whole Cornell Lab of Ornithology website is big
• Scistarter - find citizen science projects of interest near you. Many involve being outdoors!
• Let's talk about soil - video - about 6 eye-opening minutes on why we need to take better care of soils, a problem even in urban areas
• Trees vs Air pollution - audio - It turns out that trees clean the air and protect us more from pollution than previously thought. Interesting 27 minute audio. Plant more trees!

Health

• Building Better Healthcare - Audio - 53 very interesting and uplifting minutes
• Woebot - some DIY psychotherapy - use AI to improve your emotional states
• Four Lessons Psychology Teaches Us About Inspiring Climate Action
• Four Thieves Vinegar Collective - DIY anarchist medical collective, working on helping people to manufacture their own medications. Not for the faint of heart, this is a DIY street medicine type thing, the 'convince heroin dealers to mix in anti-AIDS medications with their product' level. Technically, what they are doing is legal. They can always use more technical assistance and donations.
• Women on Waves - This amazing medical group in Europe sails around in a boat and offers chemical abortions to women in (mostly Catholic) countries where they are illegal. This helps to prevent desperate women from undergoing illegal and dangerous abortions. They also provide an array of sexual health information. Think of it as Planned Parenthood gone anarchist, on a boat. As always, they can use support.

Labor

• Industrial Workers of the World - perhaps the most famous of all workers unions, aka the "Wobblies". They have lots of resources to help you organize your workplace.
• Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union - US
• United Food and Workers Union - US/Canada
• Union of Shop, Distributed, and Allied Workers - UK
• Retail and Fast Food Workers Union - AUS
• First Union - NZ
• check out r/union and r/labor for more discussion and info.

Misc

• My Perfect Country - multiseries podcast from the BBC where they try to figure out how to make the best possible country by examining different things done in different countries around the world. This is not only a very interesting series, it's one way to help break people away from their 'my nation is best' brainwashing.
• When a tree sitter captured the nation’s attention - Environmental activism history - a young woman lived in a 1000+ year old redwood tree to save it from being logged. She succeeded and the tree survives to this day.
• Radio Garden - Listen to interesting music from around the world