In this episode, Ariel interviews Doug Jones from Waterloo Region Community Garden Network, and he discusses about how the Network was started, what it does, and the benefits of gardening for the health and wellbeing not only for you but for your entire community. We discuss gleaning, food insecurity, access to land, and much more; this is an episode you’re going to want to listen to, especially if rising cost of food and food security are concerns for you these days.

I (Ariel) have included some links to the local organizations he mentions, as well as some that expand on some of the topics we discussed.

*Carol Popovich was the public health nurse who worked with Doug to create the original Waterloo Region Community Garden Council.

Links:

Hey friends, come follow us on Mastodon @solarpunkpresents@climatejustice.social! We post a lot of content there, and Ariel is a lot more active with replies over there (usually….).

Support independent solarpunk media!

Heyo followers and friends and solarpunks, here’s your reminder for the day that we have a Patreon and we need support! This podcast is a passion project run by two people who have (multiple) other jobs, aging and sick family members, and the endless tasks of adulting to attend to, and that means we’re pretty busy and paying for this out of our own pockets. We're ad-free and we'd like to keep it that way.

So if you like what we do, or you want some of that sweet sweet bonus content and early access to episodes, or just want to support solarpunk work in the present, please support us financially through Patreon (starting as low as $3 a month) or make a one-time donation through PayPal.

If you’re hard up for cash, but still would like to support us and solarpunk in general but just can’t financially right now, it would still go a long way if you could take a moment to write us a review on your podcatcher of choice, or subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave us a comment on your favourite video. If you really liked a certain episode, please share it with someone you know who you think would like it - word of mouth is really important for podcasts!

As I’ve said before, it's rough out there for anyone valuing the environment, social justice, compassion, and more, and we want to keep doing our part to keep hope alive. We want to broaden the imagination of what it's possible to do to contribute to a better world, no matter who you are, where you live, or what life stage you're at.

-Ariel

May his memory be a blessing.

Willem Arondéus (22 August 1894 – 1 July 1943) was a Dutch artist and author who joined the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II. He participated in the bombing of the Amsterdam public records office to hinder the Nazi German effort to identify Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo. Arondéus was caught and executed soon after his arrest. Yad Vashem recognized Arondéus as Righteous Among the Nations.

Their attack, which took place on 27 March 1943, was partially successful, and they managed to destroy 800,000 identity cards, and retrieve 600 blank cards and 50,000 guilders. The building was blown up and no one was caught on the night of the attack. However, due to an unknown betrayer, Arondéus was arrested on 1 April 1943. Arondéus refused to give up the rest of his team.

Arondéus was openly gay before the war and defiantly asserted his sexuality before his execution. His final words were:

"Tell the people that homosexuals are not by definition weak."

From Wikipedia

He was also a pretty great artist

Reblog to include his artwork!

May his memory be a blessing

I would not say that lawn mowers and brush cutters don't have a place in the world, but I would say that if every lawn mower and similar machinery vanished from existence tomorrow, we would suddenly notice a multitude of obvious practical uses for plots of land that were not consciously considered to be "land" at all, but rather just "space" separating two constructed things.

Like not to sound overly radical and idealistic, but maybe we don't have to use fossil-fuel-burning heavy machinery to maintain countless acres of unused land in a state scalped and exterminated of native plant life. maybe we can, like, limit our use of the pollution machine that makes land useless and barren.

maybe all the brilliant scientists of our highly advanced technological society can think of something we could possibly do with land other than "make it useless and barren using the pollution machine." Maybe somewhere in the world, someone is brilliant and visionary enough to imagine a society where "making it useless and barren using the pollution machine" is a slightly less common use of land resources

I don't know. I just think that we could figure something out if we tried really, really, really hard

area used for drainage? put wetland plants in them instead of trying to grade out a giant funnel that dumps water into a drain pipe as quickly as possible. it'll absorb excess floodwater and filter out pollutants. if it's the southeast USA, PUT RIVER CANE OH MY GOD IT'S PERFECT. Arundinaria gigantea, you can look it up. Rushes. Cattails. Horsetails. Sedges.

roadside or other area that needs to be kept relatively low? short native grasses and flowers. there's a billion of them.

Awkward leftover land next to a building? trees. if there's plumbing or power lines to worry about? more native grasses and flowers. pollinator gardens. Or grow fiber plants that can be harvested yearly and turned into fabric/baskets/mats/whatever. If the soil doesn't have anything toxic in it, you could grow food plants. Grow sunflowers, they're allelopathic and keep the weeds down. Walking paths. Solar panels. Walking paths with solar panels. Put solar panels above your parking lot while you're at it. Did i mention Arundinaria gigantea.

flowers...fruit trees...native sedges...infinite possibilities

@isuggestlandback

I have a suggestion

ive been thinking it over for a while now and ive finally come to the conclusion that something should probably be done about the united states

I have a suggestion

Just a reminder, that generative AI has no place in Solarpunk 🥰

None 🥰

I will reblog this again and again as long as I have to witness the AI slob shared as "solarpunk". It's not. generative AI is not, and never will be solarpunk.

(via hornedchick)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.

When I tell that I LOVE solarpunk

Oh, I remember this, the edit was done by youtuber Waffle to the left.

They didn't just cut out the parts with the oat milk, they skillfully edited over all the god-damn branding and replaced the audio.

But what I still find most hilarious about this whole commercial is the fact that everything they show in this solar punk world seems to be made with sustainable, zero waste and reusable materials.

Everything EXCEPT THE FUCKING CHOBANI BRANDED STUFF! The only plastic you see in this whole commercial is all the straight to the landfill packaging made by the very corporation that tries to sell how sustainable and "green" they are. Unintentional self satire at its finest.

They couldn't even show their yogurt and milk in (basically infinitely reusable) glass containers because they pretty much only sell their shit in plastic

It is such a perfect example of the true face of "green" capitalism, it's hilarious.

The punk in this solarpunk comes from cutting the corporation out of the picture

ALSO

Another really interesting thing about this edit is that they changed the label on the side of the apple-picking machine.

From "donations" to "commons". It's a subtle change, but it makes a huge difference in the world-building of the video. The former implies that this big orchard belongs to an owner and that they're donating the fruits to "the less fortunate" (and, by extension, that poverty is still a thing); the latter implies that the orchard belongs to everyone and that the fruits are free to take in the spirit of solidarity.

Waffle To The Left brought out the potential in this gorgeous video and made it an actual solarpunk utopia — without brands and without corporate pandering, complete with true common ownership over land and resources.

s - solarpunk?

Solarpunk????

SoLaRpUnK???!!!???

I've never heard of this??????

How have I not heard of this???!!!???

The way my whole being was envious and hungry and restless. I need to consume media in this genre immediately.

Hey, you know what would be nice to read sometime? A futuristic story about a dystopia that gets fixed. It doesn't even have to be a complete overhaul all at once, but I'd sure enjoy seeing some fictional people overjoyed because they don't have to scrabble and starve anymore.

I've read about people surviving in dystopias, and doing their part to help a revolutionary effort, but I can't think of a story that actually shows us the process of society healing.

On a related note, how would you start distributing food to a society that's starving, without getting desperate mobs? I'm sure there are plenty of answers from real world history. I remember hearing about soldiers throwing their ration bars to people recently freed from concentration camps, and some of those people ate too quickly for their systems to handle after starvation conditions, and they died of food. Obviously that's an extreme case. But even if there are food trucks going door-to-door down city streets, mobs could happen.

If you take over from the villainous overlords, and you want to actually feed the starving people, how do you start doing that without causing deaths by trampling? How do you make this a happy scene full of relief instead of desperation?

Saturation bombing. Or rather, airdrops.

A line of planes stretches across the sky, flying low and slow. Out the back of each, a cascade of food bars. People stare at the sky in wonder, as food hits the ground all around them, more than even the most traumatized hoarder could grab.

They didn't believe, yesterday, when the planes (fewer, yesterday) flew overhead, dropping leaflets explaining the risks of overfeeding a starving person. Nor did they believe the day before, when radios were dropped, all powered and tuned a calm voice that calmly and repeatedly explained the process of refeeding, pausing only to allow a different voice to explain the same process in a different language.

But today they did believe, finally. Guardedly. Hopefully. Joyfully. And as they hear a new droning, they turn their eyes to a second line of planes, already beginning to drop a new bounty.

Noise - shouting, weeping, laughing - rises to the sky, greeting the waterbottles that are parachuting down.

-

At the edge of the city, aid convoys are already heading inwards, to build and provide a more permanent support. But for now, this is enough.

Thank you. This is beautiful.

I got my sewing machine back on Wednesday, and I've been busy. Have a look:

Both are made from bedsheets I found on the street, and the yellow-black cuffs and waistband were an old top a friend gave me. The only new thing in all of this is the thread, and the elastic in the waistband of the trousers.

I'm happy with my first attempts at both, and will now be altering the dress pattern to fit better. The most difficult thing was the hemline on the dress. I do not have anything I can put it on except myself, and no other person to help either.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHYrmWLu7wu/?igsh=MXF2bnJ3cnQ2ODJ3bw==

"What can you grow in a hobbit hole greenhouse in the middle of a raging blizzard?"

nymphaea, water lilies

photos by eiko jones at eikojones.com

I keep seeing the leather/pleather vs denim jacket poll over and over again with all different sorts of discourse about how there is no plastic-free pleather and like, that's TRUE, there isn't, but honestly I DO think people who don't want to use animal products* also deserve to look cool

and so my suggestion is that y'all google "waxed cotton jacket" or "waxed canvas jacket" plus like, "motorcycle" or whatever style you think is cool, because there's a plastic free leather-look material that is strong and durable and waterproof and doesn't use animal products** AND is plastic free already out there and some of the clothes that you can get made out of it look sick as hell.

*ignoring the fact that most leather is meat by-product that would be going to waste anyway

**except beeswax but if you're going to object to that then honestly there's no helping you

waxed cotton looks so good and wears-in to a gorgeous patina and when it loses its finish you can re-wax it and that just makes it look even better and more patinaed instead of flaking off in horrible bits of microplastic leaving you with a ruined piece of clothing

Textiles are amazing! Make the most of them!