#solarpunk winter

Do you have any suggestions for solarpunk activities we can work on in the cold months?

God I feel for this!!! Winter always feels like such a festering time to be in love with solarpunk. Not to mention how starved we are for winter content for solarpunk and lunarpunk in general. But yeah!! Here's some ideas to do in winter!!!

Out and about:

There are a lot more social clubs in your city then you'd expect! I know 2 different community associations in my city that have social clubs that go in adult field trips (like to farms and cafes ans boardgame places!!)! And have crafting clubs! And the best part is if their in your community, it's within a decent walk of you but it's almost always walkable!

Using a library!! For anything! Everything! In my provenance we got a saying "Use it or they

Graffiti- leaving kind messages or fun stickers all over the place isn't really a weather restricted activity for the most part. I know someone who made a Playlist filled with union songs and rebellion songs and put a code for it and links to how to unionize on stickers and did that.

Adopt a stop- more cities have these then you might think! But adopt a stop programs basically let you take care of a certain bus stop and this lets you add things (like good benches, shoveling and removing ice, asking the city to add heaters, etc..) you become the advocate for that bus stop. If your city doesn't have a program like it yet you can ask your city or community to start one since it saves a bunch of money on maitance costs!

At home:

Archiving and pirating - highly recommend doing it in a physical sense if you can afford it. Bc then you can give them out as gifts!

Create!! - Sewing, sewing for friends, knitting gloves/scarfs for ppl who might need it, make art to inspire others via writing or drawing or other mediums! Gift economies require gifts after all so make some!

Learn! - learning a new skill, like canning or how to install solarpanels. Researching in general, but also keeping up to date with local politics and what you can do on the ground there. Building up knowledge is such as useful even if it doesn't feel like your doing anything.

Connect! - Shoveling neighbors walkways, or in general connecting with the ppl in your immediate surroundings! They can help you out in ways you couldn't imagine, someone didn't bake often so they gave me 15lbs of flour!! And their extra pair of snow boots, I hadn't had snow boots since I was 12 years old and it meant the world to me. The pizza I taught her daughter to make and a cheap meal for them meant the world for them. These small acts really are what tie each other together.

Where I live, we usually have what we call "ice towns" built around the holiday tree on some big plazas. They consist of slides made of wood and/or ice, and generally a lot of ice structures that act as a play area for kids. There's ice mazes, ice sculptures of popular fairytale and holiday characters, lots of fun stuff! And when I think about lighting, I spontaneously imagined bioluminescent organisms being built into the ice. I have no idea if it's possible or not, if bioluminescent plants, algae or others can survive in the ice, but the thought is pretty cool.

Canning food! Or, rather, eating canned food. It's a big deal around here, obviously. Pickles, tomatoes, berry jams! And the latter, along with honey, are both sweet and good for your health, especially against the flu.

Advanced greenhouses that keep the temperatures optimal to grow some necessities that can't be grown during winter. Maybe these greenhouses aren't used for the rest of the year?

Robots or electrical machines that clear paths from snow in the early morning (I can't express enough how ANNOYING it was to go to school at 7:30 through an untrodden path with snow that reaches higher than your ankle). And for the more tricky parts that robots or machines can't handle, like smaller spaces or porches, there would be community snow-shoveling. Though I imagine most people would come to shovel their neighbors' porches along with their own.

It may sound irrelevant, but SCREW SCHOOL UNIFORMS, let girls wear pants to school! At least in colder times, because this is ridiculous!! Phew, sorry, it just matters to me.

Closed! Bus stops! We only saw a couple of these, and they seem mighty useful during windy snowy weather. Imagine not having snow blow in your face while you wait for the bus, and instead standing inside a glass-walled structure with some chairs and a screen that tells you which bus is coming next (and how much time it will take to arrive).

UPD: Hand-made bird feeders! Where I live, children make them at school, often out of milk and juice cartons, and hang them on tree branches to keep the birds fed in these cold difficult times. I think it's super wholesome.

Winter is both a darker and a brighter time of the year where I live. The nights are eating away at the day, reducing the time the sun shines on the earth and on us. But that's when people battle the darkness with bright and colourful lights. They illuminate the streets in soft orange-yellows or constantly changing rainbows. And that's also when decorated pinetrees come in.

That giant tree on the plaza, the lights on people's balconies, the "shooting stars" above the alley - all that must take a lot of extra energy, more than the rest of the year. And in a solarpunk world, they'd start a few extra wind turbines, just for the season.

I imagine the airborne wind turbines being lifted into the sky, and each one is lovingly decorated with winter- and holiday-themed art. They can look like funny inflatable holiday trees, like sleighs, have snowflakes painted on them-- heck, they can look like reindeers if you're in that part of the world! And every year, their launches are like a little ceremony, with people gathering around and cheering as the wind turbine floats up into the sky.

Just... be mindful when launching fireworks in your yard. Look around and see if there's a winter wind turbine above first.

I have seen a lot of solarpunks ask about wintery/snowy areas, and I have seen a few posts about it in the solarpunk tags. Here are some things I’ve collected for you:

Whittier, Alaska is a town where everyone lives in one big building. This is a great idea in itself, and I feel like you could play with it a little more. It’s a great way to maintain a community, and I imagine it would also maintain a low environmental impact. Underground cities would also follow along those lines.

Jumping off of that, indoor farming. This farm boasts better productivity than conventional farming! That would be a perfect thing to have in your one-building town, or any town really. 

In places where the sun isn’t seen most of the year, solar energy won’t be of much use, so the main energy creation modes would be wind, waves, and human motion, with algae for light. 

Speaking of light, I think lights would play a big part of the fashion in places where the sun shines infrequently. 

Even incorporate it into accessible design

Or perhaps the citizens could celebrate the surroundings they have, and wear nighttime inspired clothes.

And if they celebrate their environment, of course ice would be included

This post has a lot of important notes about solarpunk fashion that apply here.