*headdesk*

i

Also No Mow May is a UK-based initiative to encourage native wildflowers found in lawns here. It doesn't really work in the US because commonly introduced lawn plants are often not native and therefore offer no benefit to being left to flower!

Unfortunately for Mr Prime Minister Piss, this name change came back to haunt him after he was denied a passport a few years later due to the name. This led to this quite incredible entry into Australia's case law that is still frequently cited today:

Unfortunately for Pisso, the court ruled that the government was right to deny him a passport, on the grounds that the phrase "Prime Minister" might be considered by some to be offensive.

And this quote from Time magazine:

So we looked it up and yes, it was indeed the 'Dane' recording studio owner who attempted to stage a fascist uprising in Melbourne (of all places) in the 90s.

This was the last update we could find on him in the news, sounds like he's doing well for himself:

I want more content (and maybe I'll have to start doing more in depth research and making the content myself) on how we can take existing infrastructure and convert it to be more solarpunk. How we can take one of the lanes in a multilane road and make it into something specifically for public transportation, be it busses or, perhaps, trains. How we can take a neighborhood and make it more communal, make it more energy efficient as a whole, make it more supportive of the community within it, without building a new neighborhood instead.

How to take existing buildings and make them better for people and the environment. How to open a food co-op in a building that used to be a fast-food restaurant but has been vacant for years. How to start a community garden greenhouse project in a different building that has been vacant for as long as you can remember. How to make public parks more then just fields with a playground a few trees here and there.

Made this post about 15 minutes after the repair guy who fixed the pump on my dishwasher packed up his tools and left, as the dishwasher was whirring along doing my dishes from that morning.

I don't mean you can't get good at things through repeated practice. You can do that, I have done that, but I don't trust it.

I was driving this morning and thinking about how I have never developed the blasé contempt for it most people seem to despite never having caused an accident in 20 years because my sense of time is such that I might as well have been driving for a week. I'm a good, safe driver, but I do not have a heap of confidence in my driving despite having regularly done it for two decades because my sense of time is such that those two decades may as well not have happened.

I finished editing a novel today. When I publish it, it will be the 64th novel I have published in the last 10 years, not counting ghostwritten work. You'd think after a decade and 63 novels I'd be confident that I was capable of writing, editing, and publishing a novel—even be confident about the timeline for this—but no. No, I feel like I'm doing it for the first time, every time, and I was surprised to have finished the editing at all, let alone on time. Because those other 63 novels were published in a past I have a vague at best concept of. I have a record that says it happened but I do not feel it.

I cannot trust my future behaviour because for me there is functionally no past. I know it occurred, I have records, but I don't feel it the way people without this kind of memory issue do. I feel inexperienced at everything I've ever done and I cannot accurately estimate my skill level at anything, particularly not on the fly.

Okay, as I am currently Solarpunk posting, let me talk about the topic that in regards to Solarpunk actually is worth critiquing. If you actually - you know - do interact with the community and the stories.

Because here is the thing: Solarpunk as a genre generally tends to be actually quite good about most of the base infrastructure. Most writers in the genre do actually think about how energy is produced and how the associated supply lines work. They think about how food infrastructure works. And how people get around. And how the internet works. They also do seem to have some thoughts at least about how waste management works - though admittedly that is often a bit less thought out other than "renewable materials" and "recycling". Not perfect in that area, but... at least some thought is there.

No, the big issue is health - and disability care.

Look, I am a disabled person myself. I cannot walk long distances on my own. I struggle with stairs. And I need to take 12 different medications. 9 of them daily, the other three in weekly or biweekly intervals. I need to see specialist doctors at least once a month - usually more often. And frankly: I still actually am still more abled than a lot of other people. I can still work. I can still travel with fairly little preparation. I can still do fun stuff without needing to overthink it. And while I do need my medication: I will survive if I am without any single one of them for a week. All of them for a week gone would be an issue. But some of my medications are at times hard to get due to international supply chains and... that is fine. I can live through that.

But others can not.

And this is an issue that a lot of Solarpunk stories just do not consider.

Accessibility in Solarpunk Worlds

So, here is one of the core issues: when most people hear "accessibility" they first and foremost think of wheelchairs, hard of hearing people, and blind people. And that is of course only a small fraction of people who are actually disabled.

We are on tumblr, so chances are y'all have been told about this just a bit. You likely know that people in a wheelchair usually can walk to some degree but might struggle with balance, or exhaustion, or other issues. Some people might be in a wheelchair on some days, and not on others.

You might also know that people with autism and ADHD and other neuro differences might just need environments that are not as bright, not as loud, and so on.

But chances are that other than this... you do not know much. And it is not your fault. It really is not. Because this is just not taught. And currently a lot of people kinda try their best to fully "other" the disabled people. So you do not think of disabled people as people who are largely "functioning" as society expects them to.

But yeah. Disability can have a lot of faces, and even the same disability can look completely different in different people.

You know. Not everyone likes to use wheelchairs. Not everyone who has lost a limb wants to use prothesis. Not everyone who is hard of hearing finds hearing aids useful. Not everyone with ADHD profits from medications.

And then there is the other big issue: cars.

Because a lot of Solarpunk conversation rightly criticize cars and the car centric infrastructure we have. But the issue is if we do not have car accessible infrastructure it also means that ambulances cannot access a lot of areas. And... those are kinda important.

And of course there also is just the additional bit that while I absolutely think that we should finally get away from car centric infrastructure. But some people will just need cars of some form. Because for one reason or another public transport, bikes and the like will not be working for them. And this is an issue that a lot of people engaging in Solarpunk just do not want to admit.

Petrochemicals and Medication

And then we have that one big issue. And that is petrochemicals.

Right now a lot stuff in our society is in some way or form tied to petrochemicals. So to oil. We take the oil out of the earth for fuel, but as we only use some part of it for the fuels, some part for plastic, and some parts for... other stuff.

And some of this other stuff is medications.

A lot of medications on the market right now go back to some chemicals that originates with the petrochemical industries. And some of those chemicals we right now cannot produce without earth oil being involved at some point.

No, this is not all medications of course. There is a bunch of stuff that is largely done without petrochemicals involved. Stuff that might be produced by fungi, bacteria, or - we have to remember that - genemanipulated animals. But even those medications currently at times still need some solvents or other materials either to work, or to be stabilized for longer than a few days.

And of course a lot of other things related to medicine are super dependent on Petrochemicals. Syringes are made of plastic. A bunch of other stuff is as well. And while for those maybe we might at some point be able to recycle that stuff into a good quality - but right now we are actually not able to do that.

A lot of people who disagree with anarchism or Solarpunk keep saying that the issue is somehow related to people no longer caring for disabled or sick people. But generally, I do not think it is a problem. Humans always have been taken care of one another. Medical jobs tend to be generally the kind of job people like doing - or would like doing if they were not constantly overworked and underpaid.

But one issue we need to keep in mind is... that we still will need to pump oil for the time being. Because otherwise people will die due to no longer being able to access life saving medication.

The Invisibility of Disabilities

One of the core issues with all of this is - of course - that disabilities tend to be treated like invisible within even progressive circles. Everyone is kind of aware that disability exists, but people who are not themselves affected often will just straight up ignore anything that goes past wheelchairs, blind and hard of hearing people.

Often enough, even among leftist people, there is also the narrative about "We will just heal everyone for good", not realizing that a) this is very unlikely, and b) that this is actually eugenicist ideology.

In Solarpunk people tend to actually think about most other infrastructure. Food, information, energy, water. That tends to be taken care of. But medical infrastructure? Infrastructure for emergencies? That is often the kind people do not think about enough.

And again: yes. It is highly likely that if we had a world in which we were not working ourselves to death, where we are not constantly stressed, where our basic needs are being taken care of, and where we have community, a lot of acquired disabilities would be more rare. We know that people who have community and less work stress will be much, much less likely to develop cancer or heart disease.

But there are still disabilities that will be there from birth. There will still be disabilities in old age. People will still have accidents. And people will still suffer infectious diseases. And yes, some people will still have cancer and stuff.

So, ideally any Solarpunk story should account for that. And for how they are supposed to get care, and medication, and pretty much anything else needed to survive.

Do you live in our nation’s fair capital of Washington DC? If not, were you planning on traveling there this weekend to watch the annual Fourth of July festivities and fireworks on the National Mall? Great! Have fun! Take the usual precautions. Stay hydrated — the District’s heat and humidity in the summer are no joke! Don’t drink and drive. The crowds might be overwhelming, so be kind and patient with others. Particularly the public servants trying to keep things moving — they are giving up their holiday so you can enjoy yours!

Finally, wear a respirator at all times, as if you were spraying your house for termites or mining minerals on an asteroid. Wait, what?

Yes, wear a respirator. Because according to the Washington Post, the massive fireworks display is expected to produce so much air pollution that the National Park Service itself suggests — in internal documents because why actually warn the public of the danger — people “remain indoors as much as possible during and after the show.”

Apparently the levels of the type of particulate that’s the biggest concern are projected to be between about 60-120 TIMES the acceptable level, and those particulates could persist for three to six hours post finale. The National Park Service is recommending N95 masks while outdoors and the use of HEPA filters indoors.