SolarPunk Detective is live! ☀
Time for take off fellow solarpunk,
Our first story is now live. Whoop! Whoop! We're also introducing you to a new member of our volunteer team, sailing into a solarpunk sky and more!
Spread the word - SolarPunk Detective Episode One is now live
We're thrilled to say that the first episode of SolarPunk Detective, is now available to buy directly from our website. Hooray!
This public edition features the cover art you see here by the very talented George Grey. It's also now available as a Kindle-friendly Mobi and an ePub.
The money from sales of SolarPunk Detective will go towards the costs of running SolarPunk Stories. It will also help us move faster to releasing more thrilling tales from better futures.
The more you share and encourage others to buy SolarPunk Detective the quicker we can inspire more people to believe a solar punk world is possible.
We want to thank all those who bought the pre-launch edition and gave us feedback on it. Their comments have led to edits on this story, which is the approach we want to continue with, co-creating SolarPunk Stories with you, our community of supporters.
Welcoming Claire to the SolarPunk Stories team
We’re thrilled to say that the brilliant Claire Alexis has become a Storyian. That’s what we call our team of core volunteers who help push SolarPunk Stories forward. You can see more about Claire on our team page.
Claire helps us with all things visual. She’s already updated our logo and formatted every version of Solarpunk Detective. As well as helping make SolarPunk Stories look more beautiful, she's been helping local communities solarpunk it. For more on that see below.
South London solarpunking it
“What if your community could be as green, fair and delicious as you wanted it to be?” - this was the question the people of a South London borough were asked as part of What If Lambeth. Commissioned by the Transition Town Network with funding from the UK’s National Lottery. Claire and I were lucky enough to be heavily involved in its planning and execution.
Over several weeks What If Lambeth (WIL) held a series of visioning workshops as well as asking for submissions around people’s vision for the community they want for 2030. The idea is for the visions to feed into Lambeth’s Citizens’ assembly on climate change. You can see videos of the workshops and some of the amazing artwork arising from them online.
Claire and I loved being part of such a solarpunk aligned project in the place where we come from. Hopefully it will inspire people to grow the change we desire from the street up.
Floating into a solarpunk sky
If you’ve already read SolarPunk Detective Episode One, you’ll know airships have now taken the place of planes as the main way to travel by air.
The idea for this came in part from this great article from 2011. It argued for more sustainable airships as part of a shift in favour of luxuriously slow travel for the many, along with a very high premium for those who want to go fast.
The Guardian recently reported that airships with 90% less emissions than planes could be doing city hops as soon as 2025. Super fun slow travel instead of “twanging around the sky in a metal tube” is also a highlight of this episode of From What If to What Next.
Rob Hopkins talks to friend of SolarPunk Stories, Ed Gillespie, and Anna Hughes, about how a future without any flying at all could be much better than today. Low cost trains with excellent dining cars are one tasty sounding idea.
Debating the culture, economics and art of travel you’d like to see in a solarpunk future is just one of the areas we’re hoping to discuss in our planned Discord channel. If you think you might be up for helping facilitate such conversations with us, then please get in touch by filling out this form.
Help us inspire a better future
We’re looking for more volunteers to help make SolarPunk Stories happen.
We’re especially looking for people to help create social media content for our Instagram, write this newsletter and help facilitate the Discord channel we’ve got planned for our subscriber community.
In return we offer love, glory and the opportunity to help shape the direction of SolarPunk Stories, as well as take part in the occasional party we like to host.
If you think you might be up for volunteering part-time for any of the activities mentioned then please complete this form, or email us directly on solarpunkstories@gmail.com.
Light links
Muhammad Yunis on the need for more ‘social fiction’
A friend of SolarPunk Stories is doing their PHD research project on how people engage with solarpunk digitally. If you can take part by contacting them via their website.
The BBC Food Program asks ‘Is Lab Grown meat key to keeping carbon down or a distraction from the real solution?’
One of the other solutions mentioned in the above is the type of regenerative agriculture championed in this inspiring Netflix documentary ‘Kiss The Ground’.
David Lindo invites us to see and support the incredible variety of birds that London calls home through his site The Urban Birder
The Reasons to Be Cheerful podcasts 200th episode joyfully celebrates all the ways transitioning to a sustainable society can make it fairer too
Move slow and plant things - some awesome people trying to progress permaculture -
Seed Cooperative & Incredible Vegetables.PC Gamer does a round up of games that they think might be solarpunk.
Signing out
That's all for now. Do let us know what you think of this newsletter by hitting reply. If you like what we’re writing here and know someone else who might do too then please forward it (and this sign up link) them so that we can grow the movement. A solarpunk future is possible, if we make it so.
See you in the sunshine,
Alex Holland
Founder
SolarPunk Stories