solarpunk memes

Things just shifted instantly from "nothing needs to be done" to "nothing can be done."

Not just that, it’s a combination of factors. Sustainable thinking, independence, a connection to the world and self and much more.

Using solar panels to power artificial lighting so you can vertically stack farms directly inside cities doesn't make any sense from a sustainability perspective.

But greenhouses in the suburbs that are tied into the city's thermal grid and seasonal thermal energy store is the future of agriculture IMO.

By enclosing fields in greenhouses you decrease the land, water, pesticide, and fertilizer requirements, while also eliminating fertilizer runoff and the possibility of soil depletion from tilling. By tying a greenhouse into a thermal grid the greenhouse can act as a solar thermal collector in the summer while maybe even condensing the water that evaporates through the plants for reuse. Then you can use that same heat to heat homes during the winter or extend the growing season in the greenhouse even further.

https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/storage/world-s-largest-thermal-energy-storage-to-20240409

https://www.dlsc.ca/

https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/heat-storage-for-greenhouses

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152874/a-greenhouse-boom-in-china

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150070/almerias-sea-of-greenhouses

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/netherlands-agriculture-technology/ (Yes I know they use artificial lighting in a lot of these, and yes I know a lot of the value of their agricultural exports comes from flowers, but the point is it's another example of large scale greenhouse use. Also they do still produce quite a bit of food in a small area, in addition to the flowers.)

Initial upfront costs are heavy but you would be saving all of the transport and logistics costs for the lifetime of the facility. Aeroponics are also a lot less resource intense than growing in the dirt.

CO2 emissions of the world excluding China have declined. Chinas emissions did fall in Q2 of this year.

Seriously China has economic trouble, which slows down energy demand growth. The US has run the massive inflation reduction act, which seems to be working somewhat well and Europe was hit hard by the energy crisis reducing emissions in the EU through lower consumption and faster green roll out and Russia as its fossil fuel exports fall. On top of that green technologies like solar panels, wind trubines, electric vehicles, heat pumps and so forth become cheaper all the time. It is certainly possible that we can achieve peak emissions soon.

Whoa, whoa, street-preacher.

No, it's not defeatist to state facts. It's what you do or say immediately after that makes the difference.

Now, we're all feeling the same kinds of stress that would make any of us rattle on like that, and you must know you're not alone or even in the minority with your concern. The majority of people - polls show - want to avoid or to blunt that fate we worry is coming. And with the world swinging a little conservative for a while, it'll be even harder to make the changes now we had to make 20 years ago.

But trust in your fellow person instead of cursing them for indolents when you don't know their situation. If you go off like this at people on the edge of moving from subsistence to again having the opportunity to join you at the protests, you may risk losing them as an ally.

Softly, softly.

It's like praising all the cabin cars getting repainted with eco-friendly paint while the train has already gone off the cliff and is plunging toward the ground.

Interest in solar panels has skyrocketed, and yet at least 50% of the world population won't stop driving ICE cars to work every day any time soon. While the ocean surface temperatures are on an exponential trajectory.

A climate catastrophy with mass deaths is inevitable. I'd be preparing instead of sugar-coating.

And after a few billion humans die, we can deploy solar panels and start living sustainably.

I hate stocks, but I hope yours go to the moon!

Thinking everything is fine leads to apathy. Thinking there's nothing we can do leads to apathy. The correct thought is that it's bad, but we can fix it.

You still need fertilizer and electricity that is less efficient than sunlight to grow indoors.

But somebody once gave terrible math about being able to feed a city from a vertical skyscraper farm and it's been latched onto very hard as a futurism solution.