Episode Summary: If you are listening to this podcast, you are probably a solarpunk. The Solarpunk movement envisions a future where sustainable technologies, renewable energy, and nature-inspired aesthetics coalesce to create vibrant, decentralised communities that prioritise ecological harmony and social well-being.

In this conversation, we are joined by Joe Hines, the co-host of youtube channel ‘Solarpunk Life’ as he discusses various aspects of the solarpunk lifestyle, including : 

• practical examples of impactful everyday actions, 
• the notion of 'never let perfect become the enemy of good enough,' 
• the role of tool libraries and garbage collection,
• being a member of ‘buy nothing’ groups.
• Solarpunk and capitalism,
• the significance of 'choose kindness,'
• and how helping others helped Joe overcome worrying.

Check out Solarpunk Life, Joe’s channel

Other channels on the same topic The Solarpunk Scene and Andrewism

Some books mentioned during the conversation:

Humankind: A Hopeful History

Doughnut Economics

For more information on the project and to order your copy of the Carbon Almanac (one of Amazon best-selling books of the year!), visit thecarbonalmanac.org

Want to join in the conversation?

Visit thecarbonalmanac.org/podcasts and send us a voice message on this episode or any other climate-related ideas and perspectives.

Don’t Take Our Word For It, Look It Up!

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Featuring Carbon Almanac Contributors Leekei Tang, Brian Tormey, Olabanji Stephen and Jenn Swanson.

Leekei is a fashion business founder, a business coach, an international development expert and podcaster from Paris, France. 

Brian is a Real Estate Title Insurance Professional and Goat Farmer in the US. 

Olabanji is from Lagos Nigeria. He’s a Creative Director and visual designer that helps brands gain clarity, deliver meaningful experiences and build tribes through Design & Strategy. He founded Jorney - a community designed to help people stay productive, accountable, and do their best work.

From Langley in British Columbia, Canada, Jenn is a Minister, Coach, Writer and community Connector, helping people help themselves. 

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The CarbonSessions Podcast is produced and edited by Leekei Tang, Steve Heatherington and Rob Slater.

Hi, I'm Ima.

I live in Scotland.

Hi, I'm Jen and I'm from Canada.

Hi, I'm Ola Vanji and I'm from Nigeria.

Hello, I'm Leaky and I live in Paris.

Hey, I'm Rod.

I'm from Peru.

Welcome to Carbon Sessions.

A podcast with carbon conversations for every day with everyone

from everywhere in the world.

In our conversations, we share ideas, perspectives, questions, and things we

can actually do to make a difference.

So don't be shy.

Join our carbon sessions because it's not too late.

Hi, I'm Aji.

Hi, I'm Jen.

Hi, I'm Brian.

Hi.

And hi, I'm Lakey, and today we have a guest for our conversation.

Actually a guest, I've wanted to have on this podcast for a long, long, long

time because, um, this is actually, uh, something I wanted for myself

because, um, I've been learning about climate change and, I've become quite.

I should be depressed, but a little bit anxious about the future.

And, um, and I think it's very easy to get trapped.

It's very tempting to get trapped into the cycle of anxiety, and especially

it has been, uh, it has increased since I've been working on the common arm

neck because, uh, the more you learn about the subject, um, even though , the

message, the main message in the, and the subtitle of the Carbon Armac is,

it's not too late, but still, you know,

. It's very difficult to

get from the outside world.

So, and I think it has worked on somehow on my mental health and I've been

really actively looking for answers for positive answers because deep

down, , I'm a very optimistic person.

So I didn't want to accept the fact that there's only one way of thinking that, um,

, That the future is, uh, is doom and gloom.

And I was really actively looking for a positive answer.

So I've been, I researching on different, on Google trying to

find people that propose something that is a kind of utopia.

And, one day, really one day I found this very beautiful images of, um,

Of this, I don't know, um, if you've ever seen it, but this very beautiful,

um, like gardens in Singapore, which is called Gardens by the Bay, which

is, um, like very, very big trees.

, uh, it's green, it's lush.

It's, it's very positive.

And, um, I read that the architect.

The guy who made this is a solar punk.

And I thought, wow.

Oh, great.

Maybe I am the solar punk.

I've got very interested in this movement and solar punk from my understanding.

And, uh, our guests, will tell us if I'm right or if I'm misunderstood.

, the movement of solar punk, which is solar punk, is an artistic movement

that envisions the future in which technologies are deployed for the

greater good of people and planet.

So I've been fascinated by this and, uh, I've been looking to talk to someone

and I've been looking for someone who is living a solar, punk life.

And here I find Joe, Joe Heines and I was telling him that I found

him on the Facebook group and, um, because Joe has, um, YouTube

channel that is called Saw Punk Live.

So welcome Joe.

Thank you for that introduction.

Yeah.

My name is Joe Hines.

I live in the United States, in the state of Virginia, and I am a solar punk.

I've, I've been trying to live a more solar punk life actively for

the past three years, maybe a little bit longer, but, uh, solar punk was

also something that found me, right?

Like I, I, I was living my normal life trying to do good things.

And then I finally had a friend that shared a mean with me.

And that meme included, uh, talking about the difference between what a

prepper was and what a solar punk was.

And I really realized that I was much more of a solar punk.

And, uh, and so we find a lot of times in, I've been trying with my YouTube channel

to spread the word of what solar punk is and kind of evangelize a little bit.

And we find that a lot of people have the same reaction that they will.

See what a solar punk is.

They see hair defy it.

They go, oh, well I already do a lot of that stuff.

Maybe I'm a solar punk.

And, uh, we, so we get that reaction a lot.

So, you know, welcome to the movement is what I like to say.

And, uh, you're not wrong.

We are all about trying to spread, uh, positive message that

things are, things can be okay.

And that if we all get together and work towards things that we can all together

make, uh, positive changes for the future.

Um, There's a quote out there somewhere that says, everybody likes to think about

TR time travel and going back in time to make some small change and how it affects

the future that we are living in now.

Very few people think about being able to make a small change now and how it'll

affect the future 20 years from now, and yet it's the same power, right?

We don't need a time machine.

We can make changes now.

Joe, that's, that's really exciting.

I'd, I, I feel like there's a chance you're about to have a few more people

formally join your movement, uh, during today's recording session and maybe even

more as our listeners listen, because I, I feel like the vibes you're giving fit

in well with, uh, with what we've been doing with the Carbon Almanac community

and sort of like trying to make change for, for that 20 years and the 200 years.

And the two years, you know, all the different, uh, time Horizons a

absolutely, but, but we believe in the, the part it's not too late.

Um, you know, so let's go, make some change happen.

Um, you know, my first question for you is, can you give us a little bit more

like what define solar punk life for us and some of the main fur listeners today?

Like what are the things that like.

If you weren't dueling solar or punk, like, would be a little bit differently.

Like give a little bit of context of what, what's different, because

you've got this lens on through which you look at your daily, and

I think you hit on the key phrase right there is the, the lens, right?

Because it's not necessarily about what you do, it's more so about how you think

about approaching the world, how you think about approaching your community,

and that impacts the decisions that you make in, in small and big ways.

So small ways, small things that we do to try to live a more solar punk life

is we look at how much waste do we generate in our normal, uh, daily lives,

and how can we minimize that waste?

Do we need to buy that thing?

Maybe not.

Can we prioritize buying things that don't come with as much plastic packaging?

Yes, we probably can't.

Um, my wife and I, you know, we live in a, a single family home.

We have our daughters 14 years old.

Um, we live in suburbia, right?

So we kinda live the average or probably slightly above average

North American lifestyle.

And that means that we're in the top, probably 5% consumers in the world, right?

When you look at, at, uh, waste and energy consumption and whatnot, just

because of the nature of where we are and the lifestyle that we live.

We've kind of inherited a lot of choices from being in this part of America, right?

That you have to have a car to get around, you have to, you know, go to the grocery

store most of the time to get your food.

And that food comes packaged in certain ways.

And so trying to make choices that help minimize that.

Um, buying local food, uh, when you do, when we do our laundry, we get our laundry

detergent from, uh, these, these, um, concentrated laundry detergent strips.

So we skip the plastic bottles, right?

We don't use, um, uh, uh, what is it?

Uh, fabric softener.

We have, uh, wool dryer balls because that cuts down on, on buying things

in waste and makes for reusable.

Um, those kinds of small decisions can make a big impact, and it's not because

I feel like that my family making those choices will save the world, but, If

everybody's family makes those choices, then we'll definitely make an impact.

Um, you can, uh, affect how the economy runs by the choices

you make with your wallet.

Interesting that you say some of these things.

I, I have, uh, young kids myself.

Uh, one of mine is right around the same age as yours just turned 13, and

we were just grocery store shopping.

Together recently and making some decisions around both

what we were buying, right?

The local this, the in season that versus the not in season,

and flown from Philly up here.

Um, and then making some decisions around like, well, okay, do

we need to actually put this?

And we had a very interesting discussion around, like, my

kids were like, no, no, no.

We need to put it in this plastic bag to go check out.

And they're like, no, we don't.

We're gonna, you know, like, no, we don't, we don't need one more little thing.

And, and then the other part, and, and by the way, I'll do a quick shout out here.

Um, our last podcast guest, Seth Goden, just did a post recently for, uh, one

of these companies that does the non, uh, laundry deter detergent bottles,

but instead the little sort of, uh, you know, they're like tabs of paper,

almost like very compressed soap stuff.

And I just signed up for, uh, and, and, and ordered some

directly from the company myself.

And I'm excited to use them, um, and see how they go.

But Sounds great.

So, so I like this lens prospect, right?

And I think a question I've got around as I, as I did a little bit of Googling

about solar p and, and whatnot, you know, some of it seems like there's

some of this, uh, perspective of like, we can make our life perfect, right?

Like this sort of futuristic, like life could be perfect, but it

feels like you're in this knife.

Goldilock zone of applying this idea of we don't have to aim for

perfection to still make change happen.

And can you talk a little bit about how you think about and that, and

like where, how far do you push the envelope in your own decision making

and versus not, versus, you know, like, is it, is it an all or nothing gambit?

Or how do you get comfortable with the middle sound?

I have a quote that I like to bring out periodically.

I'm not sure who to attribute it to, but it's, uh, never let perfect

become the enemy of good enough.

Um, and you know, in my day-to-day career, I'm a software engineer.

If you spend all of your time trying to build the absolutely perfect solution

for things, you waste a lot of time and you never get to deploy that solution.

Um, and so for us, um, We recognize that there are changes that we

won't necessarily be able to make.

We're not gonna be able to become a one car family or ride bikes

everywhere because the environment that we're in, living in suburbia

is not conducive to those decisions.

So we have to be able to accept the decisions that we are not able to make

a change on, and we have to work towards putting ourselves in a position where we

could make those changes if we want to.

I'm very excited that you were talking about, uh, laundry and stuff, cuz I

did a video all about those laundry strips and dryer balls and, you know,

it's very, and and they've even got strips now that you can put into, uh,

a jo uh, a spray bottle full of water and shake it up and you have cleaner.

So there's, there's, um, yeah, there's a local company here in

Vancouver that, that's doing that too.

So it's exciting.

Um, I am interested in what you said about prepper versus solar punk.

At, at the beginning.

And I just wanna know, um, uh, are there similarities you didn't

wanna call yourself that, you know what, what, what's up with that?

Yeah, so part of my journey to get into solar punk was I was looking at things

like the everyday carry movement where you try to have tools with you all the time.

Uh, you know, my background, I was in Boy Scouts and I'm, I'm an Eagle

Scout, and so I like to know things.

I'm, I'm kind of a jack of all trades, right?

I like to carry a pocket knife with me and be able to know enough

about a lot of things to be able to be useful in a lot of situations.

And I had a friend of mine who was also going through, um, training

for Search and rescue and uh, E M T and that kind of stuff.

And so he and I were discussing things and I was thinking about, well, what

can I add to my everyday carryback?

What can I carry with me to be more useful in more situations?

And that naturally drives you towards what you know, the proper community

where people want to be prepared, they want to be able to stockpile food.

And unfortunately, there's also a large contingent of that community,

which is heavily focused on guns and ammunition and building bunkers and

having bug out plans and stuff like that.

And that mentality tends to get kind of toxic, right.

It goes into, uh, toxic individualism where you is like, well, me and my

family, we're gonna go hole up in, in a, in a cabin in the woods and we

have enough food to last six months.

Anybody that comes along, we're gonna shoot them and

we're gonna protect our stuff.

Right.

Uh, and there was this meme that was shared with me, which was, uh, somebody

talking about the same mentality and they said, you know, my husband and I.

Used to think that we were preppers, but it turns out that we are just

really well prepared solar punks.

And this was kind of my first introduction to the concept of solar punk, and what it

comes down to is that solar punks value, community and connection and helping

people and preppers seem to value, uh, Being prepared to, to defend themselves.

And there, there is a crossover there, there's a lot of gray area.

I'm not gonna say that all preppers are bad or anything like that.

Um, but you need some of each, you need people that can be prepared for disaster

scenarios that can go in and do that emergency, uh, protection, you know,

of, uh, from the elements and, and, and build shelters and stuff like that.

But you also need people that can go out and plant the garden that can go out and.

Negotiate, um, different groups, uh, working together and do

that diplomacy side of things.

And I think solar punks tend to be more that direction and you need both

sets of skills really, if you will.

But back to that idea of what is the lens, the lens of the solar punk

is more about building community, helping people out, making sure that

everybody can get through, because we we're all in this together.

There's, there's no planet B right.

Um, yeah, we, we've all gotta be able to get through what's, what's coming

and you know, with the recent news that we were hearing about, uh, what is it,

the two centigrade, uh, temperature rise, it's kind of unavoidable.

Like we're gonna have a lot of stuff coming weather-wise that we're gonna

have to all get through, and it's gonna be much easier if we do it together.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Yeah, we've got major floods happening right now in our province and cities being

evacuated and it's pretty awful right now.

Yeah.

Thanks Joe, for, for the beautiful response.

So I have two questions, right?

And I'm asking these questions for the benefit of our listeners, right?

And so we've been talking about, you know, be becoming a solar pong, and

particularly for people that might want to grid this with caution.

Like, Hey, hey, hey, hold on.

What, what are you guys talking about?

You want to more like indoctrinate me into something or like gimme a break.

This is a whole lot, you know.

Um, but yeah, it's like perhaps a bit about your personal

journey would be helpful, right?

Like what were the triggers that you experienced that made you think that,

well, this is the life that I should be leaving and perhaps I should get other

people to start, you know, you know, sharing the community like you said.

Um, so yeah.

Would you like to talk about that?

Sure, sure.

And, and I, I totally get what you're saying about it.

It can look like it's a radical agenda or it can look like there's indoctrination

or, or something like that going on and, you know, uh, you might throw out the

word evangelism or something like that.

My journey was realizing that I was living a life with a lot of privileges.

I'm a white man in America.

I live in the suburbs.

I have a good paying job.

If I don't do something with that to help other people who are less fortunate, who

don't have as many privileges as I've had, then what the heck is the point?

Right?

And so the thing that I had at my disposal, especially since the creation

of our YouTube channel happened right at the beginning of the pandemic, the

thing I had at my disposal was the ability to buy some video cameras.

And spend my time recording messages and putting them out on the internet

for people to, to consume, to try to spread the acknowledgement that there

are other ways of looking at the world.

Right.

Solar punk.

One of the things with solar punk is that, let's see how, how's it best phrased?

It's easier for us to imagine the fall of civilization than the fall of capitalism.

Um, there is, Uh, a whole lot of media out there.

Um, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic right DOR mentality.

You, you see these movies where we have people that are surviving some natural

disaster by sheer, sheer will and, uh, uh, good luck and, and whatnot.

And that mentality of putting that on screen and having that be.

The inspiration for people's lives is unrealistic.

Unsustainable, right?

Whereas what solar punks would like to see is more media or books,

uh, movies, television shows that have a positive outlook on life.

Uh, one of the, uh, you know, there's a lot of phrases when you,

you come up with when you're trying to convince people about things.

And one of the ones I like to, to remember is when I was taught how to ski.

The skiing instructor said, don't look at the trees.

If you look at the trees, that's where you end up.

You wanna look between the trees, right?

You wanna imagine where we can be, because if we can't imagine a better

future, how are we ever gonna build it?

Um, and so there's, you know, solar punk isn't, uh, it is a very new concept.

Uh, I think the term was actually coined in 2008 in a blog post.

About the beluga, um, sky ship.

There's a, a ship that's pulled by a kite basically.

And there was a blog post about that and the, the, the international shipping be,

you know, vessel that this was in, in fixed a, uh, sky sale and was able to save

20% of its fuel oil, um, for its transit.

And somebody wrote a blog post about it saying, Hey, I pose a new genre

of literature called Solar Pump.

So the term itself is very, relatively speaking new.

And, uh, I think I've lost the thread a little bit here, but, uh, so I'm gonna go

ahead and turn it back over and see if I answered your question, or, or, or not.

Absolutely.

I think you did great.

Um, thanks for, for saying that particularly about the media is

like, well we wanna, we wanna feel people's hearts with hope and.

Let them know that there's a chance for a world without disasters and a world where

we can all just thrive and not be scared about what, what's going to happen next.

And that's, that's beautiful.

You know, especially because there's a lot of media that's heavily funded to push

like a lot of all these other narratives.

But this is beautiful.

Thank you so much.

Beautiful answer, Joe.

Yeah.

If I could just follow up on that.

There's a book that I reviewed for the YouTube channel called

Humankind, A Hopeful History, which is written to highlight, um, the way

that humans are versus the way that humans are presented in the news.

And it goes into a lot of discussions about how, uh, you know,

an automobile accident happens.

And, for example, the automobile goes into a canal.

People will immediately jump into that canal and go and pull people out of

the river, pull people, people they don't know, they'll jump in and risk

their lives and injury to save people because people are inherently good.

But what you see on the news is all of the people who are very, very bad.

And that colors our perspective of the world.

And yes, we're not saying that there aren't bad people out there.

What we're saying is that the good people that are out there

outnumber them dramatically.

Yeah.

And if we can all get that mindset together, we'll be

a little bit less afraid.

We'll be able to talk to our neighbors a little bit more and, you know,

we'll be able to build a better world.

And, and we can go on and on and on about this.

I saw a video where an ambulance was carrying, um, a patient inside it.

It had very limited time to get to the hospital and they

might be losing the patient.

And so they were hitting the horn and was, there was a lot of traffic in front

and people started moving their cars sideways to get the ambulance to pass.

And it was such a heartfelt, it was so beautiful to see that a ton of people

would just drive a little, just a few inches to the right and to the left.

And they, they were creating space for, for the ambulance to pass and.

Well, maybe the bad people want us to think that they outnumber us, but

Well, yeah, they're actually a lot of good people, and that's beautiful.

And, and that leads to my second question.

Um, Joe, you know, in, in your journey as a solar punk, what are some of the things

that you've seen that has fueled you with so much hope and made you feel like,

well, yeah, I'm doing the right thing.

Um, or some of the things that have really been encouraging to you, maybe

an app or something someone did, or a company or a startup or whatever.

What, what did you see or have you learned that made you feel like, well, yeah,

this is, this is the best thing to do?

Uh, that's, that's a tough question.

Um, one of the things that I started doing after I got into solar punk,

With my, with my wife and, and with my co-host on the channel, Jason, as we

started building bags of supplies that we could keep in our cars so that we can

give to people who are unhoused, right.

Give to homeless people that we see on this, on the road, because

I was driving home from work.

Wow.

And I would see people continuously standing in the median, and I,

I never had anything for them.

So I was thinking about what could I every day carry for myself.

And I thought, well, what if I could give somebody else that security as well?

And so we started building these and we, you know, put in things that you

wouldn't think of, uh, shoelaces, you know, toothbrush, toothpaste, right.

And the bag itself ended up costing us, I don't know, 15 to $30 depending on how

you did the math and what we put on in it.

Um, and then I just kept them in my car.

And when I was driving, I would see somebody and I would open the door

and I would hand them this bag.

And this one guy was standing in the, standing in the rain wearing a trash

bag, and the, the light had turned red.

So I had the time to talk to him.

I handed him the bag, and he, he just started crying, uh, because somebody

had taken the time to think about making his life a little bit better.

Um, and again, this is the height of the pandemic.

A lot of people had lost their jobs, right?

Um, People frequently will look at, at least in America, they'll

look at homeless people and they'll think it was a moral choice that

these people chose to be this way.

Right.

Most people, I think like 60% of the people in America are

living paycheck to paycheck.

Hmm.

If you lose your job in America, you lose your healthcare, you lose your

money, you chances are you lose your house at least for a period of time.

And if that bag helped that person get through one day, like.

That's great.

And, and just seeing his reaction and, and then being able to, and at first I

didn't tell anybody I was doing this.

I just like, this is something I just need to do for myself.

I'm not trying to make hay off of this.

I'm not trying to, to pat myself on the back and say like, Hey, you know, you've

earned the brownie points or whatever.

So I was, I was very hesitant to tell anybody about doing this.

Um, that video that I made about that is our most watched

video on YouTube right now.

It's been watched like 300 hours.

Um, wow.

And we've had a number of people write in and say, thank you for

sharing that you did this because now I'm gonna go do this too.

And, uh, I didn't realize that I could make this kind of an impact.

Right.

So there's, you know, at least a dozen people out there in the world who've been

directly impacted by the videos we made because somebody made a bag and took it

to them and helped them through one night.

And I think that's, you know, may not be measurably a very large

thing, but I think that is, yeah.

One thing that keeps me going.

I think that's beautiful.

I love that.

Yeah, I think that's beautiful.

Uh, you know, someone was asking on a podcast and I think, um, Seth alluded to

this in his chat with, um, Simon Sinek and they were talking about kindness.

Um, and what I learned from that is like, Well, kindness people might be

like, what do I get for being kind?

But in most cases, kindness is its own reward, right?

Like act is the reward for you being kind in in many cases.

And thank you so much for, for doing that.

I think that's a beautiful thing.

And I'm gonna go watch the video as well, um, and share it.

And, and I'll just say that there are people that will tell you that.

Just because kindness is its own reward.

That that means is not altruistic.

Right.

That, that, because it has inherent goodness, means that you're

getting something out of it, which means you're not doing it.

Altruistically like, and I tell those people that, you know, they can go take

their ideology and run somewhere else with it because you know, you know, yeah.

I'm not getting monetarily rewarded for being kind to people.

Right.

And I am getting some joy out of it.

But ultimately that comes from helping people.

And if you don't feel good about helping people or you don't feel good

about other people helping people, then you need to readjust your priorities.

That's, that's true.

That's true.

Um, thank you Joe.

This is awesome.

I, I love hearing this.

My, my brother came and lived in New York City with me for a number of years,

and he, He's, I think he and I both grew up in that same kind of, uh, space

you're in, sort of the, the Boy Scouts be prepared, all that kind of stuff.

And one of the things he did while living in New York that I've adopted myself,

was always having granola art in his bay so that, you know, as Panhandle

lived Bath or something, he'd, you know, he would just always had the go-to.

And, uh, I, I, but I even more alone, the idea of the sort of like, Even more

well packaged thing, like in your, in your briefcase, you could only carry

granola bar on a, but in my car I could have a whole, I could step out

and be like, here you go for my trunk.

Yeah.

I love that.

I'm, uh, you, you just got one more convert.

Well done.

Yeah.

Um, well, the other thing about it too, that we used to talk about in

the video and, and is that it, it also serves as a backup for yourself if

you get a in, if your car breaks down.

You've got a granola bar now, then you can wait out for the tow truck, right?

Yeah.

Well, I, right, I've gotten that bag.

But I, I, I like the idea of having a bag in that bag.

I've also got things that I don't know that I want to hand for that purpose.

Right.

Um, the, the question I would've ask next is like, How, how does one, how do our

listeners, how do I, I'm, I'm excited.

Like, where do I go to learn more about this and start having conversations

about this in my community?

I'm, I probably fall into that category.

Like I've always, I grew up on a rant.

I like being prepared.

I'm a boy scout leader now, and, and having, and being ready.

You know, I, I hearken back to their, I've got some, some of my extended family

is in the Mormon faith part of the dick.

The faith is to be very well prepared and to have food and, and things,

and it is from a community, and I think we would all be better served

the more prepared everyone is.

Should there be a net for disaster?

Could there be, you know, any kind of thing, right?

Whether that's flooding or fire, famine, whatever it is.

We're all better certain if we have resources that we've docked up during

the times when everything was working to turn and share with those around us.

So give us, give me and our listeners here, like some tips

on like, where do I go next?

Like what's, where do I go learn more about this.

Like I know you've got a great website in YouTube panel.

What are some of the beyond going there and which we'll put

in the show notes for everyone.

Please go click those links and, and follow Joe on YouTube

and check out his website.

There's, where else do we go?

What's next?

There's a couple of other good YouTube channels, uh, that I'd like to highlight.

There's the solar punk scene, which a friend of mine, Lindsay Jane, uh,

runs and, and she started her channel about the same time we started ours.

And, uh, one thing that is kind of a funny interaction is, you know, you

would think that we might be competing for, uh, eyeballs on YouTube, but

we, we became very symbiotic and, and propped each other up and whatnot.

There is a Facebook group called Solar Punk, uh, which has

about 16,000 members right now.

And, uh, I'm one of the admins of that group.

Lindsay is also one of the admins of that group.

So we try to keep that one fairly well moderated.

Uh, make sure that the posts that are made there are on topic and are, uh, you

know, of, of the right positive message and we make sure that the discussions

are, are fair and, and respectful.

I would have to say it's probably one of the better run large

Facebook groups, um, that there is.

I would also, uh, like to shout out to the YouTube channel called, uh, Andrew.

Um, he's, uh, I, I, I don't know him personally, but he's, I think from the

Caribbean, uh, somewhere, and he's got a lot of, uh, different perspectives

that are, are very, very, very valuable.

Since he comes from a different part of the world and has different points

of view, um, his channel is much more, uh, anti-capitalist and um, you

know, , child positive and and whatnot.

And so I would suggest, you know, those sources, but I would also suggest looking

into things like buy nothing groups.

Um, I'm a member of my buy nothing group in my area.

And, uh, a buy nothing group is where you can trade things, you

can offer things up for free.

That you no longer need and you can ask for things that you might

want, that you want to avoid buying.

And so it's a community, it's a very small community trading network.

Um, and we've had a lot of good success in our area with things.

Um, and so that's a, a group that doesn't know it's solar punk, but,

but kind of is, um, because it's, you know, it's not even a barter economy.

It's not, I'll trade you this for, for that.

It's here.

You can have this as a gift.

Um, and everything in there, I have seen everything traded from, uh,

you know, uh, furniture to cardboard boxes, um, that are, you know, to

food that's coming up on expiration or that their kids no longer like to eat.

Right.

And they've also been group groups within that group that have organized

things like food drives for making sure that people get, you know, fed or,

or a new family moves into the area.

We had some asylum seeking families move into the area.

And they didn't have anything.

And so the groups would band together and make sure that they got, you know,

bedding and, and furniture and food and would help them get started in the area.

So that's an excellent resource.

I also run a tool library out of my house, and I'll just throw out the

word tool library there, because essentially what what we do is

we borrow tools from each other.

We lend tools to each other to avoid.

Everybody owning the same hammer that they keep in the drawer

and they use one time a year.

Right?

You know, not everybody in the neighborhood needs to own a circular

saw if you're only gonna use it three months out of the year.

So, uh, one of the big tools that we share around is a post hole digger.

How many of the times are you po digging a hole in your yard that

you need to own a post hole digger?

So we own the post Hope digger and it gets moved around

whenever people need it, right.

Um, and that then puts less resource, uh, needs on those tools having to be

made and less resource on the people that need to spend money on them.

Keeps money in the community, keeps circular economies going around.

Uh, we also have a little free library that we run where it's

books just sitting on our porch in a nice, sheltered, uh, case.

And people can come up and just take a book, leave a book,

whatever they want to have.

So there's a lot of organizations out there or movements out there

that are solar punk adjacent, you know, solar punk aligned without even

knowing that they're solar punks.

And I would say other than that, just find other like-minded people in your

area because they're there and they may not know the word solar punk.

And if you tell them the word solar punk, it's almost like a virus, right?

It spreads.

People search and they find 'em, they go, well, you know what?

I already do a lot of this.

Maybe I am a solar punk, and you guys are all nodding your

heads, so I know that you're all thinking the same thing right now.

I I, I mean, Joe, you're, you're like hitting on so many of

these notes in my current light.

Right.

We've got a big free, we call it pre cycle.

Yep.

Right in, in our group and we've got a big whatever going on, and we do many of those

same things we were just talking about.

And the tools sharing and both where I grew up and, and here where I live

now, like clutch, like you, you don't want to go buy this piece of equipment.

Like I'm a big laborer in the, how many times do you need a three inch hole saw?

I mean, really?

Yeah.

Right, right.

Like not frequently.

Not frequently, you know.

And um, so we're at another day and time, we gotta go deeper cause I've got some

thoughts on like how to make that fair resource economy and, and free cycling.

Like, but the library concept even more like, I wanna talk

with you more about that.

Absolutely.

But that's for another day today.

I'm gonna hand you over to leaky because I think he's got some follow

up questions on that, Andrew and the capitalism side of things.

Well, yeah, actually this is a question.

Um, I could ask, , the owner of the Andrew channel, but I think you can answer as

well because you mentioned by nothing, uh, you mentioned, you know, tool library.

One of the question I am, I'm asking myself is, , is it, being a

solar punk and an anti-capitalist, you know, do I have to be

anti-capitalist, reject capitalism?

If I'm a solar punk, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to limb and say, absolutely

a hundred percent you have to.

Um, now that doesn't mean that you can't acknowledge the fact that

you live in a capitalist society.

Right.

You cannot individually get away from capitalism anywhere

in the world right now, period.

Full stop.

But you can start to chip away at it, right?

You can start to chip away at it by buying less, by sharing more, right?

By valuing different things than what capitalism values, right?

By setting up the next generation and the generation after that

to be more of that mindset.

And, uh, you know, there's, there's a phrase, and this phrase is used,

uh, both negatively and positively.

It's that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism.

And a lot of people will view this as a way to say, well, I give up then if I, if

I, if I'm stuck in capitalism, why bother?

I'm just gonna go ahead and buy that new car this year, and I'm gonna

take that trip and, and whatnot.

But what no ethical consumption in your capitalism really means is that there are

choices you're not gonna be able to make.

And you have to not beat yourself up over those.

You have choices you can make.

Do the best that you can to make the better choices.

You're not gonna be able to make perfect choices, but make the better choice.

Um, and that's really what it comes down to.

Do what you can with what you've got.

Um, Especially if you have extra privileges, if you're not hindered by,

you know, being a person of color, right?

If you're not hindered by being female, if you're not hindered by

being, uh, an immigrant, if you're not hindered by being poor, or a

combination of all those things, right?

The intersectionality of it all, you know, as I said earlier on, as a white

man in America, living in the suburbs, I wasn't hindered by any of those things.

And so I have to then spend extra time making better choices

or else I would feel absolutely terrible about, you know, my life.

Um, so don't look down on other people who can't make the same choices as you.

Um, it is cheaper to feed yourself with, uh, unhealthy food in America than it

is to feed yourself with healthy food.

It is cheaper to buy the fast food than it is to drive a little bit extra

distance to go to the farmer's market.

It's cheaper to have the car, um, when you look at total transit time

to get to work than it is to ride a bike or, or ride public transit.

Um, and those are all decisions and trade-offs that you have to make.

But the mindset needs to be anti-capitalist.

The mindset needs to be sharing more.

It needs to be tearing down systems of oppression that affect people that are.

Um, not as well off as you are, and you have to, I think to be a solar

punk, you absolutely have to listen to other people who have different

opinions and incorporate their ideas into your mindset as well.

Um, a bit of a divergence.

There, there is a parallel, um, literary genre or, or art

movement called Afrofuturism.

Which is it, it's not an umbrella, it's not under solar

punk, but they overlap a lot.

Um, and in aesthetic they overlap a lot.

And so I, I wanted to mention that specifically because it's, it's important

that I identify, uh, that there are other perspectives out there other than mine.

I'm not the end, end person.

Just tell you what solar punk is.

I could tell you what solar punk is for me.

So make sure you expand your horizons beyond your normal.

Bubble get, get outside of that.

And unfortunately, we're all caught in this capitalism bubble and it's

really, really hard to look outside of it and imagine a better way.

My, my gut response is to, y'all preach it as a

counts a lot as a preacher saying that, one more book I wanted to make sure

to mention today was Donut economics.

Uh oh.

Yeah.

And go.

Leaky, you've got it on your shelf.

Within Reid, within Read.

Oh my goodness.

There you go.

Yeah.

And then I hit, I also have it in French Uhhuh.

Nice.

Great.

Jon.

Economics is a new way to look at the economic systems of the world.

A new way to measure things that's more than just gdp.

Capitalism is all about which country has produced the most.

I'm the runner.

Uh, number one.

Hooray.

Um, but if you only measure yourself by gdp and you don't take into account

things like literacy, child mortality, uh, access to, um, public transit, clean

air, natural resources, it's, you know, fair judgment under the law, um, uh,

uh, equal rights regardless of gender.

Um, you know, uh, Solar punk is, I think also a, you know, inherently supports

the non-binary agenda that is out there.

We support lgbtqia plus, et cetera.

Um, and so Don of the economics is a way of measuring more than

just the one thing and is also inherently happening anti-capitalist.

And I think also solar punk, even though I doubt the author actually

has heard those terms, but at least has turned heard of solar punk.

She say that, you know, she, she actually, , she wrote this book and she got interested

in writing this book and working on the donor economics because, um, when she was

learning, um, economics at universities, she realized that she doesn't want to

think about growth and mean, the growth doesn't reflect what is important in life.

So that's why she started working on this topic.

Yeah.

And to measure growth.

With the assumption that resources are infinite and growth can happen forever.

Yes.

When you're living in a finite planet with finite resources is just insane, right?

So we've been living in an insane society economically, at least.

So if you're going to try to save the future of human life on the planet,

because let's be frank, the planet will keep going on whether we're here or not.

Yeah, if you're gonna save the future of human life on the planet,

you have to be anti-capitalist.

You have to turn towards systems that are regenerative, cyclical, and sustainable.

I did a, um, a series, I am a pastor.

I did a series at church one year called um, holy Currencies, and we

talked about all of the currencies.

And the last one was money.

So we talked about the currency of friendship and we talked to the

currency of leadership and we talked about all these different currencies

that are just an exchange of energy and had different speakers in,

and it was, so, it sounds similar.

I'm gonna get that book and, and take a, take a read.

Um, my question for you is, uh, cuz you're singing my song here, I just,

we could talk forever, I think.

But, um, my question is, what's your invitation?

What do, what is your invitation?

To our listeners, to us, to the world.

Um, when you're, when you're, when you're inviting people

into this, choose kindness.

Uh, pick something that you can do today that will make

somebody else's life better.

Um, pick something that you can achieve and accomplish to produce less waste.

To leave a better world for the next people.

Right?

Uh, the, the, uh, to go back to more, more phrases and,

and, and catchphrases, whatnot.

Uh, the person that plants the tree rarely enjoys the shade, right?

So plant some trees today, right?

The, the best time to plant the tree is 20 years ago.

The next best time is today.

And, and that's not just metaphorical.

Go out and plant a tree.

Um, uh, there's all this discussion about carbon capture technology.

And people building these massive machines to consume a lot of

energy, to try to bring carbon out of the, out of the atmosphere.

Um, trees do that.

Trees pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

The, the mass of a tree is made out of the atmosphere.

It's not, doesn't come from the soil, it doesn't come from the

water, it comes from the atmosphere.

So if you plant trees, you will literally be sequestering carbon.

Um, and.

That brings us back to, I think, your book, right?

The Carbon Almanac.

I think they would tell you, I, I have a copy of it now.

I haven't read it yet, but I think the book would tell you

to go out and plant trees.

So yeah, I think that's my, my invitation is choose kindness,

choose uh, sustainability, make better choices when you can, and

don't beat yourself up when you can.

Thank you.

That's so well said, Joe.

I think, I think the, um, choosing kindness and taking care of people and,

and I wanna stick with that, like pre both metaphor and literal example for a second,

are doing something that's like making the world better, both in the future, right?

And again, whether it's a, it's a metaphorical version of Planet Tree

or literally, um, But also the joy of doing it yourself probably leads

to you enjoying that joy and probably doing more of those things, right?

And then the, now the third layer is, and someone probably hears you talk

about it or sees you do it, and then it probably influences them, right?

And you get that sort of like you're just one ripple stone in the water.

But then, The cascading movement starts to, you know, snowball

under the word into other.

So I'm really excited to go.

I, I feel like I want like a solar punk stamp so I can go around and when I'm

talking to people and we have a similar conversation, I could just like, pull

out their arm, like stamp them with, you know, not tattoo permanently, but like,

just sta be like, you're a solar punk.

And like, and just have them be like, what I am and be like, yes you are.

Just go look it up.

You'll tell me you'll confirm later.

Right.

So like, I, I feel like I'm gonna.

Or I'm just gonna start writing on people's arm.

You're a solar pump.

After we have a conversation and they tell me that they, they

basically write, get consent.

Um, so I want, but I wanna talk about the tree thing for a second.

There was this tidbit of, of this little thing I just read and I

grew up raising cattle and trees.

I grew up on a big timber farm slash catalent and somewhat, there's this

little article, I think it might have been in Popular Mechanics that

talked about like this plant, and you can plant a plant in just water.

And it grows, and it, it had boiled down to how much of that plant,

like the structure, the thing we see, it all came out of the air.

None of it came from the water, right?

Like there's such a fractional amount of nutrients and things

like are coming from the water.

The water's part of the process, right?

It's like the, it's moving through the system, the

physicality of the plant, right?

All.

Came from the air principally like only, so a tiny amount comes from the soil.

And in fact most plants are essentially putting back into the soil and building

up carbon sequestration that, and that's something that I think like we don't think

about probably then it just, it either way you said like go plant a tree and

carbon sequestration like really is in our power to go do a lot of that stuff.

And I think that's also this like wonderful.

To now use that and take it back to a metaphor from the

top of our conversation, right?

That little laundry sheet versus the big old jug of laundry detergent, there's

a whole different level of like, not carbon capture, it's like carbon non

create, but carbon dioxide, non create than captured in just that little thing.

And it, every time you're using one little tab versus a big jug, you're

moving the needle every single time.

It's like, and there, and then I tie this back to the dollar

saved as a dollar a penny.

Saved as what?

What's the phrase?

Penny saved As?

A penny earned.

Yeah.

A penny saved as a penny earned.

Or a dollar saved as a dollar earned.

Better to not go.

Like create the carbon dioxide, then have it be in the ecosystem

and then need to sequester it later.

Cause it does take a while for that plant.

Yes.

Right.

So anyway, I just wanna wrap a couple of those things together that to me

and my brain are feeling so connected.

Yeah.

And I think there's, you know, the, the common phrase that people

hear re reduce, reuse, recycle.

A lot of people just hear, recycle the last of the three.

Reduce is more important.

It's reduce comes first, right?

If you consume less, You have less that you need to recycle.

Uh, there's, there's a guy that I, uh, am friends with, uh, on the internet

and he regularly posts about how little waste he's got, and he measures it

in by how many weeks it has taken for him to take the trash can to the curb.

Wait, is this Joshua's VOD weeks?

Uh, no.

No.

Is is, oh, okay.

No, just a, a person that I know and he, he and his wife, uh, For various

reasons have reduced their consumption.

Part of it is because they lost jobs and so they had to make do with less.

And so they would go out and they would buy, instead of buying, you

know, uh, frozen meals, they would go buy a whole chicken, right?

And then they would use that chicken as much as they possibly could.

They would, you know, use the meat.

They would then make broth, et cetera, and buy making choices where they

were, um, consuming less packaging.

They ended up having less waste in their trash can.

And also, by the way, you're paying for that packaging.

Absolutely.

If you're not gonna use it for something, then it's something that you've wasted.

Uh, whether or not you, you think you are, you've, you've,

you've paid for that packaging.

Um, but then specifically about the laundry detergent as well, think about how

heavy a bottle of laundry detergent is and how heavy one of those laundry sheets is,

or even the envelope of laundry sheets is.

And how much fuel was expended to ship it to the store and to get it to your house.

Right.

You're all, you're saving in so many ways by switching to those laundry sheets.

It's, it's, it's ridiculous.

Wow.

Well, eventually you'll have a question.

Um, Yeah, I do more, more like a comment and thank you so much, Joe.

This has been a, an insightful session and my comment was more like, so over a

number of episodes we've had a chat about systemic change and personal change, um,

but mostly in favor of systemic change.

It's like, well, that gets us there faster.

Um, but hearing all the beautiful things that you said about solar punk

is like, well, there might actually be a system to personal change as well.

Right?

This sort of brings the system idea to bear in, in a way, and

I think that that's beautiful.

Um, do you have any final words, anything you might want to say?

I know you've said a lot of really good points, um, and I can probably

pick like 10 final words from all the answers that you've given.

Uh, you know, like reuse, re reduce, reuse, and recycle.

You know, it's a lot of beautiful things you've said.

Um, but for the fun of it, do you have any final words you'd like

to, to leave the audience with?

Oh, man.

Um,

well, I will also say thank you for having me on.

Uh, this has been absolute good journey.

I, I, uh, I'm always learning myself and I think that's, Part of

what you need to do is go out and find your path to a better future.

And if it helps to read some books to give you inspiration for what

the world can be like, do that.

There are solar punk books that are out there.

Um, check out, uh, authors like Ursula, Caleb, wy, um, uh, uh, Eric, uh, uh,

Eric Colin back had an ecotopia that was written back in 1970 something.

Which while some of the book itself is dated, a lot of the ideas are not, um,

look at, uh, ministry for the future.

Uh, which, uh, is a, is a good book.

The author's name is escaping me right now cause I'm bad at

names, so I apologize for that.

Um, there are a lot of good books out there that are already starting

to present a solar punk future.

Some of them you have solar punk in the title, but some of them were written

before solar punk was even conceptualize.

So if you search for the internet, you say solar punk books, you'll get a nice list.

Um, start there.

Start by imagining things that are better, uh, and, and then go and pick

that one thing and spread kindness.

Yeah, I think, I think, um, that's the best way to end this episode.

Spread kindness.

It's, it's been an absolute delight having this chat with you.

And I can't wait to do it again.

And I think I speak for everyone.

Right.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

Wanna have more Soong chats with you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much Joe for joining us.

Yeah.

Make sure you get Lindsey Jane on here at some point.

You know, I reach out to Andrew, uh St.

Andrew and see if you can get them onto, I'm happy to come back in the time.

You guys will.

Absolutely.

We'll, thank you so much.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thanks Joe.

Thank you.

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