What if growing your own plants doesn’t interest you as a hobby? Surely there must be a place in a solarpunk society for people who don’t want to be farmers.
Of course! Just like our current society, lots of people are needed to make thing run smoothly. Just off the top of my head: clothing repair and upcycling, woodworking, tool librarian, mechanics of all kinds, people to keep everything organized, storytellers, cooks, care for anyone who needs it (children, elderly, disabled) solar techs, plumbers, electricians… I was expecting to run out of ideas but I didn’t and now my thumbs are tired.
This makes me so happy because at least half of the things in community sufficiency column are things I see happening in my city. Saw a flier for a fermentation course recently as well as general veg growing, not to mention the community gardening initiative where people plant edible plants in public spaces. I still need to find a day I can help out with that one. Then we have a local mattress store that sells bespoke and/or handmade mattresses for affordable prices, and specifically employs disabled folk so they can be paid a living wage while upskilling. Then there’s the tool library that’s saved many a DIY project of mine…
I live in a chronically underfunded part of Scotland. In the past i lived in an underfunded part of England. Don’t get me wrong, no city should be underfunded to start with, that’s a government crime imo. But the Scottish city took underfunding and went “fuck the government, we have each other” while the English city just kept crumbling.
All of this said not to brag, but because it proves that this shit can work, does work, and is working. And i find that inspiring.
Nobody in history has ever been self sufficient for eggs. You need a chicken for that.
For what value of “self sufficient” does this apply? Most people simply don’t have the land required to obtain anything in that column. Even acquiring enough water to drink is quite impossible for many. The idea that everyone not living on a farm would be self sufficient enough to provide tomatoes, fruit, water, energy, etc for themselves is rather unreasonable, no? This is after all one of the big benefits of specialisation.
Land is hard to get now because of overpopulation.
Once your neighbors start dying off in the mass famines of the next few years you’ll have plenty of opportunity to expand.
And if you make the best of the land you have now, you’ll have more calories than your neighbors and be better suited to take their land. So it’s win-win.
This isn’t really about “You can only be one of the cool kids if you’re at least 89.5% self sufficient.” It’s more on the line of “Hey, try to grow at least one sad plant in the best way you can manage, it’s going to make everything a little better.” Back when I only had a balcony I had boxes and bags with sad plants, now I have a garden with happier plants. We learn while our plants keep us company, and maybe one day can apply what we’ve learned in luckier circumstances. No attempt of caring for life is ever really lost.
By the way, if light conditions where you live are really bad you can always grow mushrooms instead of plants, they are not as demanding as plants.
Or hell, here’s a dodgy pro-tip if you are a die-hard bacon fan but can’t handle the environmental impact: go for a mealworm farm in a drawer. I promise the buggers taste similar to bacon and are the most sustainable animal protein you can imagine. All they need is food scraps and a dark space where they can crawl around. (Don’t let them escape into your kitchen)
mealworm drawer
And people think I’m eccentric with my onion drawer…
A interesting idea though.
I’m sure these drawers can be combined in an ecologically useful way!
Also who are those weirdos having neither an onion nor a mealworm drawer? Whatever is it people keep in their drawers these days, socks? Cutlery?
Sadly the modern American economy is purpose-built to destroy community support.
