Since the main organizer of the previous festivities has migrated to Mastodon pretty much exclusively, ya’girl is gonna go ahead and get started on the Tumblr side of 2020′s Solarpunk Action Week. Mark your calendars for March 8th thru 14th!
“But Lyudmila,” you say, “why in the entire hell are you talking about March in November?” – Well, it’s never too early start learning and planning.
What is Solarpunk?
Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?” The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and wild, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid. Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world — but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not warnings. Solutions to live comfortably without fossil fuels, to equitably manage scarcity and share abundance, to be kinder to each other and to the planet we share. At once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, and an achievable lifestyle.”
And what is Solarpunk Action Week?
Solarpunk Action Week is a week dedicated to taking and spreading actions–complex or simple, big or small–to build our communities, practice our skills, and make the world just a little bit better. Make a Tumblr post about whatever action(s) you take and tag me in or use the #SolarpunkActionWeek tag, and I’ll reblog them here and archive them over on @the-last-girl-scout. No doubt many other blogs will be doing likewise!
What can I do?
Oh, so many things! No, really, one of the reasons I’m making this post so far in advance is that the sheer number of possibilities can be pretty overwhelming. What you do is up to you! but for instructions and inspiration, you should check out the Sunbeam City wiki, and I’ve spent the past year archiving how-to and educational posts over on @the-last-girl-scout (check out the #solarpunk [obvs], #gardening, #diy, #organizing, and #afa tags specifically), and you should also go ahead and follow the laundry list of blogs I’m gonna @ at the bottom of this post b/c they are all very good, and make sure and check the notes for anyone/anything I may have forgotten!
You could start a garden, flyer/sticker your neighborhood, share food w/ your pals and the neighborhood, do some self-education, learn how to make something instead of buying it, overthrow capitalism … the possibilities are endless!
Get out there and invent the future, space cadets.
Tucked inside a must-pass defense bill expected to make its way through the Republican-controlled Senate next week is a sweeping policy change: 12 weeks of paid parental leave for all 2.1 million federal employees.
It’s not a surprise that Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic congresswoman from New York, would be celebrating the move. She’s been working to get it passed for two decades, after her own experience in the workplace.
“When I was expecting my first child, I went to the personnel office and asked them what their leave policies were. They said, ‘Leave policies? We just expect you to leave,’” Maloney said at a press conference with House Democrats and labor leaders after a deal was reached to include paid parental leave for federal workers in the National Defense Authorization Act.
But President Trump has declared victory too. “With this important step, we are delivering,” Trump said on Thursday at a White House summit on childcare and paid family leave.
The summit, led by his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, landed on a day when Trump was working to finalize a detente in his trade war with China — and as Democrats in the House moved toward impeaching him.
The federal government is the largest employer in the country. But in the private sector many companies don’t offer paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child, and many of those that do don’t give a full 12 weeks paid.
In an interview with NPR, Ivanka Trump said she sees paid leave for federal workers as a first big step.
“It’s very hard for people to say, ‘Well, employers should provide this benefit,’ if we are unwilling to provide it ourselves. So you have to lead by example,” Ivanka Trump said.
This man, an antisemite who called for forced labour camps, is now a member of the british parliament along with dozens more brazen racists and bigots, the UK is headed in an awful direction
