Weekly Solarpunk, of 12 April: Remote Work Rights, Off Grid Village, Solar Flight, Local Money Town

Weekly Solarpunk for 12 April follows 6 future-facing stories and member reactions, moving through remote work rights, off grid village, solar flight, local money town. 1. Remote Work Rights One of the week’s clearest policy arguments says climate strategy is overlooking a very simple lever: giving desk workers a legal right to remote work. According to the linked Resilience article, the case is that cutting daily commuting, office heating, and office cooling could reduce emissions fast without waiting for entirely new infrastructure. Source link 2. Off Grid Village This story is a tour of a family-run off-grid village tied to the Tetris founder’s family, presented as a place designed to stay functional even under wider social or infrastructure stress. According to the linked video and the post text, the project mixes workshops, remote living, geothermal ideas, and hydrogen-based energy experiments into a kind of self-sufficient homestead model. Source link 3. Solar Flight Another post looked at solar-powered flight through a Tom Scott video, using lightweight gliding instead of the usual vision of high-energy aviation. According to the linked video, the appeal is not giant airport infrastructure but a small-scale flying setup that treats sunlight, lift, and local launch systems as the core ingredients. Source link 4. Local Money Town One linked video looked inside a German town using its own local currency, framing the system as a way to keep exchange circulating close to home instead of leaking out to larger markets. The post itself is sparse, so most of the usable detail comes from commenters describing a currency that is earned through local services and loses value over time if you sit on it. Source link 5. Budget Solar Car This post points to a very low-cost solar car build, with the linked short video showing a small five-door vehicle covered in panels and packed with battery hardware for under ten thousand dollars. According to one commenter who summarized the clip, the build shows the hood open, battery packs installed, and a presenter walking through basic specs and parts sourcing. Source link 6. Space Exploration Ethics The final story is a TED talk arguing that space exploration should be guided less by conquest and more by the cooperative ethos people associate with Star Trek. The post itself provides almost no framing, so this is one of the most speculative items in the set, with the comments doing most of the interpretive work. Source link That's it for today.