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Guten Morgen - Tässle Kaffee 
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Es ist nicht leicht zu akzeptieren und die meisten Menschen ringen noch mit #Reaktanz, einige mit #Verschwörungsmythen gegen die bittere Wahrheit: Die #Klimakrise eskaliert besonders schnell in #Gebirgsregionen wie den #Alpen, es kommt zur #Wasserkrise. Habe dazu gebloggt & 1 Kurzvideo (#Short) gedreht & freue mich besonders über konstruktive Drukos. Denn weiterhin gilt: Niemand kann alles, aber alle können etwas tun. #Solarpunk https://scilogs.spektrum.de/natur-des-glaubens/auch-die-alpen-zerbroeckeln-wie-die-klimakrise-zur-wasserkrise-wird/
Participatory Urbanism: A beginners guide
I recently did a speech to my local Rotary Club about a Participatory Urbanism project I am working on. To my surprise, the audience appeared equally interested in the whole Participatory Urbanism concept, as much as the project itself. So I thought it would be good to put together a quick explainer, which I can point people to, if they are interested.
Participatory Urbanism is an approach to city planning and development that actively involves citizens in the decision-making processes, right from the start, to create more inclusive, responsive, and sustainable urban environments.
Urban planning, once the exclusive domain of architects, developers, and policymakers, is slowly opening its doors to the people who live in the neighbourhoods they are shaping. This movement—known as Participatory Urbanism—is about putting residents at the centre of urban change. Unlike what we see right now, where residents are on the periphery of any decision making.
Participatory Urbanism invites community members to co-create the future of their cities. It moves beyond consultation into real collaboration, where local knowledge, lived experiences, and collective imagination become essential tools in the planning process. Whether it’s redesigning a park, rethinking traffic flow, or creating more inclusive public spaces, the goal is to make cities not just more efficient—but more just, vibrant, and responsive to human needs.
This approach goes by many names. You might hear it called “collaborative urbanism”, “community-led planning”, or “co-design”. In digital spaces, it intersects with “civic tech” and the “smart citizen” movement, where data and tools empower residents to advocate for better services. In the physical world, it often overlaps with “tactical urbanism”—those DIY, grassroots projects that temporarily transform urban spaces to test new ideas.
What unites all these threads is a simple but powerful belief: the people who live in a place are experts in their own right. By making space for their voices, we build not just better cities—but stronger communities.
Right now we get community participation really, really wrong. Most civic systems are hierarchical, with decisions made by a few “experts” behind closed doors. Public participation is often tokenistic—last-minute, limited, and on the civic leaders’ terms. It feels disingenuous, formal, and uninspiring, excluding genuine input and creativity. The same voices dominate, while people are sidelined and are not truly at the centre of decision-making.
Participatory Urbanism ultimately means reimagining our cities as places shaped by the people who live in them. It shifts power from top-down planning to collaborative processes where residents have a real say in decisions that affect their daily lives. This approach fosters more inclusive, equitable, and responsive urban environments by valuing local knowledge, creativity, and lived experience. When communities co-create their neighbourhoods—whether through planning, design, or stewardship—cities become more vibrant, just, and resilient. Participatory urbanism is about putting people at the heart of urban change, ensuring cities are not just built for communities, but built with them.
There is no one single way to implement Participatory Urbanism. Lots of cities are trying to do it right now and we see lots of different ideas and models emerging. In reality there never should be one single approach/method/model because that flies in the face of the whole idea of consulting local residents. An approach that suits one city may not work in another. Fortunately there are lots of examples we can look at from around the world, and take inspiration from. I wrote about Bologna, Italy’s approach here: https://owgf.org/2024/08/02/should-we-follow-bolognas-model-for-participatory-urbanism/ There is also the Transition Network working on providing ideas for communities that want to organise, which I posted about here: https://owgf.org/2024/08/04/transition-togethers-free-step-by-step-guide/ Also a quick web search for “Participatory Urbanism Tools” will deliver more results than you can poke a stick at.
Our Wonderful Green Future will be a co-designed by the people, for the people.
This post was created in #WordPress and can be viewed in the #Fedivers at: @owgf.org@owgf.org
OWGF has a Fediverse companion profile at: https://mastodon.world/@OWGF
OWGF is also on #Pixelfed here: https://pixelfed.social/OWGF
To hear more from Anja, remember to secure your ticket now!
Anja H. Lind is a writer and doctoral researcher in critical future studies at TU Dresden, Germany, working on solarpunk through the energy humanities, with a particular view to anarchist political philosophy and energy transition.
Hello adelaide people! After a bit of a break we're looking to restart the #Adelaide #Solarpunk #Community #Newsletter ! This time we want to involve more of the community, & put a big focus on platforming local voices that have been minimised
We need you! Are you a writer, artist or interested in journalism? Have some cool ideas? Message us to find out more or volunteer on the team, no skills needed, and please share to anyone interested 
#writerscoffeeclub 30 May. Who do you write for?
I write #solarpunk stories. It is my contribution to helping collectively imagine a better future than what we seem to be hurtling toward. I am, especially, writing for those who are barely clinging on to some semblance of hope. The like-minded ones will engage, no doubt. But it would be fantastic to engage the ones that are indifferent and/or tuned out.
Wurde auch heute mehrfach auf meine früher "nervigen" Warnungen vor der #Wasserkrise gerade auch in den #Alpen angesprochen.
Habe hier in Text & einem kurzen #Video erklärt, warum sich #Gebirgsregionen besonders schnell erhitzen und was das für die Zukunft von #Deutschland insgesamt bedeutet. Wir stehen zwischen #MadMax und #Solarpunk, meine ich. https://scilogs.spektrum.de/natur-des-glaubens/auch-die-alpen-zerbroeckeln-wie-die-klimakrise-zur-wasserkrise-wird/
"Die Klimawende scheiterte nicht, weil es uns an Lösungen mangelt. Sie scheitert, weil wir das Problem nicht verstehen. Wir brauchen keine neuen Energiequellen. Wir brauchen eine neue Beziehung zur Energie, die Respekt vor der Natur und unserem Platz darin, Demut und Zurückhaltung beinhaltet." (Art Berman)
https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-reductionist-delusion-how-we-got-climate-change-wrong/
#TalkCollapse #solarpunk #klimakrise #klimakatastrophe #solar #erneuerbareenergien #fossilfuels #klimakollaps #degrowth #postwachstum #greennewdeal #greeneconomy
Why ChatGPT is unlikely to solve climate change
Whiteness is aggressive, methodical, planned, perfectionistic. These are good traits, but not of out of balance and taken as the ONLY good traits.
I remember my first Tai Chi class (before I understood any of this). I expected we'd start by memorizing the first movements in the form, then move to the next. But nope. We did standing meditation, exercises, then the whole form. The next week, same thing. Sometimes we did the whole form twice.
I thought, how the h*ck (I was still Mormon) am I supposed to learn anything this way? I can't memorize this! I can't take this home and practice! It was a completely different approach from what this brainiac systematic test-taking overachiever had learned growing up. It was perhaps my first insight as to just how different Eastern culture is from Western.
Now, I didn't ever memorize the form. (In spite of several classes in different places, a book, and YouTube, mostly because I never have energy to stick to it.) But I did learn that there are other ways to learn, and that this way, of doing the whole thing over and over and over until you pick up pieces at a time, is also valid. And I DID pick up pieces. I learned better balance, the difference between good pain and bad, stances for movement throughout my day, and about several aspects of meditation and mindfulness that have served me well over the decades and contributed to better mental and physical health.
It taught me to look at everything holistically, and that the methodical Western approach isn't the only way.
If you're looking to decolonize, START THERE. Dump the perfectionism, the systematic plan, the mechanistic, linear assembly line of your life. The whole process of decolonization for me is an exercise in doing pieces at a time, out of "order," as it FLOWS, as it makes sense, as it works.
It's not about The Plan. It's about learning to hear and trust my intuition and nature around me.
Endlich regnet es wieder. Ich habe ein beschädigtes Regenfass, dass wir nicht mehr verkaufen konnten, im Baumarkt für einen Mitarbeiter-Preis gekauft und meinen Vermieter gebeten, eine Klappe in das Fallrohr zu montieren. Bald werde ich Regenwasser nutzen können. Oft finde ich es schade, dass ich nicht in einem Beet kultivieren kann, sondern auf Kulturgefäße angewiesen bin. #urbangardening #solarpunk #SolarpunkDIY
After enough of this kind of exercise, detaching from colonial institutions can start seeming more possible. What will catch me if I let go of this or that thing that I was taught by every level of society that I NEEDED?
You fill that scary ignorance with curiosity which leads to knowledge, which leads to choices, which lead to experiences, which lead to curiosity. Rise, repeat.
And then you start prodding at what you can change.
Can I give up Amazon? Maybe just Prime? Can I give up my car? (I can't.) Can I give up Google? Can I use less electricity? Can I repair things instead of buying new? Can I start a compost, even if it's not that great and I'm not going to use it in a garden, can I at least try it out? Can I consider giving up corporate work? What would that take? Can I go visit my local interpretive center and see what the tribes here want me doing? Can I watch some YouTube videos by indigenous people or read a book? Or at least follow some BIPOC voices on social media? Maybe some from outside my country, too? Can I learn some native plants, and maybe just buy two and plant them in my yard, see if I can keep them alive? These and many, many other options are available.
You don't need to do it all at once. (That's white indoctrination – "Demand for Purity" or toxic perfectionism.) Just pick one or two. If they don't work out, don't feel depressed or down on yourself (yup, more oppressor indoctrination there, don't cooperate!!) – just pick another one or two that seem easier and try again.
Like nature, it's a cycle. (Exclusively linear thinking is also whiteness indoctrination! Its' a form of "Polarized Thinking" in cult literature, (aka Black and White Thinking).)
Another great step is to just start observing nature. Even if you live in the city, there is nature around you. What are the crows up to? What's that bug doing there? Why does your cat do that? What patterns are forming from the conflicts between the plants struggling to survive in the sidewalk?
Try to get inside their heads and really try to imagine the world from their perspective – which will be totally unlike your own.
This is an exercise in listening. As you get better at it, you will get better at understanding what indigenous people mean, how they see the world, what they want, and what they're asking of you.
And you will get better at listening to YOURSELF.
Because ultimately, whiteness cuts white people off from our own bodies and minds. We've got entire ecosystems going on inside of us, and that brain, that pinpoint of ego, is merely a facade of picket fences built by manipulators higher up in the hierarchy, made to look pretty and civilized, but they hide the wildness inside – wildness that turns perverse and horrifying when shoved, like monsters, into the basement of your subconscious.
They aren't monsters. They are pieces of you. And the way through isn't dominance, it's cooperation.
At a certain point, you realize that this also applies to the out-group. They aren't monsters either. They are pieces of you. And the way through isn't dominance, it's cooperation.
I want to do this thread proper. I want to go through each of the 31 manipulation techniques that I outline in Recovering Agency (there applied to Mormonism/Christianity) and show how they apply to whiteness. Maybe I'll have some energy later today? I've been wanting to do that for years.
But part of unpacking my whiteness (the ableism side of it) is learning to do things half-assed sometimes. So that's basically this thread, what is coming up for me right now, raw.
Really, the first steps are being open, curious, prodding at what you think you can change now, and listening to non-white voices uncritically.
Vielen Dank Euch, genau darum geht es mir! Mit jedem #Solarpunk - Post & auch jedem Druko im #Fediversum stärken wir nicht nur einander, sondern auch die KI-Ausgaben. Damit werden die fossilen #Konzernmedien & auch die Demokratie - schädlichen #Bezahlschranken untergraben. Wenn jetzt noch viele an der #Wasserextreme - Tagung am 21.7.2025 in Stuttgart - #Hohenheim teilnehmen & davon digital berichten, wäre das medial ein Durchbruch! https://www.akademie-rs.de/programm/veranstaltungen/einzelansicht/veranstaltung-25896
A good place to start is to learn about other ways of seeing the world.
For me, it's trying to understand indigenous American attitudes towards nature and the land, not just from listening to non-white voices, but from observing what's around me.
As a child, indigenous cultures didn't make any sense to me. That's because they have a completely different underlying approach than those I'd been exposed to in my bubble of Mormon whiteness. My oppressors didn't want me to understand; they needed me to grow up as a middle-man oppressor. They needed me to look down on some so I wouldn't complain when others looked down on me.
(This mind control technique is known as "elitism.")
And that generated all kinds of fears (instilled phobias, another technique), that if I didn't conform to whiteness, I'd have to live in poverty, like Black and brown people did. It destroyed any curiosity I had about cultures other than my own.
That curiosity is coming back. There are other ways to relate to nature, to the land, to myself. That's the vector I'm grabbing hold of as I shed various conveniences (while I hold on to others).
I'm gonna tell my fellow white Americans, if you're trying to decolonize, or want to decolonize, and are overwhelmed, start somewhere. Start with something you feel like you can do, and start gently questioning everything else, and planning the next step.
Lifestyle changes are stressful and a lot of work. Impossible to do all at once. But it's better to do some than none, especially if it's a journey towards doing more.
Each step, I find ways that whiteness holds me back, sucks me dry, and has isolated me from nature and my own humanity.
Much of this is mental. Whiteness is a cult. Almost twenty years ago I thought, "Now that I'm learning about cults, I wonder if larger society is also a cult?... someday I'm gonna tackle that."
Whiteness/capitalism *is* that cult. That's the supporting doctrinal structure of the whole package I call Abuse Culture.
Whiteness isn't a skin color, it's an ideology, a system of power. Unpacking your whiteness is deconditioning from abuse culture. It's freeing to dump cult manipulation pressures like dependency, elitism, and demand for purity. If you've done this process for religious trauma, it's only another step to do so for society's cult doctrines.
And with that comes behavior. That cycle you're in with the job and debt? Start planning a way out. It seems impossible — it might even be — but maybe it's not if you're willing to do things you believe are impossible, but that billions in the Global South prove *is* possible. Because they have no other choice. But you do.
There, right there, that resistance you feel? Maybe defensiveness? Fear? That's whiteness. And whiteness isn't you. It's a construct that adheres your ego to power's puppet strings.
I also thought it would be impossible to leave Mormonism, but here I am, 25 years later. Now I'm looking to leave the colonial indoctrination behind, too, and as many of my harmful behaviors as I can... one at a time.
Rent a grazing herd examples.
https://www.goatsonthego.com/find-a-flock
https://goatstogo.farm/services/
https://www.fewesheepcompany.com/fire-control
https://www.lambmowers.com/services
Have a sheepover! Expensive though. Goid reason to set up community grazing flocks coops. Or host new farmers to help tnem get started
https://rvagoatsandhoney.com/?page_id=27
https://lowtechinstitute.org/2018/10/01/proposal-for-community-flock/
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2017/05/sheep_mow_the_grass_in_ypsilan.html