Turns out they are actually Terraists. Apparently, misspelling that on purpose so people are properly afraid when they failure to understand why they need to be removed.
“Intelligence”
Who? Whooo!
Turns out that Snake and the Cosmic Owl were brothers. Thanks, Cake.
I wonder if they use batteries and what kind.
Also whether the local electricians have jury rigged some kind of bottom up grid of their own.
Does anyone have information?
This video goes into Syria’s electric grid, and how people have setup their solar installs. It shows batteries are used quite thoroughly, and doesn’t appear to be grid-tied or formed into a micro-grid, AFAICT.
Unfortunately, this is more likely pushed by acute necessity than anything else.
Hopefully, we all won’t require a massive war to figure out solar should be invested into.
Eventually we’ll so be doing this out of necessity. Just not any time soon, not until something big breaks.
Big things are breaking regularly. Monsters are making choices to keep them less visible to regular people.
The Strait of Hormuz is something big.
I kinda want to downvote because why is this unusual? Syria is a war torn country with a shitty grid and many developing and developped countries have plenty of roof top solar?
And also a huge need for AC, when solar is typically at the peak.
I wondered when I visited Malaysia why there was not more solar panels around, and a local explained to me that it was mostly lobbying and corruption, with local electricity providers making it illegal.
I don’t wish on anyone what Syria went through, but I am also hopeful that when systems breaks, workarounds exist and may in the long term improve the overall situation.
In Google maps you can use satellite mode to look at their roofs. There are some panels but nothing like this.
edit: satellite mode is out of date, see further conversation below.
Google Earth has data up through June 27, 2024. Check around the Salloum Hospital and Syrian Arab Red Cross Hospital. That area around the hospitals and to the NNE looks like nearly every roof has panels. Could also be a more recent picture and more panels may have been installed in the past year or two.
My Google Maps says 2026 on the bottom of it.
I’ve highlighted the solar panels I could see, around Salloum Hospital:
It’s great to see so many but it’s way more scattered and patchy than in the OP photo.
Hmm my Google Maps shows the same 2026 date but when I compare to the Google Earth June 27, 2024 images I’m seeing the same cars in the same exact spots, like the white car right outside of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Hospital
Ahh, so maybe on Google Maps that’s just a copyright statement rather than really when the imagery was taken. So I’m looking at quite old information.
That may be correct, I always thought that was the date the imagery was taken, but I typically go to Earth first because you can easily scrub back and forth along the timeline. Interestingly, if you go back to the 2023 images you can see that 2024 was a big year for solar already. That pace continuing into 2025 and 2026 could definitely result in the area looking like the image in the OP. Wish we had location data from the original so we could see when and where it was taken as I’m super curious now. And its a slow day at work so I have time to dig around lol
There’s this photo from the same location in a Aljazeera article on the area. Apparently they are the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods.
Oh thank you, and that’s from Jan this year. Haven’t found the exact location yet but those neighborhoods are very close to where I was looking
So they could have done it ANYTIME but didn’t.
No. Don’t underestimate the impact of sanctions.
oh cool, maybe they did this cause a long time ago during the civil war there was frequent power cuts?
There still are frequent power cuts in Syria.
In Damascus, the power is on for like 8 hours per day.
oh, i thought it ended.
Well there is still a province that is under Druze grasp so I wouldn’t say the civil war ended.
Well, Assad is gone at least but it is still pretty unstable there.
And the people are not educated enough to call for real democracy, they are happy with the majority Sunni in power.
When your nation falls apart and your city becomes an extensive warzone for years, the main power grid probably isn’t top notch. But the sun works just fine!
If it wasn’t for oil making the middle east insanely rich, imagine what they could do with solar
Looks cool as hell
Plant some more trees and rooftop gardens and you’ve got an official Solarpunk setting
Quite frankly, trees inside cities are decorative. If you truly care about ecology and the ecosystem, you look at the forestry on a national or regional level. Theoretically, having the densest and hence the smallest cities possibles would be the best for the overall ecosystem. When I see a park in a city I am thinking “they force the city to grow its radius by that much”.
I’d rather have a very dense urban seed surrounded by natural reserves than a chill cityscape with a few scattered parks that are not big enough to sustain a full ecosystem.
First of all, “merely decorative” has a big impact on our physiological and psychological well-being; urban greening appears to be able to improve things from respiratory difficulties to stress, anxiety and depression .
Second, “merely decorative” isn’t even true. Trees lower both surface and air temperature in cities in a meaningful way (on the order of a couple of degrees on a well-treed street – that can be the difference between “ah, it’s a nice day for a walk” and “holy crap it’s hot out”.
