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All In: A Revolutionary Theory to Stop Climate Collapse
We have an urgent problem to solve.
Our societies and progressive political organizations are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They have been there for some time and are imploding in uncertainty.
Everyone – organizers and otherwise – is more and more aware of two sets of information. The first is that the capitalist system is the root cause of the climate crisis and has absolutely no perspective of solving it. The logical consequence is that the task of the progressive movements is to dismantle capitalism. The second information is the threat of runaway warming cascading into climate chaos. In other words: urgency. Both of these sets of information are extremely heavy to carry.
The progressive movements need a framework that is politically honest, analytically rigorous, and emotionally connected. This framework must push society into the biggest transformation ever occurred in history.
This is the problematique of this book.
All In builds a theory of change that can hold both of these sets of information, together with the organizational model to deliver that theory of change, to address today’s task: dismantling capitalism in the short-term.
Our societies and progressive political organizations are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They have been there for some time and are imploding in uncertainty.
Everyone – organizers and otherwise – is more and more aware of two sets of information. The first is that the capitalist system is the root cause of the climate crisis and has absolutely no perspective of solving it. The logical consequence is that the task of the progressive movements is to dismantle capitalism. The second information is the threat of runaway warming cascading into climate chaos. In other words: urgency. Both of these sets of information are extremely heavy to carry.
The progressive movements need a framework that is politically honest, analytically rigorous, and emotionally connected. This framework must push society into the biggest transformation ever occurred in history.
This is the problematique of this book.
All In builds a theory of change that can hold both of these sets of information, together with the organizational model to deliver that theory of change, to address today’s task: dismantling capitalism in the short-term.
182 pages, Paperback
Published January 31, 2025
5 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Mariana Rodrigues
1 book1 followerMariana Rodrigues is a Gen Z born in Portugal. She is an organizer and a trainer for social movements, with experience in international networks, with a strong taste for team building and for revolutionary intersectional approaches. She is optimistic and frustrated with the state of the world, a master in improvisation, and much more of a doer than a writer.
Mariana joined the student movement as an organizer and leader while in college and has been active in social struggles since 2017. Starting by getting involved in Amnesty International at national and international levels as well as in non-formal education organizations and campaigns, she gradually got drawn into grassroots organizations, including the LGBTI movement, the fight against international free trade agreements and environmentalism. In 2019 she got involved in Extinction Rebellion, and later in Climáximo, where she continues her militancy.
Since 2019, Mariana organized dozens of direct actions and mass actions at national and international level, facilitated and led coordination spaces for the climate justice movement at European and global level – By 2020 We Rise Up, the Glasgow Agreement and the Earth Social Conference – an led the campaign against fossil gas in Portugal. She is a trainer and organizer, with experience in a variety of areas such as communication, outreach, finance, action and well-being.
Mariana joined the student movement as an organizer and leader while in college and has been active in social struggles since 2017. Starting by getting involved in Amnesty International at national and international levels as well as in non-formal education organizations and campaigns, she gradually got drawn into grassroots organizations, including the LGBTI movement, the fight against international free trade agreements and environmentalism. In 2019 she got involved in Extinction Rebellion, and later in Climáximo, where she continues her militancy.
Since 2019, Mariana organized dozens of direct actions and mass actions at national and international level, facilitated and led coordination spaces for the climate justice movement at European and global level – By 2020 We Rise Up, the Glasgow Agreement and the Earth Social Conference – an led the campaign against fossil gas in Portugal. She is a trainer and organizer, with experience in a variety of areas such as communication, outreach, finance, action and well-being.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 26, 2025
"We don't have time to act without a plan. When we act without a plan, we are participating in someone else's plan. When in conversations we understand the lack of a plan to win, the defensive mode answer is “I’m doing my part.” Yes, it is impossible that each organization does everything, but whose plan are you being part of? For some decades, that someone else’s plan has been neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. Our struggles are serving as safety valves for the maintenance of the status quo."
"A good reminder about trust-building is that you can fake accountability by delivering activities instead of results. It is comforting to make a list of stuff we did and show it around. The goal is not to do activities, though. The goal is to achieve system change, so we have to prove how our activities are actually contributing to it."
"There is a common mistake to set failure against hope. The myth is that if we tell ourselves that we have failed, then we are taking away hope from ourselves. This is a false dichotomy due to our crooked approach to failure, because the actual contrast here is between delusion and
honesty. An effective, rooted, honest hope is the direct enemy of habits, rationalizations, transference and masked distrust. We can only harvest hope if we know we will tell each other and ourselves when something is not working and if we are committed to learn."
"The agreement we need in the movement can be summarized with this statement: governments and corporations declared war against the people and the planet. Their preferred weapon of mass destruction is the climate crisis (and climate change acts through socioeconomic structures)."
"A good reminder about trust-building is that you can fake accountability by delivering activities instead of results. It is comforting to make a list of stuff we did and show it around. The goal is not to do activities, though. The goal is to achieve system change, so we have to prove how our activities are actually contributing to it."
"There is a common mistake to set failure against hope. The myth is that if we tell ourselves that we have failed, then we are taking away hope from ourselves. This is a false dichotomy due to our crooked approach to failure, because the actual contrast here is between delusion and
honesty. An effective, rooted, honest hope is the direct enemy of habits, rationalizations, transference and masked distrust. We can only harvest hope if we know we will tell each other and ourselves when something is not working and if we are committed to learn."
"The agreement we need in the movement can be summarized with this statement: governments and corporations declared war against the people and the planet. Their preferred weapon of mass destruction is the climate crisis (and climate change acts through socioeconomic structures)."
July 4, 2025
Assorted highlights:
“As the climate crisis gives concrete shape to the barbarism-socialism dichotomy, the only possible anti-capitalist movement would be the one that starts the dismantling of capitalism in our lifetime. This is not about ambition, it’s about physics and chemistry: we are heading towards climate hell, with capital’s feet on the accelerator.”
“The capitalist mode of production intrinsically ignores, causes and intensifies the climate crisis. The intertwined structure between capitalism and fossil fuels dictates that stopping the climate crisis will require, imply and accompany the end of capitalism.”
“The ruling class is destroying the social, cultural, ecological, physical and chemical conditions in which we live. They know it and have decided to keep doing it. This is an act of slow violence, with some abrupt shocks. Sometimes it manifests itself as unprecedented storms, sometimes as mass migration, sometimes as mass hunger, and sometimes as war.”
“Currently it’s possible to stop climate collapse, but it’s not possible within capitalism. Seeing the way out of it and the path towards climate justice is the only way to not fall in depression, hopelessness and defeatism.”
“We need militants who take full responsibility for humanity’s future, people who don’t delay any part of the necessary change to an unspecific future, activists committed to actually executing system change in the short term, who are ambitious enough to see with their own eyes the other world that is possible. In short, we need climate realism. Anything less than the above ends up being a variant of climate denial.”
“The climate crisis will create political and social crises, and there will be vacuums of hegemony. We will either act on them, or someone else will.”
“We are overwhelmed by the idea of a serious attempt to win it all, but we are missing the honesty to face that if we don’t try, we will lose all we value in life.”
“The climate crisis under capitalism puts us in an impossible cognitive situation. We live in a state of war, and we are constantly told that everything is fine and everything will be fine. This means that even when we acknowledge that governments and corporations have declared war on the people and the planet, we will still act as if that’s not true.”
“At the narrative level, the war framing aims at turning the actual physical reality into a social reality. Climate collapse is in place, but the society is not reacting to it in an adequate fashion.”
“The task is magnificent, horrifying, and emboldening. We are not supposed to “overcome” our fears. We are supposed to find courage inside our fear, anguish and anxiety. At the end of the day, we are making sense of a world that doesn’t make sense and finding the hope to face reality with empathy and boldness.”
“As the climate crisis gives concrete shape to the barbarism-socialism dichotomy, the only possible anti-capitalist movement would be the one that starts the dismantling of capitalism in our lifetime. This is not about ambition, it’s about physics and chemistry: we are heading towards climate hell, with capital’s feet on the accelerator.”
“The capitalist mode of production intrinsically ignores, causes and intensifies the climate crisis. The intertwined structure between capitalism and fossil fuels dictates that stopping the climate crisis will require, imply and accompany the end of capitalism.”
“The ruling class is destroying the social, cultural, ecological, physical and chemical conditions in which we live. They know it and have decided to keep doing it. This is an act of slow violence, with some abrupt shocks. Sometimes it manifests itself as unprecedented storms, sometimes as mass migration, sometimes as mass hunger, and sometimes as war.”
“Currently it’s possible to stop climate collapse, but it’s not possible within capitalism. Seeing the way out of it and the path towards climate justice is the only way to not fall in depression, hopelessness and defeatism.”
“We need militants who take full responsibility for humanity’s future, people who don’t delay any part of the necessary change to an unspecific future, activists committed to actually executing system change in the short term, who are ambitious enough to see with their own eyes the other world that is possible. In short, we need climate realism. Anything less than the above ends up being a variant of climate denial.”
“The climate crisis will create political and social crises, and there will be vacuums of hegemony. We will either act on them, or someone else will.”
“We are overwhelmed by the idea of a serious attempt to win it all, but we are missing the honesty to face that if we don’t try, we will lose all we value in life.”
“The climate crisis under capitalism puts us in an impossible cognitive situation. We live in a state of war, and we are constantly told that everything is fine and everything will be fine. This means that even when we acknowledge that governments and corporations have declared war on the people and the planet, we will still act as if that’s not true.”
“At the narrative level, the war framing aims at turning the actual physical reality into a social reality. Climate collapse is in place, but the society is not reacting to it in an adequate fashion.”
“The task is magnificent, horrifying, and emboldening. We are not supposed to “overcome” our fears. We are supposed to find courage inside our fear, anguish and anxiety. At the end of the day, we are making sense of a world that doesn’t make sense and finding the hope to face reality with empathy and boldness.”
February 24, 2025
All-in es un libro urgente, de esos que son necesarios para dialogar con su propia generación y permitir el debate “en vivo”.
Sin embargo, y quizá por eso mismo, existen una serie posible de críticas al libro, que pasan por un tufillo vanguardista occidental, su mesianismo generacional, su ahistoricismo y su tremenda simplificación de algunos elementos que pretende explicar.
Todas estas críticas se encuentran entrelazadas estrechamente en el texto.
Sin embargo, esto no es una descalificación a los argumentos centrales, sino un motivo para seguir escribiendo a partir de varias de sus premisas y ampliarlas en diálogo con las realidades que no alcanza a ver o con las que no interactúa a lo largo de sus páginas.
El libro, en resumen, es una guía para arrancar el bólido de la acción climatica, con un enfoque en la necesidad de una transformación radical y global.
Su lectura debería ser imprescindible como parte de los múltiples debates necesarios en nuestros tiempos y los que se vienen.
Sin embargo, y quizá por eso mismo, existen una serie posible de críticas al libro, que pasan por un tufillo vanguardista occidental, su mesianismo generacional, su ahistoricismo y su tremenda simplificación de algunos elementos que pretende explicar.
Todas estas críticas se encuentran entrelazadas estrechamente en el texto.
Sin embargo, esto no es una descalificación a los argumentos centrales, sino un motivo para seguir escribiendo a partir de varias de sus premisas y ampliarlas en diálogo con las realidades que no alcanza a ver o con las que no interactúa a lo largo de sus páginas.
El libro, en resumen, es una guía para arrancar el bólido de la acción climatica, con un enfoque en la necesidad de una transformación radical y global.
Su lectura debería ser imprescindible como parte de los múltiples debates necesarios en nuestros tiempos y los que se vienen.
March 29, 2025
This book deeply moved me. They stress the necessity to not only speak for a system change but as social movements achieve radical changes. Even though I don't like the wording of victory or winning (reflecting how I'm not in the war mindset (yet)), this was a realistic warning not to sooth ourselves with nice actions and the excuse of 'we were doing our part'. Sharp analyses, and comprehensive overviews of past movements' theories of change, modes of transformation and strategies without just restating previous theories. I wished for a more specific plan of action but as they say that's a collective task to coordinate and develop that. And the online addition to chapter 6 also provides more concrete tools and examples. Really recommend it to any climate activist, movement organiser and citizen
October 27, 2025
It is refreshing to read a self-aware and lucid internal critique of contemporary environmentalist movements. The whole book could be unforgivingly summarised with the authors' quote: "We are failing, and we are failing to admit that we are failing". That is: this book is a sobering and sombre acknowledgement of how far any environmentalist struggle is from obtaining anything worth mentioning at all, and of how the movement(s)'s strategies have so far remained utterly unfit for the challenge ahead (that being: overthrowing capitalism). As per another key quote: "We are surrounded by people and organisations that regularly write, argue and preach that revolution is the only way and then go on with their regular campaigning".
On these premises, the authors set out to write "a revolutionary theory to stop climate collapse" (as per the subtitle), but predictably, and unfortunately, deliver nothing of the sort. Only the very last bit of the book is dedicated to some form of strategic elucubrations "to win", based on a rumination on EO Wright's "Ruptural" strategic line. These remain vague if not abstract, and fall short of delivering a compelling "theory" for a "revolution" that could happen in the extremely complex contemporary conjuncture.
Their efforts are nonetheless to be appreciated, for at least they have broken open the silence over the emptiness of most of our work so far, and identified the field of operation, the gravity of the situation and the immensity of the task.
On these premises, the authors set out to write "a revolutionary theory to stop climate collapse" (as per the subtitle), but predictably, and unfortunately, deliver nothing of the sort. Only the very last bit of the book is dedicated to some form of strategic elucubrations "to win", based on a rumination on EO Wright's "Ruptural" strategic line. These remain vague if not abstract, and fall short of delivering a compelling "theory" for a "revolution" that could happen in the extremely complex contemporary conjuncture.
Their efforts are nonetheless to be appreciated, for at least they have broken open the silence over the emptiness of most of our work so far, and identified the field of operation, the gravity of the situation and the immensity of the task.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews