The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies of Ecological Revolution from Below

by Peter Gelderloos

Are alternative energies and Green New Deals enough to deliver environmental justice? Peter Gelderloos argues that international governmental responses to the climate emergency are structurally incapable of solving the crisis. But there is hope.

Across the world, grassroots networks of local communities are working to realize their visions of an alternative revolutionary response to planetary destruction, often pitted against the new megaprojects promoted by greenwashed alternative energy infrastructures and the neocolonialist, technocratic policies that are the forerunners of the Green New Deal.

Gelderloos interviews food sovereignty activists in Venezuela, Indigenous communities reforesting their lands in Brazil and anarchists fighting biofuel plantations in Indonesia, looking at the battles that have cancelled airports, stopped pipelines, and helped the most marginalized to fight borders and environmental racism, to transform their cities, to win a dignified survival.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Environment, Climate Change, Activism, Nature, Ecology

256 pages, Hardcover

Published February 20, 2022

About the author

Peter Gelderloos is an American anarchist activist and writer.

Reviews

[Lucy Dacus · Rating 4 out of 5]

First part of the book was tough to take in since it’s plainly spelling out how fucked we probably are, but from midway on, I appreciate the attention paid to resistance and cultivation that has actually worked, and the imaginative, tangible solutions to problems that usually make me feel helpless and hopeless.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a definite element of preaching to the choir for me and this book, but I do think Gelderloos is able to formulate his argument in a novel enough way to make it worthwhile, while also pointing out common pitfalls of anti-capitalist struggle within settler-colonial states. I love his forcefulness and his respect for indigenous cultures.

For Gelderloos, the climate crisis is the logical outcome of colonialism and its extractivist mindset (which predates capitalism). I hadn't totally thought about it in this way but I find the argument more convincing than just blaming it on capitalism. Instead centering settler-colonialism as the principal culprit justly refocuses the discussion around the various global indigenous genocides, while also pointing to a truer path for our only possible escape.

It's not just about developing green tech better/faster, or political revolution, but rather about intensive learning from indigenous communities on sustainability and connection with nature. But a prerequisite for intensively learning from indigenous knowledge and technology is to make reparations for past atrocities against them. We have to cede them autonomy and control of the actual land we're trying to protect. It's all connected and you can't have one without the other... trying to get their input/help without giving them full agency will prima facie prove that you're not sincere about listening to them in the first place.

This radical and deeply respectful approach is very appealing to me, even if it does reflexively make the solution feel all the more daunting. Because let's be real, there's very little chance we're going to be able to seriously dent extractivism at all, let alone while also adding in decolonial land-back policies on top. In a political environment where we can't even hope for the "good" party to pass an incredibly inadequate Green New Deal, how are we to gain any momentum at all for putting decolonialism first.

This leads to the main problem I have with the book, which is probably the general problem that any Marxist like myself has with anarchism: there's no real blueprint for how to make this happen other than just organizing communities and hoping it spreads. I do find the various local examples Gelderloos cites to be inspiring and impressive -- and unlike most books you'll read on this topic, he actually goes out on a limb to provide his concrete vision of a realistic anarchist future... that takes guts.

But there is an unfortunate neglect of the political reality preventing the spread of these exciting experiments. A reality which includes our being socially atomized to a degree never before seen due to both media manipulation and economic necessity, which prevents serious organizing from many who otherwise would. Or a reality in which even were the above overcome, there are rabid police states eagerly waiting to be let off the leash should social order ever be seriously threatened. I'm sure Gelderloos is aware of these things, but he does not give them adequate weight in his proposal, which thus comes across as unfortunately vague and aspirational. Any anarchist needs to seriously wrestle with the counterargument that well before any tipping point will be reached (in which anarcho-communes pass to predominance), the state is likely to unleash the full weight of its military might to crush it.

This is why Marxists and Marxist-Leninists revert to state control: wielding state power is the only way they can conceive of protecting a revolution against reaction. And while I'm not saying that's definitely right, I don't think Gelderloos sufficiently explains how his own ground-up revolution could survive. It's one thing if he's just prescribing these local solutions in hopes that they spread and change political consciousness such that they can gradually usurp the status quo, but that even if they don't spread, they're at least doing well for their communities in the meanwhile. But such a proposal is hardly a serious solution for global climate catastrophe -- it simply won't happen fast enough on a large enough scale.

So really it's more a strategy for mitigation than prevention. Which, again, is fine... I can't think of anything better either. I'm just not sure Gelderloos fully understands that's what he's arguing for. FWIW, I'm a Marxist, and I'm pretty sure that top-down state (socialist) intervention is the only way we can possibly pivot fast enough to avoid the worst of climate catastrophe. But I'm even more sure that this will never happen, so IMO the next best option is to organize locally for community defense (including local food systems, housing, healthcare, and policing) in order to mitigate against the worst impacts of climate catastrophe.

So in that sense I was already kinda where Gelderloos is, the difference between us is that I seriously doubt it's going to move the needle much globally. And this book hasn't changed my mind there. But what Gelderloos has offered me is even more skepticism that a state (inherently settler-colonial and extractivist) could make the pivot even if it tried to in all good faith, so I do appreciate that perspective. This book has also given me a clearer sense of needing to seek out and take a back seat to indigenous land protectors, which I really appreciate. I'm also grateful to him for pointing out how anti-indigenous Marxist materialism risks becoming... indigenous practices are heavily indebted to their spiritualism, so ignoring that aspect of a solution is misguided. Additionally, insisting that the only value of nature is material, or even insisting to call them "natural resources," inherently short-circuits an entire ideological framework that is vital to confronting the coming catastrophe.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone left of center. It's pretty dense but also short and straightforward, and it will almost certainly give you new, valuable elements to consider in this discussion on climate.

Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly the quintessential book to summarize the state of ecological catastrophe currently transpiring, who is to blame for it, what we can do about it as regular people without relying on governments or states, and why even when all odds are against us, why an optimistic outlook fueled by radical care and compassion is of the utmost necessity instead of indulging in black-pill doomerism. Lots of the book obviously merits further investigation for those interested since it is after all only intended to be a summary of an extremely rich topic, and for that Gelderloos has pages and pages of relevant sources to aid readers in their ecological scavenger hunts. I just seriously think this is one of the most important and timely books I have read in a very long time, so I would encourage anytime who worries in the slightest about the direction our ecology is going to read this wonderful and markedly original collection of essays immediately. The book is a fairly quick read and very accessible, which certainly stems of Gelderloos' roots as an anarchist, vehemently opposed to intellectual property and pretentious academic gatekeeping. The numerous interviews in this book with indigenous and revolutionary grassroots organizers from around the world were fascinating as well. I also loved the speculative fiction section on what an ideal turn of events might look like. And for any skeptical about Gelderloos' intentions, the last thing you need to know is he isn't making a penny off of this book--the funds instead are going towards all the liberatory and encouraging initiatives consulted throughout the book. The solutions are in fact already here, even at our very fingertips. It is just up to us to see through the smokescreens of lukewarm governmental and statist compromises and "reconciliation" designed to pacify those who continually suffer and continue environment exploitation and instead get organized into meaningful communities to prevent this disastrous trajectory--we take care of us best, and as regards the environment, this sentiment only rings all the more true.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no such thing as clean money.
The final section alone is worth a million stars. It's funny that so few people seem to have an imagination when it comes to the infinite number of better ways we could organize ourselves--to save the world and each other.

[Till Sunfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book doesn't provide a globally functioning solution that can simply replace the currently running system(s), because the complex interconnected local and global structures don't allow for a logistical or societal 'copy-paste approach': “The point is not to build consensus around a blueprint, an impossible proposition on a global scale.”

In the first two chapters, Gelderloos provides a ton of research on the massive corruption behind 'green' politics and economics. Ranging from the naïve environmentalism that focuses solely on the individual consumer, to the $200 million of lobbying coming from the five biggest oil and gas companies to interrupt, control, delay or block climate-motivated policy, over to the 'tricks' with which so-called developed nations blame their emissions on developing countries (Net-zero marketing). He also goes into the subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, neocolonial practices of NGOs, failures of reformism, the fraudulent Paris Agreement and the connected desperate but reductive methods to reach the proposed 'goals', and the patchworkesque stacking of new tech in response to all kind of problems without addressing the very deep roots of many of these occurring cracks in the system.

Later, Gelderloos provides historical accounts and interviews from various repressed and colonized groups. One of the primary points he attempts to emphasize is that the fundamental foundation of the present system is racist and oppressive for a nearly uncountable amount of people. The system came into being and runs until today because of its exploitation of millions. Be it the miners, sweatshops, cheap wageworkers, women under patriarchal pressures or the overall non-human nature itself. He also writes about a lot of the affected local people from all over the world (Brazil, India, Chile, Kenya ...) that have been expelled from their own indigenous lands by the industrial nations, disrupting locally flourishing ecological systems for pseudo-renewable solutions and profit-making. Over the course of these moving stories, we also get to know different solutions to the current state of affairs. It's about local action, working with the ecological system one is situated in, being conscious about the internalized values and traits of the capitalistic system, while at the same time trying to look out for communities that are already fighting and trying to see who could use our help.
The book also highly values a practical (but also spiritual) perception of the interconnected relations of all the things surrounding us, citing one of my favorite passages from the fifth chapter:

“A huge amount of resources have been spent to make it impossible for us to imagine a world free of capitalism, free of hierarchy, free of the institutions that originated in colonialism. As such, the only kind of imaginary that is articulated and practiced in dominant society is that of the technocratic engineer drafting blueprints onto a passive territory. One of the most potent weapons against such interventionism is situated imagining, looking at the world around us, tracing the relations we have and could have, listening to their needs, and giving those needs free rein to develop, to see what directions they pull us in. If you did not take your eyes off the page after reading that, do so. Give yourself a moment to understand what I’m really getting at. “The world around us” is not an abstract figure. It means the ground underneath your feet. It means the organisms that provide the air you breathe, and the machines that poison it. It means the food in your pantry or refrigerator, the machines that gave it its present form. The land this food comes from, and perhaps other land, much closer at hand, from which it could come, but does not. And the why of it all.”

I believe this to be one of the most important aspects to consider for our current situations, not just on a societal and communal level, but also on an individual level. A lot of the problems we face seem to be perceived as simple isolated problems, without any sort of relations or roots. Problems that just need a plaster to resolve themselves, which I believe just causes even greater harm.
Aside from all this, Peter also writes a ton about activism, decentralized action, the (not so much media covered) successes of these and protestors, possibilities of communication and his overall passionate position on and for life.

My only criticism is that to me there seems to be the somewhat rushed over implications of it not being applicable 'solutions' in the global-discourse sense, but solutions for and from the smaller communities. I am aware that this is among other things the point of the book, that there isn't the grand solution to it all, which is something I was convinced of even before going into this book anyway, but I still remain quite skeptical of the availability of these proposed communal local approaches for all around the globe, especially with the huge amount of humans living in certain regions. But I am sure Gelderloos is aware of this, and despite what I am criticizing here, there still is an effort of sharing ideas for global action. There is a longer hopeful passage in the text that very much discusses the possibility of the replacement of capitalism on a global scale and what a society like this could look like in a future scenario (which again in his words is just a (inclusive) vision, not a blueprint), but it is (for good reason) much more abstract than rest.
Overall, I deem this book as incredibly important and cheer the immense optimism and call for action. It touches so many important topics and points in such a concise manner that I can nothing but recommend this to anyone interested in ecological (and anarchist) thought.

A few more passages I enjoyed:

“[...] to communicate horizontally or circularly, to use only what really is ours and to influence others, to understand that not everyone is going to act as we act; that is the beauty of rebellion, and our effectiveness in it does not lie in making the whole world equal, but in devising the best way to relate in a complementary way [...] ”

“People today whose survival is currently guaranteed by racial capitalism will go along like good citizens with this chain of atrocities that, in terms of scale, is at least one order of magnitude more lethal than World War II, many of them will agree with the newscasters and the politicians who warn of the twin dangers of fascist and antifascist extremists, and then later, after watching the latest historical documentary, will ask themselves how so many “good Germans” could have let the Holocaust happen. And yet inevitably, whether ten or a hundred years from now, when most people recognize that today’s politicians, millionaires, industry leaders, and many scientists as well were in fact mass murderers, they will play the facile ethical game of asking whether it would be, hypothetically, justified to go back in time to kill some of these monsters, if it might make a difference in affecting the course of history. This is another aspect of punitive justice: it takes the pursuit of justice out of our hands and turns us into spectators. And when we cannot right the wrongs we see all around us, the typical response is to stop seeing them.”

“Putting an end to a system that by its very nature produces misery would be the best future for all of us. If we fight in a way that is consistent with the world we want to defend, then every step we take, even if we don’t make it all the way, leaves the world a better place and could make the difference between life and death for a person, a community, an ecosystem, that right now is under threat. Recognizing that we live only thanks to a beautiful web of relationships with countless other beings, nurturing those relationships, is the best possible way to live. It is a revolution that transforms our present, honors our past, and offers the best hope for ending an apocalypse that has been going on for too long, moving towards a future where we can all, finally, begin to heal.”

“[...] growth is not only a material and economic process with social and ecological costs, but also a hegemonic idea that obscures more ecologically friendly and egalitarian alternatives.”

“The problem with the “believe science” slogan is that it presents scientific research as a neutral, harmonious process. Critiquing science as it exists today—the web of institutions, funding and employment opportunities, and research agendas inseparable from the cultural priorities and prejudices of those who design them—is not a rejection of empirical knowledge production or any conceivable iteration of scientific institutions that might exist in alternate universes. It is a way to unmask the mythology that presents science as a pure synonym for knowledge and to talk about what is actually happening right now, and what needs to happen.”

[Benthe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pfoe, moeilijk om door heen te komen, maar wel echt veel nuttige nieuwe dingen geleerd

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good critique of mainstream environmentalism by utilizing an anti capitalist and anti colonial framework. And of course it covers what and who are doing the good work now and where we go from here.

[Patch · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book! Tge author didn't hold back roasting the sheet out of green capitalism. I do think some topics were flattened, especially regarding religion/culture, but it wasn't the main topic of the book so idc. Loved the section at the end about what a speculative eco-anarchist future could look like :)

[Colin Thin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe more like 4.5
First half was decent, last half was brilliant. I loved the non- prescriptive nature of Gelderloos' discussion of tactics. Just a broad outline, within which we all have to figure it out for ourselves.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like there are two different Peter Gelderloos writing style: There's the straightforward, easy to read, impactful writing of Anarchy Works and there's the mind-numbingly dense, almost arrogant, written-for-academics writing of Worshipping Power. The Solutions are Already Here is closer to Anarchy Works, and I like that. Although I didn't learn anything new from this book, it helped me strengthen my ideology and even gave me a little bit of hope.

The book, in my opinion, is divided into four sections. First we're given a brief list of things that are fucked up and why they're fucked up. Next we're shown different examples of communities creating better, more sustainable worlds. Third, Peter tells us about his potential utopia in the area where he lives. Finally, we get a little kick in the ass.

Even though I got this book from my library, I'll probably end up buying it cause it's worth having and worth giving away.

[Matthew Roche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Gelderloos has emerged as a no-nonsense, blinders-off advocate for fundamental societal transformation based on Anarchist principles (note, if you still believe Anarchism =chaos, please do more reading, as that is vaguely embarrassing). Capitalism is dead, and in its final stages is destroying the planet. Having appropriated everything, it will destroy its own patrimony before it yields to another way of living. Gelderloos acknowledges this, then proposes another way of living.

I appreciate that this book is not apologetic or insulting to the intelligence. It makes its case about the destruction wrought by capitalism and the Colonialist project, which he views as conjoined twins if not identical with each other. Property, theft, and exploitation are destroying the world, and we need both a new model and the means to imagine getting there.

Gelderloos leans heavily on James Scott’s “Seeing Like a State” for the concept of centralized government as a tool of systematizing and reducing diversity as a way of maximizing “legibility,” or the ability to maximize extraction from a ruled people and land. He believes that the loss of “resolution” that proceeds from this approach is an erasure of critically valuable local information whose loss accelerates destructive practices.

The solution is a form of neo-indigenous anarchic communities, reliant on local knowledge to restore the land and people. Independent groups use awareness and historical practice to create sustainable communities not dependent on fossil fuels, labor exploitation, or violence. Whether it is practical or not is irrelevant: Capitalism is destroying the planet and immiserating the people and organisms that inhabit it, so it is, a priori, a failed experiment. Communal anarchism at least doesn’t do those things.

The book is well-researched, and, if you are open to it, will expand your thinking and perhaps you sense of hope. We should all, deep-down, recognize that how we are living now is deeply broken, and a thinker who describes how to recover our humanity, our world, and the connection between the two should be lauded.

I don’t know if our future is the peaceful, far simpler existence that Gelderloos describes or a hellish wasteland of surveillance, AI, and oligarchy. But I certainly can dream.

[RMD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best summary of the socio-ecological situation in front of us - and definitely the best book on the subject I've ever found.
It's an advanced book - I don't expect newcomers to immediately accept the implicit colonialism in our everyday lives or even to begin to understand how irredeemable capitalism/nation-states are.

Nonetheless, I could imagine this book being read and re-read several times, hopefully in class.

It provides a good analysis of the situation, looks at several positive examples and even manages to end with a satisfactory fictional best-case scenario.

My only critique is that, understandably, the analysis and categorization of different movements and activities is not ideally structured.
I recognize that the author also immediately declares that autonomous movements defy definitions and categorization - however I think we can do better than what the book managed, especially as a sort of a check list to help movements reflect (are we territorially linked enough? are we co-opted by existing power structures?).

Finally, I may disagree with the author as to the level of anarchism desired (it does seem a bit dogmatic at points) - I hold some hope for (devolved) municipal and maybe even federated government to enable international cooperation.

Other than that, I feel I now have plenty to read from the anarchist point of view.

[Margaret Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is making me think more sharply about our climate work. He makes a compelling case against reducing the crisis to only one of greenhouse gas emissions. Using many examples from around the globe, he demonstrates how replacing fossil fuels with renewables and continuing with business and consumption as usual will mean continuing down the path to extinction. The power dynamics of colonialism/capitalism have to be challenged and transformed in order to save the planet. I've always been focused on that, but it's hard to know exactly where to put my energy. I think it's going to be worth a second read...

[Madison Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was certainly more challenging and definitely a heavier read, but it contains a lot of interesting information. I appreciate the range of interviews with actual activists from around the world and case studies. I learned some things that I had never even considered, so I feel more "englightened" now despite the dread over the climate crisis, haha...It is up to us, and I guess we really can't rely on the powers in charge.

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains a wide-ranging overview of the massive variety of fights back against ecological degradation. The more exploration of the different strengths of the various strategies made for a remarkable argument for strength in disunity.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tho at times falling back on 90s anti-nuclear environmentalism, 99% of the book is not worth skipping for the 1%, especially with such a great take on fossil fuel infrastructure, the indigenous perspective of struggles brought up, and especially the vision for the future.

[Tom Twigt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laat wel goed zien hoe NGO's en gematigd links soms juist heel kut kan zijn en daadwerkelijke vooruitgang tegen kan werken

[Laney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone should read perhaps. Some parts more idealistic than reasonable. But good lessons in here

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

manifesto championing the capacity of indigenous peoples, green radicals, migrants to self-organize, utilizing a diversity of tactics to fight successfully against state/capital/fascist counterinsurgency and NGO co-optation. 'social war' is a good term! no climate reductionism here.

[Rui Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers an interesting and up to date take on ecology. Most importantly, it engages with the actual debates on environmental movements and voices real "on the ground" eco activists.