Ecosystems of Revolt

An excerpt from Peter Gelderloos’s book, The Solutions are Already Here: Tactics for Ecological Revolution from Below (Pluto Press, 2022). As Gelderloos shows, whereas governmental and market responses to the ecological crisis have an “almost perfect record of failure,” a global current of resistance movements over the past decade have already developed other methods of responding to the overlapping ecological and political crises that engulf us, and have accomplished “stunning victories and concrete, real gains across the world.” In the following selection, Gelderloos outlines some of the key features that have made this insurgent response to governmental ecocide successful. At the same time, his new book highlights the serious challenges and obstacles that must be confronted and overcome if an autonomous future is to be wrested from the control of police and paramilitary violence, the media, and NGOs that either naturalize the repression of decentralized ecological movements or turn a blind eye to the catastrophe of late capitalist life. 

"Social justice and decolonization have become buzz words, but most of the people today who are getting paid to make proposals or write about the problem evince a practice that is deeply colonial. Fortunately, we don’t need them. Proposals for dignity, survival, and self-organization are popping up like mushrooms after the rain, originating in affected communities themselves."