On Saturday 24th June 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm at The RYSE, 2 Bath St, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution From Below, by Peter Gelderloos. The book looks at how “grassroots networks of local communities are working to realise their visions of an alternative revolutionary response to planetary destruction”. On this webpage you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue.

You can buy a copy of the book from the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop with a 12% discount by using this link. After adding the book to your ‘basket’, view your basket where there is an option to enter a ‘Coupon code’. Add the code “StroudRadical23” and click/tap “Apply coupon”. The book will then cost £14.95, saving you £2.04 or 12%. You can collect the book from shops in Nailsworth, Tetbury or at the Chalford Village shop, or delivered for an additional cost of £3.50.

This discussion is part our series on climate change, but you are welcome to join the discussion even if you cannot make the other events. You are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book or the free section of it available below – to listen to the discussion and ask questions.

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below:

• First 12 pages of the book (pdf, 80kb)
• 90 minute video interview with the author from Firestorm Bookstore Co-op (also embedded below)
• 60 minute audio interview with the author from The Poor Prole’s Almanac podcast – exploring the concept of community-building, the power of utopia, and what kind of tools are at our disposal to find ways to gum up the system destroying the ecosystem
• A collection of other freely available work by Peter Gelderloos
• Peter Gelderloos on twitter

About the author and the book

Peter Gelderloos is an anarchist writer and movement participant. He is the author of Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation.

In The Solutions Are Already Here, “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 realise 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 marginalised to fight borders and environmental racism, to transform their cities, to win a dignified survival.”

‘Few books are as honest, inclusive and based on so much experience of committed social and ecological struggle. The Solutions Are Already Here opens doorways to a world so many young activists want to know and understand, and reminds so many more that now is the time to act’ – Dr. Alexander Dunlap, Centre for Development & the Environment, University of Oslo

About Stroud Radical Reading Group events and the venue

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included above, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

James facilitates the sessions, which we start and finish with everyone having a short time to introduce themselves, and mention something that struck them about the reading or which they’d like to discuss. The conversation then flows, with people using hands to indicate they’d like to speak – and we try to make sure everyone gets a chance. Sometimes we identify particular questions to think about during a session or even before it.

The RYSE is a new venue for us – it is accessed by a staircase. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance.