how Cuba survived peak oil

The Power of Community:

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.” The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.

A Community Solution project.

An inspiring film. Civilization is going to crash. It is not going to be easy – and the longer it takes to crash, the more unpleasant it is likely to be. Most of humanity rely on oil for almost everything, and it is running out. Oil has allowed us to overshoot the earths carrying capacity, at the expense of pretty much everything else. We cannot afford to carry on using oil, but huge numbers of people simply would not know where to begin living a life without it. And its use has powered a society of centralisation. We are no longer people but consumers, workers, cogs in a massive machine, manipulated and controlled by those at the top of the heirarchies.

Society needs to change yesterday, and not simply because oil is a finite resource, or because to carry on burning fossil fuels has even more serious repurcussions than a collapsed economic system. We need to learn to live WITH each other, the earth and other creatures. We need to relearn to value things beyond their economic value. We need to accept that we will die, and that is the nature of life, and start again to value each and every moment, each and every life, each and every relationship as sacred and wonderful. We need to re-learn how to listen to the land, and recreate a world of local tribes and communities, without the power structures we have been taught are necessary.

There is much to do. If we wish to do more than survive, we must start now redesigning our communities, our homes, our hearts and minds. We must liberate ourselves and the world from the death-hold of civilisation, creating a new society of joy and freedom, while also doing what we can to stop those who are blinded by money, and to defend and protect our natural heritage.

Bringing down civilization first and foremost consists of liberating ourselves by driving the colonizers out of our own hearts and minds; seeing civilization for what it is, seeing those in power for who and what they are, and seeing power for what it is. Bringing down civilization then consists of actions arising from that liberation, not allowing those in power to predetermine the ways we oppose them, instead living with and by – and using – the tools and rules of those in power only when we choose, and not using them only when we choose not to. It means fighting them on our terms when we choose, and on their terms when we choose, when it is convenient and effective to do so.
Derrick Jensen, Endgame.