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The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

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When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba became the first country faced with the peak oil crisis. Suddenly a supply of 13 million tons of oil a year dropped to 1 million. The change was seen almost immediately-within weeks. There were power outages, no air conditioning, and no elevators running. People would try to get to work with whatever transportation was available only to discover that there was no electricity at their jobs. The Cuban government had to import 2 million bicycles for transportation. Even construction was very limited because cement production requires high levels of fuel.

However, the biggest and most immediate problem became food scarcity. There was no fuel to transfer food and no electricity to refrigerate it, and the massive use of oil-based fossil fuel for pesticides and farm machinery had disappeared. Within the first few years of this crisis, these constraints, coupled with the continued U.S. blockade on food, resulted with most Cubans losing an average of 20 lbs per person.

With hunger spreading, people were left with no other choice and resorted to growing food wherever they could, and this led to widespread urban gardening. Famine was prevented by converting every open space in the city into gardening. Because they could no longer get access to oil-based pesticides, farmers had to resort to growing food organically.

Farmers also began the practice of crop-mixing to reduce pests, and scientists began making and exporting bio-pesticides. Changes resulted in smaller farms and more privately-owned cooperatives. Decision making became localized with fewer state regulations. Even schools became more decentralized.

Despite the many problems that Cuba continues to face, the Cubans have managed to find a way to use less energy. Today, the average Cuban uses 1/8 the energy of the average American.

Whether you view peak oil as real and inevitable, or as just a `market creation,' I think that you will still find this film interesting and insightful--and perhaps, inspiring.

This incredible documentary proves necessity is the mother of invention. Cuba now boasts 90% organic farming, and has myriad solutions to deal with the paucity of oil. This movie is fascinating, educational and empowering. After viewing this documentary I no longer fear Peak Oil.
Bonus: the music is great.

We need hope that we can have oil independence and have a sustainable world. A crisis of lack of oil pushed Cuba as a nation to do just that. This video succinctly shares the community wide action that eliminated oil dependency. It took some time and a lot of effort, but it is a hopeful example that oil independence can happen, even here in America. Good video to share with classes, groups, etc.

Cuba is the only economy in the world to have transitioned from being dependent on petroleum and natural gas to reducing to a fraction of former use. As "Hubbert's Peak" shows us (this reference is explained in the film), what Cuba has done will serve as a model for us all.

So, it's time to get used to a life of more careful consumption and employment in labor-intensive industry (old-fashioned farming). Not to worry: we are adaptable as far as what we think we need. Thoreau did it, and Cuba has done it on a nation-state basis.

It's difficult to imagine life after oil, but from the example of one society that has drastically reduced its oil consumption, we can be hopeful that the future is not necessarily a bleak one. In the 1990s, because of the Soviet Union's collapse and a US trade embargo, Cuba lost 50% of its oil supplies. It entered what was known as "the Special Period": an 80% drop in export and import markets, food scarcity, and blackouts for sometimes 14-16 hours a day. By 1994, as a result of the special period, the average Cuban lost 10kg.

The Power of Community offers an encouraging story of how Cuba emerged from the special period and outgrew much of its earlier dependence on oil. The big topic is food supply, which was one of the areas hardest hit during the special period. With no more access to Russian chemical fertilizers or new equipment, domestic agricultural began to go into paralysis. Cubans had to reinvent the way they grew their food, and this began with an ad-hoc urban gardening movement which saw every available space utilized. With help from a group of Australian experts on permaculture, 400 Cubans were trained in organic gardening, and these trainees went on to spread their skills in towns, cities and rural areas. By the time The Power of Community was released in 2006, 80-100% of food in small cities and towns was being produced locally, farmers had become some of the highest paid workers, and use of pesticides had dropped from 21,000 tonnes per annum in the 1980s, to 1000 tonnes p/a. 80% of Cuban agriculture is now organic.

Faced with a national famine, Cubans broke up large-scale farms, returned to the land en masse, and began to explore some old ways of doing things (such as use of oxen), as well as some newer power alternatives (such as solar energy). In the process of transforming the scale of agriculture, and because scarcity demanded co-operation on so many levels, a shift occurred, not just in productivity, but in Cubans' connections to one another. As organizer Roberto Peres explains in the documentary, `The communities have changed. People didn't know their neighbours. People recovered a sense of neighbours. For me, it's not going backwards.' Patricia Allison, an expert on permaculture, described how, `The people co-operating with and caring about each other are the main factors that we need to encourage. It's not the technology, it's the human relationships.'

The Power of Community is about people facing hard times, trialling new approaches, and discovering through their actions, a more engaged relationship with their local community.

I've watched this video after attending the Peak Oil conference in 2008 at Oakland Community College. There is some tendency to make this appear to be the best solution, as if small communities and organic farming can save America from Peak Oil problems. This is somewhat inspiring as people adapt to change. No doubt there is going to be pro-cuba elements in the story. But these people really did adapt and deal with the issues. Cuba was already communistic when this happened and it caused an adaptation to happen, the drop of fuel. So really it's not about adapting to Communism, but changing the way you live and look at things in the face of energy scarcity. People think that high powered BTU careers are going to last, but if a massive collapse in energy inputs occurs it can turn the tables a bit, and those who waste less energy and adapt, via gardening close to where the food is consumed, eating more of what you consume and other changes in transportation, will fare better.

However the collapse is not likely to be as easy or elegant as the creators of this video think. I know I've been studying peak oil and working on preps a little (not enough) for 5 years now. But there are a multitude of realities and different strong players in competition, oil companies, governments, large businesses and people who have high cost investments in the future of an expanding economy. All these will want to keep the status quo. Communists have an easier time sharing things and living in community because they are forced to in a system that forces that and is more authoritarian. In some ways the poor efficiencies of Communism benefit a society in resource depletion, because they are geared toward producing less, using less, and living in more poverty. In a situation where people are in a system that "competes", creates new markets, and feel they can do anything and companies and multi-nationals compete as well, the solution isn't as easy as the creators of this video would have you believe. I think this is mostly because vectored forces of all kinds of players will tear apart and cause compromises on any solution offered. There will be many "partial solutions" like "community living" being pushed form different camps. The USA has a large and ever growing budget deficit. Energy must be used for production. We cannot pay off or grow GNP with declining energy. This is a fact, and the economic drain and bust on a declining economic GNP for all the world will cause tremendous forces of chaos and probable fighting to occur. The older forces of "consumption" which is the natural tendency to just want to drive a car, and take a girl down a road on a road trip, get a hamburger and travel across the country. Those "natural" forces and desires, that we have drive consumption, we don't dream of being poorer and settling, but being richer. The sad news about peak oil trends is limited resources and more expensive ones, (all mined items, and energy) cause massive loss in GNP growth and economic recovery. This is why I say to some, this is not the next Great Depression, but the LAST Great Depression that we are heading for. I say it with some disclaimers, if peak oil has happened, there is nothing that can easily replace the energy. We don't have any real answers, even sustainable ones. But those who lead us toward dirt poor farmer like existence akin to India in the early part of the 1900's. Using Induri farming methods. This is the "future" for an overpopulated world unless some whiz bang miracle invention comes into being, and I mean something that is 100 times better than most of the dreams most dreamers come up with. Like solar cells being 20 times more efficient, but they are already 14% efficient, so that's not going to happen. Or a way to have "cheap", "easy to produce" and "easy to build" nuclear fusion reactors, which won't happen.

The closest solution to peak oil is a massive buildup of 750 Breeder reactors for the USA and 3 times that for the rest of the world. Reusing nuclear spent fuel over and over again for energy for thousands of years. But we for the most part don't have breeders, we have fission reactors and throw away the spent fuel. Breeders take 20 to 30 years to build and there are only 300 nuclear reactors in the entire world. Breeders produce Plutonium, so ironically the USA is against breeder development in the third world because of the bomb, yet that's the only fuel source design that will be sustainable and replace oil for a long term (meaning thousands of years.)

Some say there is a conspiracy to keep fuel, even large fuel untapped in Alaska for long term WWII like wars. This might be true, but it doesn't mean anything because oil that is not developed for political reasons still causes a peak effect. So whether by conspiracy, lack of infrastructure or real geographical limits we have a peak condition happening. The results will be astounding. This is one approach. I think it's part of an approach and if you can live in a small community more power to you, go organic. However, I think a more likely path for the USA will be depletion and overpricing of energy in such a way that could cause massive costs in home heating and cutbacks in driving. In short we will live in much smaller or colder and warmer houses without much fuel to heat them, and we'll take a buss. This will be stop gap compromise, as farming exports, nitrogen fertilized crops and industry to some extent will try to continue on. This will cause Depression like austerity measures, which will be like communism. Some will rant about this being a plot to take down the Middle Class and bring one up in China and India, which may cause anger and a drive toward war and unrest. I think ultimately however people will have to adapt and learn to deal with the cards that the earth and limited resource deals them. They will find a way to rethink, but it will be very difficult. It could cause massive resource wars and WWIII easily. As nations still compete and resource saving nations have smaller armies and can be easily over-run. So the resource hogs, have greater industry and hence greater mechanized armies. Peak oil and Power of Community planners, never really address those realities, which is the reality of inertia with the "power structures" that exist.

In history rich men often kill off the poor with wars, to deal with lack of food or money. How can we think this could change. (Perhaps the world looks for "anti-christ" to give a promise to it, of peace, then all hell breaks loose.)

I guess we were looking for more 'how to do it' information. This is heartwarming, but lacking in nuts and bolts. Still, it is nice to see how they survived. We may all be looking at sharp weight loss very soon (the average Cuban lost 20 lbs. when the oil ran out) and we've probably got more weight to spare than they did.

When the USSR was in full swing, we were told that the little, individually-owned or run lots out-produced the collective farms, because the growers could make money with their produce. In Cuba part of the answer was more individually-owned or run farms - and they too out-produced the bigger, collectives. And the fact that those who hate socialism tend to ignore is that our own family farms (especially those run by the low-tech Amish and Mennonites) tend to out-produce the agribusiness factory farms. Besides which, they are more humane and less polluting. What we should be doing now is preserving and reclaiming lost agricultural land, promoting community gardens, getting rid of useless, costly, water- and petroleum-wasting, environmentally insensitive lawns, and reintroducing horses and other livestock wherever possible. What we are doing instead is the opposite.

I guess we won't learn through anything but pain.

"Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" is a thought-provoking documentary about Cuban life after the Soviet Union collapsed. Cuba had been part of the Green Revolution, with its petroleum-fueled collective farms. With the loss of a steady oil supply, they were forced to adapt. Collective farms were divided into smaller plots; urban spaces were turned into community gardens.

"Power of Community" idealizes socialism. Cuba is depicted as a worker's paradise. Everybody pitches in at the farms. People are healthier because their diets are plant-based and they walk&ride bikes instead of drive cars. It's socialism with a smile. The only villain is the United States. For an idealistic community organizer, this documentary is a dream. Like a lime slice in a mojito,the documentary has a delightful soundtrack.

"Power of Community" overlooks the darker aspects of Cuba's communism. There is terrible poverty. Dissidents are still imprisoned. The government directs aspects of everyday life--right down to food rations. Havana looks like a grotty,post-apocalyptic cityscape with its abandoned Art Deco buildings and propaganda art,like "Blade Runner" in the Caribbean.

"Power of Community" extols virtues like organic farming--and community--but sugarcoats socialism.

I saw this at a community showing. I loved it and wanted to rent it to see it again from netflix but it was not available so I purchased it. Lots of relevant and useful strategies to cope with the sudden increase of oil prices and shortage of supply. Shows how people had to start riding bikes and farming had to change completely from industrial agriculture to local gardens. I highly recommend this and also the movie about water called: Flow.

Paul

This title and the story are EXTREMELY misleading. Cuba did not "survive Peak Oil." They responded to a geographical imposition (Russia's) that caused a dip in their oil imports. Please do some research on the facts around this story. Cuba's imports have actually gone UP again and they are chomping at the bit to develop and sell the reserves reported off their coasts. Plus, Venezuela has threatened to cut off Cuba's oil imports (Venezuela is Cuba's new "Mother Russia") for being so far behind in their payments for oil--beyond the doctors for oil trade originally set up. Evidently Cuba's debt to Venezuela for oil is approaching the $1 BILLION mark and is unlikely to ever be repaid. Not quite a model of "sustainability." I believe the conceivers of this story idea became a bit overanxious to portray a story of success in the face of the global die-off about to happen due to Peak Oil. One can't really blame them, but like every story I have seen so far, the reality doesn't really match the "storytelling." Beware...