See also
- Organopónicos (the Cuban post-oil urban agriculture system)
- CUBA: Defending Socialism, Resisting Imperialism (documentary)
- Making Sweden an Oil-Free Society
- Peak oil
| The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Faith Morgan |
Release date |
|
Running time | 53 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil is an American documentary film that explores the Special Period in Peacetime and its aftermath; the economic collapse and eventual recovery of Cuba following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Following the dramatic steps taken by both the Cuban government and citizens, its major themes include urban agriculture, energy dependence, and sustainability. The film was directed by Faith Morgan, and was released in 2006 by The Community Solution. [1] [ non-primary source needed ]
The film is a reflection of the peak oil scenario argued by oil industry experts and political activists, including Matthew Simmons and James Howard Kunstler. The Cuban economy, heavily dependent on economic aid from the Soviet Union, suffered tremendously following the end of the Cold War. The nation lost half of its oil imports, and 85 percent of its international trade economy. [2] Director Faith Morgan, together with the non-profit group The Community Solution, seeks to educate audiences about peak oil and the impact it will have on transportation, agriculture, medicine, and other industries. [3]
The idea for a film based on the Cuban recovery first arose in August 2003 when Morgan traveled to Cuba as part of the Global Exchange program. Amazed by stories of survival during The Special Period, she learned that the Cuban economic crisis was survived with a fundamental shift in the country's economic policies, rather than with new energy sources. Morgan began securing funds for the film in 2004 with help from Community Services, Inc. and began filming in the fall of the same year. [4]
The economy of Cuba is a mixed command economy dominated by state-run enterprises. Most of the labor force is employed by the state. In the 1990s, the ruling Communist Party of Cuba encouraged the formation of worker co-operatives and self-employment. In the late 2010s, private property and free-market rights along with foreign direct investment were granted by the 2018 Cuban constitution. Foreign direct investment in various Cuban economic sectors increased before 2018. As of 2000, public-sector employment was 76% and private-sector employment was 23%, compared to the 1981 ratio of 91% to 8%. Investment is restricted and requires approval by the government. In 2019, Cuba ranked 70th out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index, placed in the high human development category. As of 2012, the country's public debt comprised 35.3% of GDP, inflation (CDP) was 5.5%, and GDP growth was 3%. Housing and transportation costs are low. Cubans receive government-subsidized education, healthcare, and food subsidies.
Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, town planning, rewilding, and community resilience. Permaculture originally came from "permanent agriculture", but was later adjusted to mean "permanent culture", incorporating social aspects. The term was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who formulated the concept in opposition to modern industrialized methods instead adopting a more traditional or "natural" approach to agriculture.
David Holmgren is an Australian environmental designer, ecological educator and writer. He is best known as one of the co-originators of the permaculture concept with Bill Mollison.
Peak oil is the moment at which extraction of petroleum reaches a rate greater than that at any time in the past and starts to permanently decrease. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; while global petroleum reserves are finite, the limiting factor is not whether the oil exists but whether it can be extracted economically at a given price. A secular decline in oil extraction could be caused both by depletion of accessible reserves and by reductions in demand that reduce the price relative to the cost of extraction, as might be induced to reduce carbon emissions.
Oil depletion is the decline in oil production of a well, oil field, or geographic area. The Hubbert peak theory makes predictions of production rates based on prior discovery rates and anticipated production rates. Hubbert curves predict that the production curves of non-renewing resources approximate a bell curve. Thus, according to this theory, when the peak of production is passed, production rates enter an irreversible decline.
The Special Period, officially the Special Period in the Time of Peace, was an extended period of economic crisis in Cuba that began in 1991 primarily due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and, by extension, the Comecon. The economic depression of the Special Period was at its most severe in the early to mid-1990s, before slightly declining in severity towards the end of the decade once Hugo Chávez's Venezuela emerged as Cuba's primary trading partner and diplomatic ally, and especially after the year 2000 once Cuba–Russia relations improved under the presidency of Vladimir Putin.
Albert Kealiinui Bates is a member of the intentional community and ecovillage movements. A lawyer, author and teacher, he has been director of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology since 1984 and of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, since 1994.
Organopónicos or organoponics is a system of urban agriculture using organic gardens. It originated in Cuba and is still mostly focused there. It often consists of low-level concrete walls filled with organic matter and soil, with lines of drip irrigation laid on the surface of the growing media. Organopónicos is a labour-intensive form of local agriculture.
David Fleming was an economist, cultural historian and writer on environmental issues, based in London.
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash is a 2006 documentary film about peak oil, produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack.
Peak demand on an electrical grid is simply the highest electrical power demand that has occurred over a specified time period. Peak demand is typically characterized as annual, daily or seasonal and has the unit of power. Peak demand, peak load or on-peak are terms used in energy demand management describing a period in which electrical power is expected to be provided for a sustained period at a significantly higher than average supply level. Peak demand fluctuations may occur on daily, monthly, seasonal and yearly cycles. For an electric utility company, the actual point of peak demand is a single half-hour or hourly period which represents the highest point of customer consumption of electricity. At this time there is a combination of office, domestic demand and at some times of the year, the fall of darkness.
Thomas E. Blessing IV is an independent film and television producer and project manager from Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is known for his role as a production manager (line-producer) on the television series pilot Loveline (1996), for his production management work with Dick Clark Productions and co-producing the experimental feature film Irish Whiskey (1997). He co-produced the award-winning documentary film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006). Since September 2006 he has managed and developed musical touring acts including Boombox, The Werks, Fiddleworms and others. Blessing co-created The Werk Out Music and Arts Festival (2010-2012) and manages live events such as Hookahville Music Festival, a popular event that has been produced twice a year since 1992 in Ohio and founded by the band Əkoostik hookah.
The terms transition town, transition initiative and transition model refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability. In 2006, the founding of Transition Town Totnes in the United Kingdom became an inspiration for other groups to form. The Transition Network charity was founded in early 2007, to support these projects. A number of the groups are officially registered with the Transition Network. Transition initiatives have been started in locations around the world, with many located in the United Kingdom and others in Europe, North America and Australia. While the aims remain the same, Transition initiatives' solutions are specific depending on the characteristics of the local area.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sustainability:
Rob Hopkins is an activist and writer on environmental issues, based in Totnes, England. He is best known as the founder and figurehead of the Transition movement, which he initiated in 2005. Hopkins has written six books on environmentalism and activism.
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was characterized by state control of investment, a dependence on natural resources, shortages, public ownership of industrial assets, macroeconomic stability, negligible unemployment and high job security.
Voices of Transition is a 2012 documentary film by film director and producer Nils Aguilar. The film was produced in France and Germany and examines the danger posed to agricultural production by energy and resource scarcity. It depicts organic agricultural alternatives in France, the Transition Towns movement and urbanised food production in Cuba as forerunners of the transformation of food production away from industrialised agriculture and towards small-scale, decentralised production methods. The German cinema debut was held on 2 May 2013 as part of a wider German cinema tour, followed or preceded by theatrical releases and tours in Italy[34], USA[35], Portugal[36] Wallonia[5] and Flanders[6] (Belgium), Great Britain[7], Argentina and Chile.[9]
The 2010s oil glut is a significant surplus of crude oil that started in 2014–2015 and accelerated in 2016, with multiple causes. They include general oversupply as US and Canadian tight oil production reached critical volumes, geopolitical rivalries among oil-producing nations, falling demand across commodities markets due to the deceleration of the Chinese economy, and possible restraint of long-term demand as environmental policy promotes fuel efficiency and steers an increasing share of energy consumption away from fossil fuels.
Green recovery packages are proposed environmental, regulatory and fiscal reforms to build prosperity in the wake of an economic crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic or the Global Financial Crisis. They pertain to fiscal measures that intend to recover economic growth while also positively benefitting the environment, including measures for renewable energy, efficient energy use, nature based solutions, sustainable transport, green innovation and green jobs, amongst others.
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