01-14-2007

Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

I just finished watching a documentary called “The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.” It details Cuba’s energy crisis in the 1990’s that resulted from the fall of the Soviet Union and the continued U.S. embargo. The documentary ignores most of the politics of Cuba and focuses on how the Cuban people dealt with the shortage of oil and all that goes along with it (manufacturing collapse, food shortages, transportation crisis, etc.). It’s an inspiring look at how everyday people adapted, largely by changing their way of thinking about energy and by coming together as a community.

The documentary focuses largely on the switch from agribusiness farming to small organic community gardens. According to the video, in addition to the decrease in pesticide polution, individual and cooperatively run gardens proved to be more productive per acre than large government run farms.

Unlike a lot of the political documentaries that have been coming out lately, this documentary is more likely to leave you feeling inspired and optimistic, rather than depressed. I highly recommend it.

For anyone in the Austin area, a DVD copy of the documentary is available from the main downtown location of the Austin Public Library. For anyone else, the DVD can be ordered online for $20.

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Posted by Matt in general, movies | RSS 2.0

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