Learning from Cuba's Response to Peak Oil

Peak Moment #27: Megan Quinn of The Community Solution discusses her visit to Cuba, and the movie "The Power of Community". This young woman sees Peak Oil as an opportunity to create the communities we want, but notes that we must reduce our consumption despite environmentalists' assurances that biofuels will save us.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• peak
• moment
• oil
• community
• localization
• cuba
• food
• farming
• local
• economy

[USAHavana]

Try listening to FREE CUBANS, Cuba has DONE NADA , ZERO, they tax relatives ad infinitum and pocket the cash. Its a Russian Model, ala RUSSIAN MAFIA! Please grow a brain, discuss New Urbanism, end suburban sprawl, LIKE WE ARE DOING IN MIAMI. Spare me the kuddos on mass murderers "going green" . Good grief, you are turning an important topic into a massive joke, CDR';s a rapid response brigades, the INFORM ON DISSIDENTS, MY GOD the are STASI trained. Grow up. In Cuba, EVERYONE WANT TO LEAVE!

[peakmoment]

@USAHavana, this conversation was centered around the film "The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil." It doesn't get into politics, economic models, dictatorships, etc. at all. It is about the work of urban permaculturists who jump-started urban agriculture when the oil dried up. Food survival, that's all.

[sierracuban]

YOU FORGOT TO MENTION that Cubans have ZERO internet freedom, and ZERO freedom of speech.....Sierra Cuban.........

[peakmoment]

@sierracuban, that's not what this program is about. It was about a film about how Cuba responded when Russia no longer was shipping oil to them. Mostly the film is about food - urban permaculture. It didn't touch the politics.

[permalove1]

Something like 70% of grain grown in the USA goes to feed herbivores - which shouldn't eat grain. If we switch to a perennial prairie polyculture to feed our herbivores, we could take all that land out of annual production in less than 2 years. This would remove the machines from the land which perform those tasks, hence cutting our oil/gas usage by a huge percentage.

Look into Joel Salatin's ideas about pasturing poultry, cattle and other animals.

[peakmoment]

@permalove1, great! Watching the film "King Corn", we learned how the US subsidy for corn has led to feeding cattle that excess corn, while they're grass eaters. Joel Salatin is fabulous. We videotaped five Joel Salatin presentations in one day - you can get it on peakmoment-dot-tv.

[MrEnergyCzar]

Preparing for Peak Oil is actually enjoyable once you accept that it has to happen at some point.... I'm 4 years into a 10 year plan to prepare...

[peakmoment]

@qarohc, the video and this conversation aren't about the politics in Cuba, nor the living conditions. As I've written before, "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" is primarily about the work of urban permaculturists to jump-start local food production when the industrial food system broke down after Russian oil stopped and people were starving.

[USAHavana]

@666plb Funny, an AK47! Actually, I have spoken to former Rebel Radio hosts who told me that literally everything they are made to read, everything that happens in Cuba is literally "Castro did this", or "Castro said that"....its a really sick megalomaniacal catechism. As for the bottle, its named after him as well, he is the "Lider Maximo'.. (Spanish for Fuhrer). Yeah they do not get a cent from that bottle, the question is where do they stash all the cash? Not in Cuba!

[666plb]

@USAHavana $2000 for a bottle of rum, how much do the workers in the distillery, or on the cane farms make, the biggest share of the cash would be in castro's pocket, neat looking bottle, but i won't be buying. When i was a teenager in the 80s i had a short wave radio i heard Radio Havana Cuba, i had a picture in my head , of the radio announcer sitting at the mic with an ak47 pointed at her head. when castro dies, another castro to take his place?

[USAHavana]

@peakmoment Communist Cuba only uses infomation as a propaganda tool. SO YES, THIS IS POLITICS. Worse, it is DISNFORMATION, now Cuba is parenering with Repsol to do offshore drilling in the Gulf. Will you address that as a response? They are about to DESTROY the Gulf of Mexico. You think there is a legal systen in Castros Cuba that will protect the environment? Wake up, study, reasearch. The information is readily available, if you choose not to use it, it is your negligence. This is serious.

[USAHavana]

@666plb WELL SAID! The amount of bullshit that passes for truth is staggering. We here in Miami have been trying to inform the world on the horrors of that ORWELLIAN nightmare for decades! Yet these fools, prefer to listen to the guards at Aushwitz and not the victims. Can people so idiotic? Google "Havana Rum Maximo", its a socialist rum that sells for $2000 a bottle! How "egaltarian is that? Who gets the money? The Cuban people? PLEASE! Peak oil is real, sadly so is peak bullshit! UNREAL!

[USAHavana]

Unless you folks GET SERIOUS about PEAK OIL and stop believing the mad delusions of an 83 year old megalomaniac, we will be TOTALLY SCREWED! Perhaps American living in Canada will send us billions to help us survive? BECAUSE THAT, and NOTHING ELSE, is the CUBAN MODEL! Just google family remmitances from Miami to Cuba, or the cost of a Cuban passport, or the huge fees the Cuban government charges relatives who take goods to their relatives in Cuba and GET INFORMED! Good GRIEF! The info is there!

[USAHavana]

Cuba survived the loss of Soviet oil, not by "going green", the only "GREEN" they went for was MONEY FROM MIAMI exiles! The dictatorship decided to "allow" money remittances. It is that ALONE, along with Cuba's stealth conquest of Venezuela that helped Cuba "survive". The rest is ORGANIC MANURE PROPAGANDA aimed at weak minded Starbucks analysts! Remittances contribute over $1 billion to the island's economy each year, making it the largest source of revenue behind tourism. PLEASE WAKE UP!

[sierracuban]

@USAHavana WELL SAID......These people have ZERO idea of how the Cuban people are being ENSLAVED by Castro's total MIND CONTROL....Cuba is their private ranch.....WAKE UP PEOPLE.....Every tourist dollar that lands in Cuba goes towards building up their military.....STOP BELIEVING THIS PROPAGANDA CRAP......

[karlokater]

@sierracuban What a pity!

[darthvader5300]

Using rock dust powder remineralization combined with terra-preta powdered charcoal crop yields can increase by 880% by them alone. Combine it with compost innoculated with peat containing GE-FREE nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria and mycrorrhizal fungi strains yields will further increase 4 to 16 times more depending on what crops are being growned.

[666plb]

@sustainable2012 cruising along the Brisbane , Gold Coast freeway, i saw the funniest thing i have seen in ages, a really expensive looking car with a che guevara sticker on rear window. There are a lot of university students in Aust who are brain washed by the green left weekly, or the socialist alliance bullshit. I am sure there are a lot of cubans who would be happy to trade places with the ugrateful australian che t shirt clique.