The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil October 9, 2007

The Power of Community is an hour long film on Cuba’s Peak Oil situation and how they dealt with it. I am really pleased to see a film dealing with solutions to an oil free community in a positive way and showing that it is not impossible – certainly difficult he but definitely achievable. I particularly enjoyed that many of the interviewees were real people, not scientists or ‘experts’ advising from afar, but people who had experience the peak oil crisis and helped their community survive. There was a real insight to how life may be for us in the future, although I have a suspicion that England may have more of a ‘Mad Max’ feel to it when the oil runs out. It is clear to see that Cuba’s successful survival is based not on technological solutions but on building trusting communities and relationships with others.

However, although the film concentrates on the success of a transition to a virtually oil free economy, it skips over how poor some Cuban’s are and how some Cuban’s wish for the return of a fossil fueled society. Recently, I bumped into a friend who had been to Cuba on holiday and they said how many Cuban’s tried to ask them for money, or tried to con them out of money by charging over the odds for produce. Surely this is not the sign of a thriving country? I suspect this is due to Cuba being forced into this situation, it would be easy to look on an affluent oil driven age as desirable if you were made to do without.

Nevertheless, this is a very positive, easy film to watch. No prior knowledge is needed on Cuba, although you may want to have a quick look up on Permaculture solutions and it does not get bogged down in graphs and statistics as other peak oil/climate change films may. It reminds us that we are lucky enough to have the time to change and downshift before we are forced to. For further info, please visit the www.powerofcommunity.org. You can order the film from the Green Shopping website.