Justice

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

By Anne / 4 May 2008

“When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil in the early 1990s, the country faced an immediate crisis – feeding the population – and an ongoing challenge: how to create a new low-energy society. This film tells the story of the Cuban people’s hardship, ingenuity, and triumph over sudden adversity – through cooperation, conservation, and community. ” – The Community Solution

This fantastic and hope-filled documentary examines how Cuba adjusted to its own political “peak oil” in the 1990s when the US imposed a trade embargo, cutting off Cuba’s access to oil imports. With an agricultural sector heavily dependent on fossil fuel based fertilisers and pesticides, a very energy-intensive transport system and energy sector, Cuba suddenly faced severe food shortages, extended power cuts and debilitating transport problems.

Cuba’s response is a hopeful look at how community based solutions and grass-roots initiatives can create local resilience to rise to the daunting challenge of peak oil.

The Social Justice Commission has a few copies of the DVD left to give away. In return for this resource, we are really keen to gather some inspiring stories from people around New Zealand – different visions of the future from all sorts of different perspectives. We want stories about what people want the future to look like, and how they intend to get there. What do we want our communities to look like? Will our neighbourhood have changed? Will we know our neighbours? Will our education system and curriculum have been revised? Will politics transform in scale, in outlook, in dominant ideology? How will we travel? What will we eat? What will our relationship with nature be? Will the way we do “church” look the same?

Stories could incorporate action and activism that is currently happening within the church or outside of it – what are you or any group or initiative you are involved in doing or hoping to do to affect change in your home or community?

Email us at justice.assistant@anglican.org.nz