Viva Cuba! Leading The World Towards Sustainable Culture

DriftingByTheStorm

I watched this movie the other day, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, and i highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about either what peak oil is, or to those who recognize it but don't know "what's next?"

Anyhow,
this video is remarkable.
The cuban people are remarkable.
Basicaly, when Russia fell in the early '90s, Cuba lost 90% of both it's total imports and exports -- including oil and food.

Cuba had been on the "Green Revolution" system (a joke of a name, lol) of agriculture which promotes big pesticide and fertilizer and tractor use, and monocroping of certain cash crops for export.

Thus, when the Russian model colapsed, they were left with not only no oil, but since they were only producing cash crops for export and relying primarily on imported grains and produce, no food.

In the few years after the total economic collapse, Cuba nationalized it's food distribution system with ration cards and charts to prevent the rich from hoarding all the available food.

Along with this model, they got lots of permaculture experts to come in from Australia (Bill Mollison and his concept, permaculture, are from Australia) and teach the local farmers how to adapt.

They began permaculture-izing the whole country. All the vacant plots and rundown shacks in town were converted to ad hoc gardens, roof gardens, and chicken tractors, etc.

The most gratifying part of the movie to me was that it validated with real world results some of my long held private thoughts on agricultural practice in the USA. Namely, I have long wondered and argued that it would be better to just stop using the machinery and to have the people do the work. For a country that argues that you can't have hyper-inflation in an "unlimited labor supply" economy (i heard this argument on monday on MSNBC for christs sake!), it is funny to see us argue that you couldn't possibly run US agriculture without machines -- it wouldn't feed enough people. Huh? What about "unlimited labor supply"?

Anyhow, I always argued that if you cut out the oil (which is a falsification of the farm economy, a false subsidy which works against the people) from the equation, you would see people SURGE in to the farm sector to replace the machines, and labor rates would rise (both by need, and because that cost was no longer required for machinery, etc) for the farmer.

SURE ENOUGH, CASE IN POINT CUBA:
With no oil, farmers become in high demand, the small farm is the new big farm, and it is now one of the top paying jobs in cuba [a guy interviews that he is both a musician and an engineer, and he designs electronics, but now all he does if farm, he makes more pay] ... and it is one of the top growth sectors of the economy

... also it is extremely sustainable. All of it is grown in circular specific distance from city center, it is done using the smallest fraction of the amount of petro-fertilizer inputs as before, most all of it is purely organic, done using land-friendly permaculture practices ... cuba is one of the leading exporters (not to america, hahahah!) of alternative-pesticides and alternative-fertilizers (organics and biodynamic solutions) ...

THIS IS EXCITING SHIT.

mammasan

Thanks for posting this. Definitely have to take a look at it and what can I say we Cuban are smart fuckers.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

yeah but farming sucks.

MakingWaves

the only problem is the machines do it faster which means you are able to farm more area which equals more money. Therefore, this will never happen in the US, which isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

DriftingByTheStorm

MakingWaves wrote:

the only problem is the machines do it faster which means you are able to farm more area which equals more money. Therefore, this will never happen in the US, which isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

Hahahahha!
Buddy you have another thing or 20 coming.
It WILL happen in the US.
And a LOT sooner than you think, apparently.

Global peak oil will be here between 2010 and 2013 by ALL best estimates (and the first guy, Hubbel, to estimate was DEAD ON TO THE YEAR - 1970 - for US production) at that time YOU WILL SEE.

:rolleyes:

Oh to be young and ignorant again.
:(

jlew24asu

drifitin, how about you relax with the insults. makes you look like the young and ignorant one ya know

DriftingByTheStorm

jlew24asu wrote:

drifitin, how about you relax with the insults. makes you look like the young and ignorant one ya know

I'm just really tired of the over-abundance of ignorance and one liners on this board. The phrase "get a clue" comes to mind.

"That will never happen in the US, which isn't a bad thing in my opinion" rings as a "Nya Nya Ni Boo Boo! Thhhppppptttttt!"to me, anyhow.

Besides, I don't see anything in my response that is an insult to anyone.
I just said he has another thing coming, and "will see".

WTF?

Where is the beef?

jlew24asu

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

I'm just really tired of the over-abundance of ignorance and one liners on this board. The phrase "get a clue" comes to mind.

"That will never happen in the US, which isn't a bad thing in my opinion" rings as a "Nya Nya Ni Boo Boo! Thhhppppptttttt!"to me, anyhow.

Besides, I don't see anything in my response that is an insult to anyone.
I just said he has another thing coming, and "will see".

WTF?

Where is the beef?

read as if you were calling him young and ignorant. although I'll stay out of it. not to knowledgeable about this peak oil theory, but it sounds about right.

TheVoiceInside

I tend to think that living off the land is alot better than depending on outside sources of food. My parents in law live in a farm located in the mountains of Puerto Rico, very similar to Cuba, and when i visit during the weekends i tend to help my father in law with all the farm work and i can say that it is very hard work but at the end of the day it sure feels alot more gratifyng to be able to sit and eat a meal that came from the hard work and from the land that you live on. Its way much better than sitting in front of a computer all day.


Its still is back breaking work and its not for everybody. Right now there is a big problem with agriculture here in PR because nobody is willing to do this type of work.

DriftingByTheStorm

TheVoiceInside wrote:

Right now there is a big problem with agriculture here in PR because nobody is willing to do this type of work.

Unfortunately that is why the "solution" is to "wait for the problem to run it's course" ... given the stranglehold of our economic structure, the ONLY way for farmers to get their fair shot is for oil to run its course - deplete past half which means no more growth, NO MORE GROWTH - and you will see jobs start to faulter.

When it gets so bad that the economy isn't getting anywhere near enough oil, you will see jobs shut down ... after the blackouts weave their way through the cities ... and production is disrupted ... the unemployed masses, hungry and out of work will crawl their way back to the country to start a "green" revolution ... lol.

Very exciting stuff, imho.

COME ON OIL, RUN OUT!

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

I'd prefer not to go back to the stone age, thanks. i would spend 90% of my time tending the fields and praying for rain. hope we can figure out a economical way to get oil out of shale.

I like my job drawing cool monsters a lot better than plowing.

mammasan

Our generation will probably not feel the pinch of declining oil reserves. Peak oil is expected to occur in about 5-10 years. For the following decade or so production will still be able to support demand. It will probably be another 10-20 years before we really start seeing oil shortages. This gives us a good 20-30 years to develope an alternative fuel source and revamp our infastructure to suit the new source. If we can't accomplish this in that amount of time we deserve to be extinct.

DriftingByTheStorm

mammasan wrote:

Our generation will probably not feel the pinch of declining oil reserves. Peak oil is expected to occur in about 5-10 years. For the following decade or so production will still be able to support demand. It will probably be another 10-20 years before we really start seeing oil shortages. This gives us a good 20-30 years to develope an alternative fuel source and revamp our infastructure to suit the new source. If we can't accomplish this in that amount of time we deserve to be extinct.

I can't wait to see this mysterious new "alternative" fuel source.
Have we not been over all this?
NOTHING works like oil. NOTHING.
It's all fucked.

:(


And i believe that your analysis misses the mark a bit.
The economy DEPENDS ON GROWTH.
The moment obtaining the SAME amount of oil requires MORE energy (the DEFINITION of peak oil) the economy will be hard up.
You will see oil prices rise even BEFORE this moment, as pressure drops and the oil companies realize "this is it" and the market reacts ... read ... FREAKS OUT.



GOOD TIMES!
& Mr. Smith, you will grow to love it. AND you'll learn some spanish along the way.

jlew24asu

mammasan wrote:

Our generation will probably not feel the pinch of declining oil reserves. Peak oil is expected to occur in about 5-10 years. For the following decade or so production will still be able to support demand. It will probably be another 10-20 years before we really start seeing oil shortages. This gives us a good 20-30 years to develope an alternative fuel source and revamp our infastructure to suit the new source. If we can't accomplish this in that amount of time we deserve to be extinct.

a fucking men.

2 things that I find mind boggling.

morphine is a legal prescription drug. pot is not.

and

capitalistic money hungry people (most americans) cant produce an alternative to oil for mass production.

jlew24asu

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

I can't wait to see this mysterious new "alternative" fuel source.
Have we not been over all this?
NOTHING works like oil. NOTHING.
It's all fucked.

:(

hey Captain Tin Hat. how about a little more faith in human determination.

DriftingByTheStorm

jlew24asu wrote:

a fucking men.

2 things that I find mind boggling.

morphine is a legal prescription drug. pot is not.

and

capitalistic money hungry people (most americans) cant produce an alternative to oil for mass production.

1. Pot would put a LOT of companies out of business, that is why.

2. How bout just an alternative to "mass production"?
We don't need this shit. Just food, shelter, love, and eachother.
EVERYTHING ELSE is superfluous feel good status related bullshit.

Hell half the planet lives with out food and shelter on any consistent basis, just love and community.

mammasan

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

I can't wait to see this mysterious new "alternative" fuel source.
Have we not been over all this?
NOTHING works like oil. NOTHING.
It's all fucked.

:(


And i believe that your analysis misses the mark a bit.
The economy DEPENDS ON GROWTH.
The moment obtaining the SAME amount of oil requires MORE energy (the DEFINITION of peak oil) the economy will be hard up.
You will see oil prices rise even BEFORE this moment, as pressure drops and the oil companies realize "this is it" and the market reacts ... read ... FREAKS OUT.



GOOD TIMES!
& Mr. Smith, you will grow to love it. AND you'll learn some spanish along the way.

You are right nothing works like oil that is why we will need to rely on multiple sources. Nuclear, solar, wind, and hydro for homes and business. Bio fuels for transportation. There is no one solution to this problem.

DriftingByTheStorm

mammasan wrote:

You are right nothing works like oil that is why we will need to rely on multiple sources. Nuclear, solar, wind, and hydro for homes and business. Bio fuels for transportation. There is no one solution to this problem.

I can get behind nuclear, solar and wind.

Hydro has until-as-of-lately incomprehensible environmental impacts, and bio fuels are a fucking joke.
They require more oil to produce than they are worth.
And they are another contributor to the destruction of our ever-dwindeling top soil.

Of the remaining three, nuclear is the only one with the chance of sustaining current industry (but i advocate the death of current industry), even though nuclear itself relies on steam or coal power to operate, if i'm not mistaken. But IS a net producer at the end of the day. (unless someone wants to challenge that?)

Solar has it's problems too, but fuck it, we may as well use it.
That and photovoltaics.

Wind is great for small scale work, but again it requires oil to make the turbines and it won't come close to providing for all of our needs.

I can't emphasize how horribly destructive hydro dams are to the environment.

They are killing the colorado river.
The Yang Tze Three Gorges Dam just fucked china in the face.

Pray we don't foolishly adopt this.
It could be the end of the world for real.

:(

jlew24asu

if it comes down to human existence or the environment, guess who will win.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

the main problem is transportation fuel. The rest of the economy can run just fine off of coal, natural gas, and nuclear for a long time. You can use coal to produce biofuels, not just oil. i think.

DriftingByTheStorm

jlew24asu wrote:

if it comes down to human existence or the environment, guess who will win.

Uh.
The environment.
Duh.

Once we've done our damage,
mother nature will cut us out of the picture.

:rolleyes: