What can we learn from Cuba when meeting the challenge of climate change and peak oil?
Climate change and peak oil challenge us to to change how we live in ways that are hard to imagine. How will we respond, and what systems are possible to help us adapt to radically changing conditions? One powerful model we can learn from is Cuba.
This film is about Cuba’s response to the sudden loss of trade and drastic cuts in oil imports when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. Cuba's Gross Domestic Product dropped by more than one third, transportation halted and food became scarce - on average Cubans lost 20 pounds during the first 3 years of the economic crisis. Yet Cubans triumphed over adversity through local solutions. The film visits urban gardens and organic farms, explains the relationship between food and fossil fuels, and shows how a society can change from an industrialized, global focus to a local, community based one.
8:30 PM - Discussion – implications to our local community and positive actions we can take.
We will speak briefly about the Transition Initiative starting up in Pasadena and how is can be used to transition away from fossil-fuel dependency to a resilient, sustainable community.
Please consider biking, walking, taking public transportation (www.mta.net) or carpooling to this event. Suggested voluntary donation of $5. For more information call [masked] or email [masked]
Sponsored by Converging Storms Action Network, a network of activists from diverse arenas, whose shared analysis, activities, and actions for progressive social change centrally address the intersecting crises of energy, capitalism, and environment.
What is peak oil?
Peak oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production. Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, one that has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half. The rate of oil 'production', meaning extraction and refining (currently about 84 million barrels/day), has grown almost every year of the last century. Once we have used up about half of the original reserves, oil production becomes ever more likely stop growing and begin a terminal decline, hence 'peak'. The peak in oil production does not signify 'running out of oil', but it does mean the end of cheap oil. For economies leveraged on ever increasing quantities of cheap oil, the consequences may be dire. Without significant successful cultural reform, severe economic and social consequences seem inevitable.
What does peak oil mean for our societies?
Our industrial societies and our financial systems were built on the assumption of continual growth – growth based on ever more readily available cheap fossil fuels. Oil in particular is the most convenient and multi-purposed of these fossil fuels. Oil currently accounts for about 43% of the world's total fuel consumption, and 95% of global energy used for transportation. Oil and gas are feedstocks for plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, electronic components, tyres and much more. Oil is so important that the peak will have vast implications across the realms of war and geopolitics, medicine, culture, transport and trade, economic stability and food production. Significantly, for every one joule of food consumed in the United States, around 10 joules of fossil fuel energy have been used to produce it.
It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?
They begin by forming an initiating group and then adopt the Transition Model with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative.
“ This was my first meeting. I was really inspired to see a group of people come together on a Saturday night to explore the impacts and solutions that Cuba employed during their Peak Oil period. I was greeted by many friendly people and I had some great conversations. I am looking forward to getting involved in future events with Converging Storms Action Network and The Transition Intiative. ”
“ This was my first meeting. I was really inspired to see a group of people come together on a Saturday night to explore the impacts and solutions that Cuba employed during their Peak Oil period. I was greeted by many friendly people and I had some great conversations. I am looking forward to getting involved in future events with Converging Storms Action Network and The Transition Intiative. ”
Gavin (+1 guest)
ly Hills Backyard Poultry Meetup Group
Talk about this Meetup
Delete this comment?
This comment has been deleted.