The Power of Community: how Cuba survived Peak Oil

In this film, individual Cubans tell us how they responded to an artificially imposed “Peak Oil” in the 1990s, when the fall of the Soviet Union caused the loss of most food and oil imports. Their stories serve as a valuable model for a world facing Peak Oil on a global scale. Cuba’s transition to a low-energy society is hopeful and instructive.

Interweaving a cogent overview of global Peak Oil with the story of Cuba’s experience, director Faith Morgan outlines the dire consequences of Cuba’s energy crisis. Transportation halted. Electricity was available sporadically. Lacking substitutes for fossil-fuel-based farming, food production was devastated. The average Cuban lost 20 pounds.Morgan shows us the innovative responses of the Cuban people. We see city-dwellers planting urban gardens on every available plot, using permaculture and organic farming to reclaim soils destroyed by chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These local farmers reconnect with their neighbors and willingly supply free food to elders, schools, workers, and pregnant women.