Oil Energy Realities (part 4): Impressions from Cuba

Over the last summer I had the opportunity to experience for myself how life with little oil is "happening"" on the tropical island of Cuba. My observations were enriched by direct exchanges with Cuban scientists working on energy and environmental problems. I was surprised by how openly these researchers write about the difficulties in their country and how constructively we could discuss the current and future problems of the Cuban energy supply and environment.

Relative successes of an inflexible system

Cuba, a poor country, is not only known for its magical Caribbean lifestyle and the mystical, romantic stories of José Martí, Ernest Hemingway, Che Guevara and their struggle for independence, freedom and justice. With its 11 million people, Cuba is also known for its bureaucratic socialist system. This system allows little flexibility for individuals, but has achieved relative successes like high-quality education for everyone, a functioning healthcare system that produces an age structure and life expectancy similar to Western Europe, and a low crime rate.

During the early 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union ended cheap oil delivery to Cuba. The sudden supply disruption brought enormous difficulties for the country's oil-based agriculture and its transport system, resulting in food rationing of less than 2,000 calories a day for healthy adults. Exploring smaller domestic offshore oil fields and trading oil deliveries from Venezuela for medical personnel and expertise put an end to the initial catastrophic oil shortages. But supply levels remain low.

Mobility without oil

Cuba now lives on an average of one-third less oil per capita, and a considerable fraction of the country's oil is either used to produce electric energy or in the tourism sector. With an old and unreliable train system and most cars operating in the tourism industry, Cuba's mobility is clearly drastically different than ours.

As a result, traveling, even for relatively short distances and outside of the bigger cities, is difficult for most Cubans. For them, travelling is mostly based on a few old, highly overcrowded and unreliable busses and old-fashioned ways like bicycles, horses and walking. Currently the different forms of mobility are often seen side by side: The absence of a good, safe network of bike trails forces bikers onto the often badly maintained roads and into dangerous competition with the few remaining car owners. The mobility horizon for most adults corresponds therefore to a daily routine radius of 5 to 15 km at most, and most Cubans, voluntary or not, already live in accordance with the second part of the saying "think globally, act locally".

Food supply in the cities...

Markets and street sales of meat, fish, vegetables and fruit replace the abundant supermarkets we are used to in European cities. While the overall food situation for Cubans does not appear to be totally satisfactory, at least fresh vegetables and tasty exotic fruit appear to be relatively cheap and plentiful. Within cities, fruit and vegetables are often distributed on simple handmade carriages with the help of horses and bikes. There are many community vegetable gardens in Havana and other cities, and shade-providing "self-service" fruit trees decorate many countryside streets.

According to an enthusiastic permaculture organizer, these gardens provide a considerable proportion of the fresh vegetables consumed in the cities. But he also confirmed that there is nowhere near enough space within the dense cities to be self-sufficient.

...and in the countryside

Cooperatives and individuals have transformed large fractions of the agricultural area in the countryside, previously used for monoculture sugar cane plantations, to produce organic vegetables and fruit. In addition, it appears that "gardening spaces" are available essentially for free to those interested in getting their hands dirty and willing to live outside of the cities. During one of our excursions to the mountains, a gardener and his children confirmed this possibility. He told me that his 1-ha garden provides sufficient food for him and his two-child family, and exchanging his surplus vegetables and fruit for their other needs gives them more than enough.

If we accept the idea that oil is a very finite resource, and that our oil-based mobility system will become difficult to maintain sometime in the not-too-distant future, we might be able to learn some lessons from Cuba - a society badly prepared for the oil-supply shock 20 years ago and still struggling with extremely limited mobility for most inhabitants. A rational planning - a "Plan B" for such a situation - should be prepared already now. Such a "plan B" should in my view take into account:

(a) The need to organise a sufficient local food production and distribution system;

(b) The possibility that hypothetical alternatives to our oil-based transport system, like electric cars, trucks and tractors, may not be available in time;

(c) During a transition period, the reduced car mobility will add far more bicycles and pedestrians onto the streets. A well prepared network of safe bicycle and pedestrian roads (Denmark could serve as a reference) connecting the cities and villages might reduce many of the unnecessary difficulties experienced by the Cuban population;

(d) The need to protect (or recreate) our nearby natural environment such that it offers a healthy, beautiful recreation area for all.

This would allow us to develop a robust system of food production and distribution, as well as local natural areas for recreation, which in themselves might eliminate some of our current "need" to travel hundreds of kilometres quickly and regularly.
 

(Michael Dittmar/ETH-Zukunftsblog)