This post was written by guest blogger Jody Roberts.*
19 February 2008 was an historic day. For the first time in history, the price of oil at the close of the U.S. markets sat above $100. Ok, it was by only a penny, but that penny was probably the most significant penny anyone's see in years. And when you consider that in 2006 the U.S. consumed just over 20 million barrels of oil everyday, those pennies start to add up pretty quickly. The other major news event of the day was of course the announcement by Fidel Castro that he will step down from his top position in Cuba after nearly 50 years. The announcement received wide attention, but after years of frail health the news was not as surprising as it would have been not so long ago. Two events, forecasted for years, finally came to fruition. At first blush, the two seem utterly distinct, totally separate and unrelated events. It is true there is no causal relationship (unless someone knows something I don't), but there is a more subtle, deeper connection between the two.
For years I've listened to scientists and economists, one after another, pronounce that nothing can, nothing will be done to move our society past its addiction to oil until said oil reached $100 a barrel. Well, that day has arrived. I'm just wondering what it will mean? Should I start preparing my landlady's roof for solar panels? Can I expect a new, faster, more efficient mass transit system to shuttle me around Philadelphia, to my family back in Latrobe, or to meetings and conferences around the country? Does this mean we Americans will have to finally face the fact that our current consumption habits are simply unsustainable, and that these higher costs will finally force us to reconsider our lifestyles? Is the new post-petroleum age upon us?
Well, the simple answer to all of this is of course, no. I didn't notice any more riders on SEPTA this morning. I didn't pass any signs declaring gas shortages.
The problem isn't that the rising costs aren't affecting us (though they could be affecting us a lot more than they are); the real problem is that petroleum and its derivative products comprise such an enormous part of our everyday infrastructure--from fuel to food; plastic bags to polyester--that individual and consumer choice don't really matter much. Yet.
Finding alternatives to petroleum for fuel has been a hot topic lately, with the rise of biofuels taking center stage in the debates about what the energy infrastructure of the future will look like. But whether for food or fuel, the fact is that the vast majority of whatever it is we're growing wouldn't be growing if it weren't for petroleum-based chemicals. So, the $100 barrel is still hitting us above the belt and on the beltway. And soon we'll have to face choices about which is more important. Given the integration within our system, it's hard to even imagine what a post-petroleum U.S. would like.
In 1990 with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Cuba suddenly found itself in a new dangerous position. Utterly reliant on imports for maintaining its food supply (by way of actual foodstuffs as well as the machinery and fertilizers used for food production), the small island nation was forced to switch to a more self-sufficient mode of food production or otherwise risk massive starvation. In 1992, a team of 20 natural and social scientists as well as historians and journalists traveled to Cuba to evaluate what had happened. Their report highlights the transitions that were necessary to switch from a petroleum intensive agricultural system to a local, (mostly) organic, sustainable farming practice. (Bill McKibben also reported on this a few years ago, in Harper's). The switch was not an ideological one. As the team points out, large scale development was at the heart of both the U.S. and the Soviets. However, necessity proved an important motivation.
What will come of the $100 barrel of oil? What will come of a Cuba after Fidel Castro? The two are perhaps more linked than before: a post-Castro era will likely mean an end to the long-standing embargo, which might mean a more direct flow of the very materials that became so inaccessible with the fall of the Soviet Bloc. But before the trade ships pull into port, perhaps we might take some time to see what's happened on the ground in Cuba. There might be some lessons for how we can learn to live in the era of the $100 barrel of oil.
*JR's bio can be found at the end of his first guest post, on the EPA and Endocrine Disrupters. Also see his interview with Lizzie Grossman about High Tech Trash and a commentary on, oh, feeding the world. Image credit for the oil barrel above goes to this story.
- Log in to post comments
Well spotted. Firstly thanks for commenting upon the hundred dollar question - you are right that some people have been predicting this for years, but it is still a momentous milestone that has been widely ignored. And secondly for making a link to the other big news story. Bloggers don't do this relationship searching enough (though I always try). Like Douglas Adams fictional detective, it is only by searching for these odd links that we might understand "the fundamental interconnectness of everything".
I touched upon it in 2006 (http://www.thealders.net/blogs/2006/08/02/vivo-la-revolucion/) and David Suzuki's The Nature of Things Cuba The Accidental Revolution that prompted my post is available via torrent from http://torrentz.ws/torrent/621542/CBC-The-Nature-of-Things-Cuba-The-Acc…
Thank you for bringing these ideas and observations forward.
Would it not be ironic that America would find out things that could help it survive difficult and changing times from that small island off Florida, after all the years of trying to do it harm. I still hope I will have the opportunity to dine in some Havana paladar's (home kitchen restaurants) where the true culinary traditions of the island have thrived despite all odds, using ingredients taken directly from the grower (usually from small sustainable plots) to the kitchen to the table.
Interesting angle. We must discover new energies, improve electric car and other big batteries, and drill in the Gulf and Alaska, and build more refineries in the US and also increase nuclear power, it works in France. Still, Castro is human garbage who has killed thousands of innocent Cubans in his failed pursuit of a communist paradise.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
Castro was BRILLIANT
like Marx, Lenin and Mao
he helped redefine EVIL
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
celebrities are GUILTY
of having talent and luck
so they must praise dictators
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never admit you were wrong
Communisms FANTASTIC
BEST false ideology
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
keep your people poor
deny them decent health care
convince them they have it GREAT
Fidel Castro
murderous tyrant
- fools' hero
communist freedom killer
imprisons many poets...
http://absurdthoughtsaboutgod.blogspot.com/
http://www.therealcuba.com/
:)
.
Propaganda with a smile, what more could you ask for?
P.S.
Here's a tip. If you want your attack to be more effective, I suggest criticizing something other than Cuba's health care system; the entire population has access to an impressive minimum standard of health care, Cuban trained doctors are renowned in the region, and Cuba's Infant Mortality Rate is similar to that of Western nations. I suppose next you'll be attacking Cuba's education system and literacy rate? There are certainly valid critiques of Castro which can, and should, be made, but when you post such poorly presented absurdities, including comparisons of Marx to Lenin and Mao (and Castro to the three for that matter), horrible generalizations, blatant fallacies, and links to overt propaganda sites, it's difficult to take you seriously. And more refineries and drilling is the answer? Right.
Thank you! Propaganda always has a smile, often truth does too. Often truth is painful, so it often seems like propaganda, because then it can be more easily dismissed.
Yes, until we find other energies, we need oil. We must keep looking and exploring for it, and when we find it we need to drill for it. Unless you know a better way to get it out of the ground. More refineries in the US would raise the supply and lower the price for the working poor and everyone else. I know you believe you care for the 'working poor'.
http://www.terrorfreeoil.org/
:)
My impression from reading various reports and articles is that Cuban agriculture is extremely labor intensive. It is efficient in terms of oil use and land use, but requires a lot of people doing agricultural stuff. Despite a certain romanticization of farm labor by those who are not compelled to do it, farm labor is some of the most brutal, exhausting, grinding and possibly terrifying labor that one can perform. (When all that stands between you and starvation is a broken hoe, farm work can be terrifying.) There is a reason that people flee to the cities when they can. Not every human is stupid.
My guess is that Cuba will eventually rejoin the world economy and start using non-human labor for its agriculture. There will still be farms in Cuba, professional and hobby farms, but most Cubans will look back at the golden Castro era the way the Chinese look at Mao's glorious turn to pastoralism with its tens of millions of deaths.
What can we learn from Cuban agriculture? I'm sure that there are some specifics. I read a rather interesting book on teaching grade school arithmetic motivated by a stint in rural education while in exile during the Maoist era. Just as the German siege of Paris and resulting famine led to a new understanding of diabetes, there are lessons to be learned from Cuban agriculture.