The Power of Community: DVD Review

dvd coverYou would have to be living under a large, large rock to not have heard about the concept of Peak Oil. It's scary stuff – much debated by many, scoffed by some, acknowledged as a player on the field by all. Something's going on with the oil. Who can access it depends on who is friends with who this week, and it is something that all the major car companies are trying to prepare for (a sure sign that someone high up in their respective corporate structures is mighty tetchy about it). Down here at the 'little ol' me' level, the implications of this sort of change is… unsettling, to say the least.

I must admit I went through a little bit of a stage last year where I was feeling quite overwhelmed by the implications of energy descent, as it is sometimes called. We flapped about, trying to figure out what, if anything, we could do. Should we be trying to live in the city or the country? Was living in a densely populated suburb a potential asset or a disadvantage in the event of a sharp change, or even a slow change, in energy descent?

This documentary was one of the first examples I saw last year of how an urban population with a relatively high standard of living dealt with a sharp drop-off in energy (in this case oil) supply… and it was inspiring stuff. Enter the republic of Cuba, during the Special Period (that's the official term) in 1991…