Thursday, September 7, 2006, 7:00 PM

    Inwood Nature Center
    218th Street and Indian Road
    New York , NY 10034
    212-304-2365

The Power of Community Screening and Permaculture Talk with Andrew Phillips

    When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, oil shipments to Cuba, a Soviet satellite nation, declined to trickle. The impact on Cuba’s industrialized and petroleum-dependent economy were disastrous, resulting in staggering declines in the availability of medicine, jobs, transportation, and most alarmingly, agriculture. As famine loomed on the horizon, the communist government relaxed some of its rules and allowed the people of Cuba to development and implement solutions locally, in their communities.

    The Power of Community documents the problems ordinary Cubans faced during the "Special Period" of sudden and extreme petroleum scarcity, and the solutions they created for themselves in the face of overwhelming economic odds. It is a story of grace and hope for Western audiences as we begin the transition into our own "Special Period" of permanent global energy decline.

    After the film Andrew Leslie Phillips will discuss the problems of climate change and peak oil and talk about the two permaculture classes being held in New York over the coming months.