A Better World is Possible

This unique Cuban transport vehicle, called a "camel", can carry 300 passengers. (Photo by John Morgan, from the Energy Bulletin website)

Check out how Cuba is way ahead on sustainability and building a society with minimal dependendence on oil.

A few highlights:

• Today an estimated 50 percent of Havana's vegetables come from inside the city, while in other Cuban towns and cities urban gardens produce from 80 percent to more than 100 percent of what they need.
  
• Cubans have moved to a primarily low-fat, vegetarian diet.
• Government officials allow private entrepreneurial farmers and neighborhood organizations to use public land to grow and sell their produce. They encourage migration back to the farms and rural areas and have reorganized their provinces to be in-line with agricultural needs.
• At the Organipónico de Alamar, a neighborhood agriculture project, a workers' collective runs a large urban farm, a produce market and a restaurant. Hand tools and human labor replace oil-driven machinery. Worm cultivation and composting create productive soil. Drip irrigation conserves water.
  
• Solar power is providing electricity for homes, schools, medical facilities, and community centers.
  
• An innovative mass transit system was created out of necessity. Virtually every form of vehicle, large and small, was used. Commuters ride in buses, other motorized transport, hand-made wheelbarrows, and animal-powered vehicles. Government officials pull over nearly empty government vehicles and trucks on Havana's streets and fill them with people needing a ride.
  
• The literacy rate in Cuba is 97 percent, the same as in the United States. Cuba's education system and medical system are free.
  
• The Cuban government changed its 30-year motto from "Socialism or Death" to "A Better World is Possible."