It’s finally happened: Castro has hung up his hat. Okay, handed it to his brother, and he will absolutely still put it on from time to time…but a regime change is in the air. Even if Raul Castro is blessed with unusually good health and long life, he’s still 76 years old, and Cuba can’t look ahead to another half century of same old, same old.
Photo: CCL Peter Ashton
Very little about Cuba, or Castro’s reign, is black and white. The intersection of energy resources and environmentalism is no exception. Cuba has little in the way of natural energy reserves. U.S. sanctions, while ineffective in some ways–last year, Cuba saw a reported 7% growth in the economy–have certainly made it difficult for Cuba to trade for oil, all but shoving the country into the welcoming arms of Hugo Chávez, who lords over the incredibly rich oil reserves of Venezuela. Only two months ago was Chávez in Cuba, there for the inauguration of a Soviet-built refinery on the island that is slated to process over 60,000 gallons of crude oil per day. This also means that if Cuba were to be successful in searching for oil reserves off the coast, there’s now a domestic refinery option.
Oil reserves off the coast…this brings me to the next point: environmentalism. Part of it was just excellent spin doctoring, part of it was real necessity, part of it may have been genuine concern for the future of the planet, but Fidel Castro has been a strong supporter of renewable energy (though not of biofuel!) for some time, and a proponent of organic farming and conservation. Solar panels abound on the island; for many, solar is the first energy they’ve had. Organic gardens in Havana supply state-run–er, I guess that goes without saying–hospitals and schools with fresh herbs and produce. Coffee farms are managed with minimal pesticides, or none at all. And “ecotourism” is looking to be the country’s biggest cash cow, especially if those of us with U.S. passports are ever able to hop down there. It’s a deeply impoverished country and needs all the cash it can get; to the question, “But at what price?”, Castro has thus far said, “Not at the cost of my country.”
How will a new leader answer this question? If a new leader is one with whom the U.S. is willing to negotiate, and suddenly oil from more places than Brazil and Venzuela are open for the purchasing, will Cuba maintain focus on clean energy? Will Castro’s intense opposition to biofuel fade before fields of sugarcane intended as biomass? Will offshore drilling turn pristine reefs into a conservationist’s worst nightmare? There’s probably another ten of fifteen years we’ll need to wait to get these questions answered; Fidel, though he’s stepped down, is certainly not going anywhere just yet, and while hermano Raul is his own man and likely to change things up a bit, he’s still a Castro. I just wonder if we won’t all be a bit nostalgic when the change happens. Many things are caught inside the time capsule of Cuba, and not all of them are bad.
“How many of Cuba’s environmental programs are initiatives of purposeful conservation and how many are initiatives of necessity? It seems to me that a lot of what’s going on (organic/local farming, solar hot water heating, incinerating sugar cane chaff to generate electricity) occurs simply because they have no other option. They’re unable to import pesticides, for example, and lack the capacity (and perhaps incentive) to put a car in every garage. Solar hot water systems are cheap and, for the most part, easy to build.
From my perspective, it’s one thing to be nostalgic for the passing of an era—especially in the face of potential detriment to the environment and the impending Floridi-fication of Havana. It’s another thing entirely to view a command economy, one that is inherently inefficient and relies on top-down mandates and political repression to function, as somehow a better steward of the environment than a western capitalist system. Yes, capitalism is far from perfect. And yes, the Cuban system has several redeeming qualities (among which are universal healthcare, high literacy and organic farming). But let’s remember that Cuba’s environmental stewardship has been the exception, not the rule, for most communist countries. And even then, I’m not convinced Cuba’s economy is terribly energy efficient.
In the end, the trick is to figure out how to develop/modernize AND protect the environment at the same time. To me, it seems that Cuba took a giant step backward after the fall of the Soviet Union: their economy collapsed and many reverted to neighborhood gardens and oxen-driven plows to help feed the population. While these steps undoubtedly benefit the environment, I think we’d be hard pressed to promote such a model in other countries.
Anyway, thanks for the post. These were just some random thoughts I was having.”