What Monty’s programme has done is provide validation for those who only believe what they see on mainstream TV. Most people I’ve told about “Power of Community”, or have even seen the DVD, found it hard to believe since the only mainstream exposure they have on Cuba is one of a “communist hell-hole”.

Now you could argue that producing DVDs is consuming resources etc and is a “contradiction”.

To me, this “contradiction” thinking leads to alienation of permaculturists, and drives them towards isolating themselves from the world, because energy is consumed in spreading the word. Even to the point of removing profiles from facebook.

At the end of the day, the likes of Monty Don, Al Gore, Richard Heinberg etc, are travelling in order to serve a purpose, they are not merely travelling for the sake of it. When they are presenting “on site” they have credibility; if they just ran internet blogs then to most people they wouldn’t be seen as much more than “nerdy conspiracy theorists”. And don’t forget, writing books and posting material on the internet, consumes energy.

Use a better argument against the deniers who cry “hypocrisy”, rather than allowing them to beat us into submission.

I find this deeply frustrating when even intelligent people like Monty Don pay no heed whatsoever to the obvious hypocrisy inherent in their behaviour. I guess you can make exceptions for the likes of Al Gore but even then I’m not so sure. I think Rob Hopkins makes a valuable statement by not flying abroad to conferences and showing there is a better way.

What we really need is celebrities who are prepared to publicly admit that, much as they would love to visit Cuba etc., they recognise it is incompatible with the environmental crisis and wasteful of precious resources. Monty Don could easily have incorporated Cuba into his Gardeners World series without ever leaving the UK.

It should also be available on http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ for a few days.

I don’t have a telly either, but was at my girlfriends and she wanted to watch something else.

Despite knowing about iplayer it hadn’t occured to me to use it!

Smiles,

Josef.

I myself am downloading it at the present after my friend Steve who is also interested in TT phoned me to ask if I’d watched it…

Some things work, some don’t. Like any society, Cuba its flaws and contradictions, as well as having solid achievements. No society is perfect. But we can certainly learn a few things from Cuba’s experience. I think we can learn more than a few.

My father and his parents lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1942. They were German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, and not political left-wingers. That family history is where my own interest in Cuba comes from. My dad met my mom in the United States and that’s how I came into this world.

Thanks.