Author: Erasmo Calzadilla

In September of 2010 – exactly five years ago – I wrote my first post about peak oil. I started delving into the issue after reading some articles by Ramon Fernandez Duran that a Spanish friend left me.

On Monday, August 24, the world’s main stock markets suffered their worst trading in years. What I would like to focus on, however, is the collapse of my own “company” a mere week later.

I’m shaken up. In less than a year, three friends of mine have been diagnosed with and treated for cervical cancer (CC) – three young women saved from a slow and horrible death. I dedicate this post to all those battling this condition. (9 graphs)

Today, I want to revisit another thorny issue in Cuba: the process of cultural and social degradation that continues to spread across our cities and countryside. I am not the only one who’s noticed it – it is a rather recurrent topic of discussion down here.

Over the past ten years, reggaeton singers have changed the idea we’d long had about Latin American music. Their music videos are full of adrenaline, aggressiveness, sexual arousal, speed, fast motorcycles, sport cars, luxurious yachts and lascivious young men. One of Daddy Yankee’s popular pieces (where the title of this post comes from) offers us a clue as to the underpinnings of all this.

More than a month ago, a US researcher I admire visited our green archipelago. Gail Tverberg studies issues related to the decline in energy resources and the accelerated economic growth that is typical of industrial civilization.

Analysts that believe that the crisis is irreversible due to the global energy decline, predicting a dark future for Greece, were right on target. If politicians and the Greek people had listened to those predictions the path taken would have been different.

The prosperous émigrés that frequent the comments section of this page don’t want to hear about Peak Oil, and I get a rather morbid kick reminding them of it.

In the case of cancer, however, the “enemy” isn’t outside but within. To combat it, the State-Party-government would have to begin by criticizing its own values and foundational principles, and to go against its own interests as governing elite.

In 2012, following an accelerated rise, Cancer became the leading cause of death in Cuba. In 2013 the upward climb continued, and in 2014 it climbed with even greater might: 23,729 lives cut short over a 12 month period – 747 more than the previous year.