There are always two related questions that frame looking at any institutions or social procedures in Cuba. The first is the same as frames looking at the institutions or social procedures of any of the world’s almost 200 countries: specifically and in detail, how do these operate in the particular national setting being considered? While all national institutions and social practices vary between all countries (hence the point of the first question), with Cuba there is very often (not always) a second question framing the investigation, which is exactly the subtitle of the first chapter: “What makes the Cuban approach different?” Given as argued that there are differences between all countries, what the second question really asks is: “what is it about the Cuban social organisation that makes the considered institutions and social practices so significantly different from how they are (or are not) dealt with in the ‘the rest of the world’”. Disaster Preparedness and Climate Change in Cuba: Management and Adaptation very much addresses both questions. Much of the material consists of detailed discussion on how the issues addressed are addressed in Cuba. But then all the chapters go beyond that to also consider and discuss how those issues are addressed differently in Cuba from “the rest of the world”, and in particular, how these differences are related to its particular social organisation. And while there are many such differences, one that is very important and keeps popping up throughout the chapters, is the degree of popular participation that is built into the very design of all of Cuba’s disaster preparedness and management.
It is important to note that the title of the book indicates it will address two issues, that although they are related in an obvious way, are distinct: disaster preparedness, and preparing for climate change. As the world is now aware – with an awareness that like the disaster itself is growing exponentially every year – the cataclysmic climate change that is already happening is a social and natural disaster. But going the other direction, there are many social and natural disasters other than climate change, notwithstanding that many of the biggest and most important of them today have at least a major climate disaster component (international migration, national food sovereignty and security, increasing world pandemics, and on and on). The organisation of the book by its editors reflects this logical awareness that the relation between the two issues is ‘Y is a case of X, but not all X are Y’. Roughly the first half of the chapters are about Cuba’s various systems of disaster preparedness and management, with only minimal refences to climate change as one such disaster among others. Then the second half, from their titles on, are very much about various aspects of Cuba’s current preparations for the oncoming world climate disaster, in the frame of how Cuba prepares for all social and natural disasters.
The historical unfolding of Cuba’s approach to natural disaster preparedness was the basis for its current extensive efforts to prepare for climate change, but of course it well preceded general world awareness of the oncoming cataclysm (yes, there were pioneers in the 1970s and 1960s and even before, but they were largely ignored by the “powers that be” around the world). On the first page of the Introduction the editors sketch the historical origin of Cuba’s different institutions and policies for disaster relief. By 1963 Cuba had already gone through four years of socially reorganising itself to “[protect] and [defend] the hard-won Revolution. Key to defensive strategies was the use of popular participation and mobilization. Without a doubt, ‘defense’ in the broadest possible sense was understood as integral to the success of the revolutionary project and heavily emphasized within its formative years.”
It was in this frame of social reorganisation that “the revolutionary leadership and the Cuban population[, who] were unprepared for confronting the extensive damage wrought by natural disasters”, was hit by Hurricane Flora in that year.
Some 1,200 Cubans were killed and several hundred thousand were left homeless. Flora was “one of the worst natural disasters in Cuba in modern times, but also the first one that the revolutionary government had to face”. Despite its relatively limited strength – it was categorized as a level 2 on the Saffir-Sipson Hurricane Scale – Flora had a devastating effect not just on Cuba but also on the Caribbean region more generally, killing between 7,000 and 8,000 people. (p. 1)
From this experience was born Cuba’s ongoing efforts to socially organise itself to confront natural disasters and climate change, for both of which it has been repeatedly singled out by the United Nations for recognition.
Just listing the titles of the book’s 14 chapters gives about as good an indication of what the book addresses as can be done in a short book review. They are:
Disaster Preparedness and Management: What Makes the Cuban Approach Different?
Disaster Management in Cuba: Formal, Semi-Formal and Informal Procedures
First and Last Bulwark against Natural Disasters: Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces
Cuba–Russia Cooperation: The History of Fraternal Disaster Management Collaboration
Bastión: The Shaping of a Pueblo Combatiente and Natural Disaster Management
Meteoro: The Impact of Education of Disaster Preparedness and Risk Reduction
Postgraduate Education Concerning Natural Disasters and Climate Change in the Cuban Health Sector
People’s Power: Cuba’s Path to Effective Disaster Management
Cuba’s Tarea Vida: Sustainable Development and Combating Climate Change
International Collaboration on the Environment and Marine Conservation in Cuba: Reflections from Environmental Defense Fund
Agroecology, Food, and the Climate Crisis: Transition, Adaptation, and Building Resilience in Cuba
The Quest for Energy Alternatives in Post-1959 Cuba
The Foundation, Evolution, and Significance of Law as Part of Cuba’s Adaptive Governance of Hazard Response
Timeline: Important Events in Cuban Disaster Management and Climate Change Adaptation
Looking back on the typical natural disasters of the past, Cuba today can say “never again”. Looking forward to the climate disaster that has begun and will increasingly devastate large parts of the world and its population over the coming decades, it is already too late to avoid it, not to mention that there still is no serious international commitment (by “serious” meaning a commitment on the scale needed to confront the crisis) by the leading powers in the world to do so. In this frame Cuba’s efforts, and the approach it has behind them, are particularly valuable contributions to the world-wide discussion on what needs to be done, and actually can be done, to mitigate the devastating effects on humanity that climate change will have.