For decades, the country enjoyed the benefits of crude oil tanked in from its ally, the Soviet Union. But soon after that former Super Power’s collapse in the early ’90s, the hydrocarbon tap flowing to Cuba — providing gas, diesel, and other oil derivatives — found itself all but dried up. The ensuing economic crisis — known as the Special Period — forced Cuba to re-imagine its energy-dependent existence, from its modes of transportation to its industrialized agriculture.

While the current standard of living is considerably less than before the Special Period, the country, having invested in mass transit, organic agriculture, and other community-sustaining activities, provides a template for a “What if…?” scenario.

The story of Cuba and its Castro-mandated response to the near depletion of its hydrocarbon resources is the focus of the 2006 documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. To be shown alongside 2004’s The End of Suburbia, the documentary double-bill serves as the cornerstone of “The End of Oil?,” an evening of free film and discussion at Central Cinema, March 15 at 7 p.m. Organizers hope the event leads to debate and action on energy policy issues.

“We want it to be huge,” says Jelte Harnmeijer, a Ph.D. candidate in astrobiology at University of Washington and one of the evening’s organizers, of the event. “We want people to talk, we want people to argue.”

Arguments may flare up over the heart of the evening itself: peak oil. Put simply, peak oil refers to the moment when the planet’s production of oil reaches its apogee. From that moment forward, the world’s oil reserves will shift from surplus to deficit, never to attain the levels once known.

“So you won’t realize the peak until you get past it,” says Joshua Strange, co-organizer and U.W. doctoral candidate in aquatic ecology.

The notion of peak oil was first introduced in the mid-’50s by Marion Hubbert, a Shell geologist who, against the wishes of his employer, presented a theory that oil production, whether in a lone oil field or across the entire globe, follows a bell curve: a shape projecting a slow, upward incline leading to an apex that then falls off, in a reverse mirror of its ascent, into decline.

His theory — often referred to as Hubbert’s peak — gained currency when he predicted that U.S. oil production would reach its apex between 1965 and 1970. The country’s production topped out at the latter date.

But there’s no agreement about when the world’s descent into the hydrocarbon abyss will arrive or how rapidly it may occur. A report entitled “Oil Market Report,” put out last month by the International Energy Agency, shows the global oil supply perhaps beginning to plateau or decline. Yet a March 5 article in The New York Times’ business section, looking at how new technology is resuscitating wells whose production had flat-lined, states that “Reports of Oil’s Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated.”

But new technologies cost money and, as oil prices straddle the $60-a-barrel marker, costs will be passed on to people, making disagreements about peak oil’s steep declines or smooth plateaus, says Strange, almost moot. “What does it mean if gasoline was $10 a gallon? Would it matter how much oil is left?”

Through studying the theory of peak oil, Strange says it’s easy to see that energy, in all its forms, is the biggest source of global inequality. And while our country’s collective lack of preparation to confront a global peak concerns him, Strange says there’s another factor that nags at him more: “The fact that a world that runs on hydrocarbons — which is oil — and is predicated on continual expansion of economies is not sustainable.”

Along with Strange, Harnmeijer believes that there’s a chasm separating the understanding held by the scientific community and by the general public, of which oil production is one. He says scientists — who, along with a representative from Metro, an urban farm manager, and a biodiesel expert, will be speaking at the film screenings — must work at becoming better communicators. Peak oil will be the first of a number of issues he and his colleagues attempt to tackle, he says, as passing on information can help citizens prepare for an event that may occur sooner than some want to realize.

Says Harnmeijer, “We’re talking about the future of our children.”

[Double bill]

“The End of Oil?” screens The End of Suburbia at 7 p.m. and The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil at 9:30 p.m. on Thurs., March 15, at Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave. E, (206) 686-6684. Both films are free. A panel of invited guests will be on hand to lead discussion.