Thursday, February 3, 2011

Going Like Sixty

Going Like Sixty

Costa Rica: Street Kid Gives Me A Great Laugh

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 10:42 PM PST

Cookies

Many countries have street kids. Some just are beggar kids, some are selling some junk souvenirs, many offer food while cars are stopped in traffic.

Usually they are depressing or irritating or both.

One Costa Rica street kid still brings a smile to my face with his sales pitch and attitude.

The weather was windows-down weather. We were just on the outskirts of San Jose heading to the airport to come home. I stopped at a traffic light and was first in line for the street kid.

He marched up to the car holding toward me a bag of cookies and started rattling of who-knows-what in Costa Rican.

You can’t beat a street kid, they have heard and seen it all.

When I responded, no entiendo, (I don’t understand in Spanish Spanish) he upped his volume about two levels and looked me dead in the eyes and said perfectly:

COOKIES!

What he didn’t add was:

DUMBASS!

Name the Top Ten Nations With Cleanest Power; Was Costa Rica One?

Posted: 02 Feb 2011 07:10 AM PST

One of the sources of pride in Costa Rica – aside from their woman President Chinchilla (4 realz!) is her pledge to get Costa Rica carbon neutral in a decade.

As Treehugger points out, when you list the Top Ten Nations for clean power, the ratio of energy to population weighs heavily on the stats. But in the list of nations, the only other nation that might surprise you is Slovakia.

Clean Energy

TicoGrande, in is ever so subtle way, said Costa Rica isn’t a third world country. Since there isn’t such a thing as a second-world country, and Costa Rica isn’t in the same league as Somalia, it is hard to argue the point.  But on this list, certainly Costa Rica would be a surprise.

  1. 80.6%, Iceland — 12,661 kilotonnes, supplying 300,000 people.
  2. 46.2%, Sweden — 23,295 kilotonnes, supplying 4.3 million people.
  3. 45.6%, France — 120,255 kilotonnes, supplying 28.5 million people.
  4. 43.2%, Norway — 11,603 kilotonnes supplying 2.1 million people.
  5. 40.9%, Switzerland — 10,519 kilotonnes supplying 3.1 million people.
  6. 35.0%, Costa Rica — 1,669 kilotonnes supplying 1.6 million people.
  7. 25.9%, New Zealand — 4,344 kilotonnes supplying 1.1 million people.
  8. 24.9%, Slovakia — 823 kilotonnes supplying 1.3 million people.
  9. 22.2%, Belgium — 12,659 kilotonnes supplying 2.4 million people.
  10. 20.9%, Canada — 56,298 kilotonnes supplying 7.1 million people.

From the usually biased International Living (but probably accurate here because it puts CR in a positive light)

It already produces 90% of its electricity from renewable sources—mostly hydropower, wind and geothermal. Next, it will add solar to the mix, introduce electric trains and buses, move to clean bio-diesel and bio-ethanol fuel for cars, and help reforest its jungles.

Costa Rica is adding train services, they have dedicated bus lanes in San Jose to speedily move commuters. They have a massive tax/duty on cars, so hardly anybody drives a new car, most used cars are small gas misers and pickup  trucks are rare.  Cars have to be inspected annually, those that cannot pass emissions tests are sidelined.
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