Sustainable Community in Costa Rica
[Found via Gizmodo]
A community called Finca Bellavista is being built in the rain forest of Costa Rica. It is based on having the lowest possible impact and looks very close to an attempt at primitivism.
However, this is not a primitive place! The community will have full WiFi access and will be powered by a combination of solar and possibly hydro power. Right now the village is mostly a concept and includes only one full structure, but plans seem to be moving along very quickly.
Right now my details on this are very sketchy, but they seem to have no lack of funding and some rather high level industry contacts for things such as the WiFi deal they are coordinating.
This sort of community will only ever have a niche following, but idea is worth the weight of their first tree house in gold. Getting back to more natural systems should be a goal for many of us. At the same time they make no pretense about abandoning technology. My own ideas rely heavily on technology and this is proof of concept that nature and technology are not incompatible.
4 Responses to “Sustainable Community in Costa Rica”
By Jim on Mar 18, 2008 | Reply
Finca Bellevista sounds like a great idea. Imagine such a technologically savvy place with such natural underpinnings… thats great
By Chris Schaffer on Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
Jim - It makes me very excited. I’m really hoping the community is successful. I believe it either is the first of it’s kind or very close to it on this sort of scale.
By Lon Sarver on Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
This is a fascinating idea, and I hope that it lives up to its promise. I do see a catch, though.
Is this a sustainable community, or is it a community with the appearance of sustainability, propped up by unsustainable means?
Several years ago, when many major auto makers began tenative steps toward commercially feasable electric cars (all battery, no hybrid), there was a question raised about whether these cars were truly greener than standard gas-guzzling cars.
Y’see, the electric car is indeed a zero-emissions vehicle. But what about the power plants one draws upon to charge the batteries? Most of those are gas or coal fired, using non-renewable fuels and contributing to pollution and greenhouse gasses. Most of the rest are nuclear, inviting the questions about waste storage and plant safety.
If electric cars were to replace gas cars, then everyone who drives would be plugging in at night. This would increase the demand for electricity, which would in turn increase the fuel consumption and emissions output of the power plants…
So the electric cars weren’t really zero-emissions, they were displaced emissions. Cleaner air over the highways, dirtier air over the power plants.
All of this setting aside the general environmental unfreindliness of producing and disposing of the batteries the cars ran on…
So, the question I have is this: Is the Costa Rican community you’re talking about really sustainable, or are the non-sustainable processes needed to keep it going just going to be shipped off-site?
Solar power is well and good, but what kind of solar? Photovoltaic cells? Those are very clean to use, but relatively dirty to produce. You have to factor the effects and waste of production in to the sustainability of the project, otherwise you’re just cooking the books.
WiFi treehouses are a cool concept, but the computer chips that they run on and support are even dirtier to make than the photovoltaic cells. Not to mention the batteries that all those tree-dwelling laptop users will need.
Who will work in the plants making the solar cells and computer chips and batteries? I doubt that the folks working those jobs will be able to afford to live in the model village.
Who will live downstream from the places where those plants dump thier waste? Probably the workers I mentioned above.
My point here is most emphatically not that high-tech, green communities are a bad thing. I’m just saying that, when judging the sustainablity of it all, one has to consider all the costs, from seed to crop to harvest to table.
By Ryan B on Mar 22, 2008 | Reply
I have heard about this place a while ago, and seems awesome. But I bet it will be commercial as heck.