{"id":2034,"date":"2014-02-18T16:28:30","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T21:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/?p=2034"},"modified":"2014-03-09T16:00:49","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T20:00:49","slug":"yale-university-epi-says-costa-rica-less-green-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/yale-university-epi-says-costa-rica-less-green-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"Yale University EPI: Costa Rica Less Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve all heard the saying “The grass is greener on the other side.” It seems we sometimes believe this bromide to be true only because the folks on the other side have campaigned to have us believe it\u00a0 is so.<\/p>\n

\"CRgregorygMarybethdimjian-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In this case the people on the other side are the tourism professionals, (mostly Americans or individuals counseled or advised by Americans), of and for\u00a0the government of the tiny Central American country, Costa Rica. For years Costa Rica, (with its American huckster’s influence), has promoted itself as the most ecologically friendly place on the planet. We believe this was inspired by exploitive Americans, other foreigners,\u00a0or gringos, in order to entice winter weary vacationers from the United States, Canada and the colder climes of Europe.<\/p>\n

Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index, (EPI), <\/a>reveals, what has been believed by many, the hype about the so-called conservation caring government of Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

Costa Rica ranks number 54 of 158 countries sampled in the index<\/a>.\u00a0 It has a score of .9 for Sewage. It is highest in the\u00a0use of fertilizer pollution in the world, almost 5 times higher than the next closest country.<\/p>\n

“The EPI put us face to face with an image of the country that we are not used to. Why? Because we have become too complacent with ourselves. What the EPI strives to do is rank countries and we didn\u2019t like the rank that it assigned to Costa Rica. Why? Because we have created the myth that we are a green country. We have not challenged this myth enough, and that is the truth. They are pulling our ears with regards to carbon dioxide emission issues. And the irony is that to the outside, we appear to have a discourse regarding a commitment to being carbon neutral.”
\n~ Monica Araya, Director, Clean Costa Rica. The\u00a0remarks made\u00a0in a February 11, 2014\u00a0Costa\u00a0Rica\u00a0news program, Telenoticias Edici\u00f3n Meridiana, featuring a segment on the country’s performance in the 2014 EPI.
\n\u00a0(The English transcription of the news segment,\u00a0translated by Breanna Lujan, Research Assistant for EPI.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is going on? Is this what “Pura vida” really means? Have the government and business entities opted for greed and corruption?\u00a0Are they pretending environmentalism while doing\u00a0little or nothing\u00a0to support it?\u00a0Many Costa Rican government officials, and the businessmen who support them, staunchly believe\u00a0 matters of conservation get in the\u00a0 way of economic progress. They act in opposition to laws protecting the fragile environment. One such business is Blue Water Properties of Costa Rica<\/a>, a real estate company with offices in Tamarindo, Guanacaste. Although a small company, (they claim to be the largest real estate company in the area; they also claim to be licensed in a country with no licensing requirement for\u00a0those engaged in selling\u00a0real estate; you can purchase real estate from a cab driver),\u00a0Blue Water Properties\u00a0exemplifies\u00a0the greed which\u00a0is going on. <\/strong>\"CRgregorygMarybethdimjian-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Blue Water Properties of Costa Rica is selling lots inside the park created to\u00a0protect the Leatherback\u00a0turtles<\/a>, creatures essential to the survival of the planet; these animals are also\u00a0\u00a0on the endangered species list. Blue Water Properties of Costa Rica is selling overpriced houses and businesses at prices far exceeding similar properties in Florida, where there is\u00a0much better infrastructure, and sanitation.<\/p>\n

Do you want a remote location?\u00a0One that is difficult to get to? You can find the same\u00a0in Florida as well as many other waterfront\u00a0parts of the USA. Or do you want a remote location where there is no sanitation, for almost everyone in the rural areas? And for those Americans living in Costa Rica\u00a0who want sanitation, it is not like the USA. There are no sewage lines except in the big cities. What sewer systems do exist are mostly untreated and empty straight into rivers and ravines, which lead directly to the ocean.<\/p>\n

In the countryside septic systems are rare, and where they do exist for\u00a0wealthy gringos,\u00a0the systems do not usual work very\u00a0well. The heavy rains flood\u00a0most septic systems and overflow them and their raw sewage every rainy season.\u00a0Most Costa Ricans do not even have a septic system, and most\u00a0septic systems installed in Costa Rica no longer work.<\/p>\n

Come to Costa Rica the country with the highest fertilizer use in the world, the country with one of the highest pesticide use, the country with one of the very worst records for sewage.<\/p>\n

And Blue Water Properties will gladly sell it to you. The principals are\u00a0Rebecca Clower, her husband, Keith Clower, and their employee\u00a0 Dave Corredor, who also hires illegal aliens at his food establishment.<\/p>\n

These “reputable” real estate business people regularly\u00a0flout Costa Rica law, honesty and ethics to obtain buyers.\u00a0They disregard\u00a0tenant law to sell, then illegally evict tenants to satisfy avaricious buyers. Deceiving and conning buyers into thinking Costa Rica and the properties they are selling are much more ecological, that is more green than they are.<\/p>\n

Come live in Costa Rica <\/a>if you want to pay too much for your property, without the sanitation and the infrastructure, pay almost double for your vehicles and your electronics, live in a place that is heavily, though secretly, polluted without basic sanitation. Green equals raw sewage.<\/p>\n

More information about this company and its illegal real estate activities in another post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve all heard the saying “The grass is greener on the other side.” It seems we sometimes believe this bromide to be true only because the folks on the other side have campaigned to have us believe it\u00a0 is so. In this case the people on the other side are the tourism professionals, (mostly Americans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[35,37,141,252,251,259,250,67,38,262,254,253],"class_list":["post-2034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-think-so","tag-banking","tag-business","tag-costa-rica","tag-costa-rica-conservation","tag-costa-rica-real-estate","tag-education","tag-guanacaste","tag-international-politics","tag-real-estate","tag-religion","tag-world-ecology","tag-yale-environmental-performance-index"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2084,"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youthinkwhat.com\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}