Madman or Genius?~

Happy Solstice to all you pagans out there who bow to the gods of lower case letters, and to my parents who married on this longest night of the year many, many years ago.

It is humid and sticky here in Punta Uva, something my friends in the northern climes might find a welcome right about now. I see it is white white white in the northeastern United States. And England, too.

Brrrr… 

I haven't been in a snowstorm for years now, and, to tell the truth, I miss them a bit. I don't miss my toes reminding me of when I frost bit them in my early teens, though—running away from home about Christmas time with my older sister. 

As I recall, we were fed up with a particular guest our mother asked us to be nice to, so in the snow we saddled our horses and rode off to Camp Sherman, a journey of several miles. I suppose we thought we would find refuge at our cousin's house, but it was not to be. Our mother found us just before the turn off to their road–– we still had a mile or two to ride––and sent us home with a tongue lashing that should have warmed us straight through. It was still snowing hard and all told we were in the saddle for about three or four hours before we reached home. I failed to wear any socks when we launched ourselves into the storm, and leather cowboy boots, I can vouch, are not an insulated and cozy choice for winter weather. 

By the time we got home I had no feeling in my left toes, they were blanched white as the snow we rode through. The right ones were not much better. I soaked them in warm water and can remember the searing pain as blood began to reenter the flesh. Ever since, any time I'm in the cold, my toes remind me of my selfishness, all because we did not wish to be polite to someone who had no choice about being at our house that night. She probably wished she was somewhere else, too; certainly not with two feral sisters who had no time for her. 

So again this year I am in a tropical climate for Christmas. Perhaps with global warming the northern climes will be more like it is here in years to come.

I see they couldn't come to much of an agreement in Copenhagen about the fever the world is running. But, I can't say I blame India or China for not listening to the United States or Britain on the subject. Why should they have to curb their emissions before they have achieved the same economic success we have? I see their point. And really, we aren't going to be able to police other countries without some fairly ugly consequences. What do we do, for instance, if some country refuses to quit emitting CO2? Go to war? Also, we can't ask everyone to cut back. Cutting back for developed countries might be one thing but asking poor countries to cut back might lead to the death of a large segment of their society.

So what to do?

I watched Nathan Myhrvold the other day on TV. This is a man who graduated with a PhD by the age of 23, then made billions, I think, as Microsoft's technical brain, and now… now he owns something called Intellectual Ventures (IV). He runs the company out of an old Harley Davidson shop in Seattle WA. Essentially, he says, his company provides capital for inventors. Of the thousands of patents the company owns, one is his solution to global warming. As he said in the interview, even if we cut emissions to zero this year (and we have yet to cut any emissions, even by one percent) it would not solve the CO2 problem because the stuff hangs around like my sister and my unwanted guest that Christmas long ago. And, the problem is one that humans don't deal well with: It involves global cooperation, sacrifice of the many, and the rewards are diffuse with no direct link to money.

So,Myhrvold, studying nature and thinking this over, has discovered that very cold conditions were created historically when one or another volcano erupted sending a cloud of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, blocking out the sun from its normal warming pattern for a year or two. His idea––and don't scoff at this (it can't be any crazier than the Large Hadron Collider)––is to create an eighteen-mile long hose, hoist it skyward, and spray sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. He plans is to do this at the North and South Poles thus creating a stop gap measure so we can grapple with the issue over time.

One of the reasons he is set on the poles for the project is because, obviously, they need to be kept colder, but the other is that there is already tons of sulfur dioxide heaped in slag piles, left there by Big Oil.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he intended to hang the hose from up there—Satellite? Space station?––so I did a bit of searching. An article in the Times Online explains it fairly well. He doesn't hang the hose so much as float it up there using helium balloons and small pump stations along the route to lift the sulfur dioxide. Genius. Or, madman. We'll either have a solution or we'll have a sulfur dioxide CO2 cocktail that will bring us to the end of our run here on earth. She seems about ready to be done with us, anyway.  

So, perhaps in the future we will have Solstice nights that are a little bit longer and a little bit chillier.

When it snows in Punta Uva I will write to Mr. Nathan Myhrvold and ask him to turn off the hose please.

Waiting at CIMA

Out past the big hospital,
the monolith with its reflective glass facade and gun turret windows
we waited for you in the car
until I caught a glimpse of something
Across the herringbone pavers styrofoam para llavar boxes
wedged themselves against the curb
We walked to the end of the parking lot
where empty paint buckets and plastic straws nuzzled rock gabions.
But over the edge we found wild grasses
pink and soft as thistle down 
they snickered in the wind
laughing at man's need to fill the world with concrete
We explored this 
tiny, wild world
until you 
returned.

Driving Miss Sarah~

I wrote to family and friends recently about a hair-raising trip I took from the capital, San Jose, to my home in Talamanca. So I thought I'd attend to the blog and write a bit about driving in Costa Rica. 

Ticos are not the worst drivers in the world (regardless of what you've heard or believe); a couple of years ago that honor went to Italy, but it's hard not to imagine, what with all the Italian immigrants here now, that Costa Rica hasn't passed on a blind curve—one of the favorite driving maneuvers here—and pulled ahead for that coveted status. In all fairness, though,  I believe the statistics for Asia were left out of the equation. My guess is that many countries could vie for first place. I've heard driving in Thailand is a bit like WalMart the day after Thanksgiving. 

The statistics for Costa Rica are pretty dismal though. According to a Tico Times article, "Some 340 people died in traffic accidents last year [2007], and about 530 were seriously injured, according to the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT). Nearly 40 percent of the victims were between 20 and 35 years old." 

I think one of the issues here is an attitude shared by all the Ticos I know. It is best summed up by a small story. Many years ago Alan and I heard a nightmare tale from a friend whose husband died suddenly. That was bad enough, but it soon became apparent to his widow—our friend—that she was about to loose their property because there was no will. We decided to see a lawyer and ask about the issue. After relating the problem, I asked whether we could be assured if, God forbid, something should happen to Alan that I would be protected by the current paperwork we held on our property. The lawyer smiled and said she thought so. I pressed her further asking, "If he dies will I have ownership of the land?" 

To which she replied, "I think so. I don't think you have to worry. Something would have to happen." There it is in a nutshell. Costa Ricans live by this motto. They drive by this motto, and that is why they pass on blind curves: something would have to happen. 

But, the Costa Rica legislature wants to do something about the spine-chilling ordeal of getting out on the road. In December of last year—yes, that would be close to ten months ago, now––the legislature proposed a whole host of fines for dangerous driving. They slammed their foot down on the break pedal and swore to punish those offenders. 

Bad Drivers Have It Coming screamed the headlines in the Tico Times (/Dec 12-18 2008)  and to be sure many of them are stiff. Here is a brief rundown:

I particularly like the "driving while tipsy" category. I'd bet that on any given weekend six out of ten drivers on this coastline violate this law. And that's a conservative estimate.

I would be worried about the speeding fines (and/or jail terms) but it's hard to get up to the speeds they speak about here. For instance, what is this a picture of?



Is it: (a) the moon, or (b) a stretch of road outside Puerto Viejo?

The road is so bad in our little community that it often takes us thirty minutes to pick our way over the four kilometers into Puerto Viejo. Some stretches are so bad the truck has one foot or another in a hole and resembles a lunar lander clambering up and wallowing down into holes. There are faster drivers than us, for sure, but their cars aren't on the road for long. Alan's 1987 Jeep pickup is now the oldest running vehicle in this area. No small feat.  

Most speed limits in Costa Rica range from 60-90 kilometers and hour (about 35-55 miles an hour). The most likely offense listed would be 20 kilometers above the speed limit, and the cops do love to nab you on this one while you are trying to overtake a slow car. We carry a radar detector. 

But I digress. The legislation. What about the legislation?

According to the Tico Times: The bulk of the new law was supposed to go into effect Sept. 23. But lawmakers have found flaws as well as a political concern. The flaws involved misnumbered paragraphs that would void some penalties. Lawmakers also consider some of the fines disproportionate, they said.

But what about the political concerns?

Again, The Tico Times: The March 1 date would have the law going into effect after the Feb. 7 presidential and legislative elections. [However] One aspect of the law is the obligatory vehicle insurance that would have a heavy financial impact on Costa Ricans when they sought to pay their road tax before the first of the year.

Oops! Don't want to piss off those voters. 

Yesterday's news:  the legislature voted last Thursday night to delay for six months the effective date of higher fines found in the new traffic law. (Until after the election!) That vote was the first. A second and final vote is planned for this coming Monday.

They also seek to correct misnumbered sections of the traffic law passed in December, and to eliminate an increase the cost of obligatory insurance of vehicles.

The vote last Thursday was 37 to 4.  I bet next Monday's won't be much closer. 

The good news here is that the laws for drunken and reckless driving have already gone into effect. 

But what does all this really mean for us drivers?

When I was in San Jose a couple of weeks ago, I saw big reader-boards on the main drag in San Jose extolling the new law and the fines. I said to my taxi driver: "Boy, looks like Costa Rica has some tough new laws." 

He grunted.

"Or," I said, "this is just an alert to all drivers, that the mordida for the cops has just gone up." 

To this he laughed out loud, shook his head, and said: "You must have lived here a long time. You know us too well!"