Costa Rica-Colonial Context

Sep 19, 2017 by Lucia Torres Bustamante

• How does your footprint reflect the economy of your country, including its colonial relations? 

Costa Rica was colonized by Spain in 1502. Cristobal Colon eded up here because it really caught his attention how exuberant nature seemed. He then came on an expedition and realized that there was gold, very little but that small amount he took. The indigenous people that were living in here were forced to change their culture into theirs. Now days costa rican culture is very diverse between our native culture and the european, we can see that the spanish didn't take every last straw of our own culture. But thanks to them and many others we created our own culture with their influence. As many other countries Costa Rica years ago didn't realize what climate change and the footprint really was, so in that period of time is that the most damage was made. But now my country is trying really hard to mitigate those mistakes from the past. For example, in 2016 98.1% of its energy came from green sources. My footprint is high if we compare it to my countries resources but if we look at it in a global context it is pretty small. For costa rican's to lower their footprint I think it is needed many things. First, the government has to contribute in thing like sidewalks so people can start walking to their jobs or using their bicycles, but right now it is impossible to travel from one point to another without using any type of transportation. Smog is the primary contaminant affecting my country so I think it's very important for my country to invest on sidewalks. Then, people have to make the effort to use public transport while sidewalks aren`t available and for this they have to understand what the problem really is. This leads me to the 3 way for costa rican's footprint to decrease and that is education. Like in every other issue in the world education is the most important tool and it is necessary to start using this tool for the well-being of us all. 

• How are the effects of climate change related with power imbalances among countries or within countries?

There are really different things that hapen when power imbalances are involved. Let's say in one city there is the rich side and then there is the poor side. If we think about this really hard we may see different effects. With this imbalance in society different thing happen. Let's start with the rich side, they are the ones that control economy so they will do what is necessary to continue growing and this unfortunately means production for almost everyone in the industry. With this production factories produce and insane amount of pollutants that end up in the atmosphere but in the bright side this part of society is more educated so they can try and mitigate this production of pollutants. Now let's talk about the other side, the poor section. They don't have a great education and some people may not have an education at all. In the bright side, if we want to see it this way, this section is so poor that there are no excessive pollutants being produced but these guys have the disadvantage of having to work in jobs that lower their quality of life. Let's say that they work as farmers. It is a necessary job but they have to wake up insanely early every morning, under the burning sun and then they are paid so little that they have to make their children work, so they din't have an education, so they can then not work in some job that will give them the necessary. It is a vicious circle that is not beneficial to anyone. The rich side won't stop producing but the side that does not produce doesn't have an education and have a low quality of life. 

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