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I lived in Costa Rica for a year, and everyone was worried about climate change

Cloud Forest Costa Ricaveroxdale / Shutterstock

When my family moved from Maine to a mountain in Costa Rica for a year, we discovered a tropical wonderland—a dense forest covered by a protective blanket of clouds and adorned with woody vines, wild orchids, 15-foot tree ferns, and exotic wildlife.

We knew to expect sloths, parrots, and even scorpions in Monteverde. But the abundance of one creature surprised us: the common red-faced climate activist.

These people were concerned enough about climate change to actually act on it. Within weeks of our arrival at our new home in the cloud forest, I met an 80-something man who imperiled himself by pedaling his electric bike along atrociously potholed roads in the name of avoiding internal combustion.

When he wasn’t cycling, he was creating an enormous recycled-art sculpture of the threatened three-wattled bellbird to parade through town in hopes of inciting environmental awareness. There was a woman at my kids’ school who insisted that parents immediately—by the next month—stop driving their kids individually to school and start funding a bus service to reduce the school’s carbon footprint.

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