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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sustainable living, tools and design that really, truly work, 8 Aug 1999
By A Customer
Disclaimer: I do not know Alan Weisman and do not hold stock in Chelsea Green."Gaviotas: A Village To Reinvent the World" is the story of the failures and successes of small but visionary sustainable community project in the "wastes" of Colombia's llano. The project succeeds, fails, and succeeds again in spite of drug war, guerrilla war, corruption (uh, I guess this goes without saying), inhospitable environment, unpredictable if not lame government policies, fires, chronic underfunding, technology learning curves, and more. What the pioneers of Gaviotas lack in stability and funding they make up with faith, cajones, and inspired resourcefulness. And a lot of hard hard work. The machines the Gaviotans make and the town they build are dreams made real. Power generators using wind and water, solar-powered pressure cookers and water purifiers--they even manage to make a solar-powered refridgerator that operates on ammonia instead of freon. "Why make blueprints?" one of the engineers says. "You're going to build it anyway. It's easier to design in three dimensions." Gaviotas-the-place sounds like a slice of paradise (albeit surrounded by chaos and otras cosas muy malas). No crime. No police. Neighbors who help each other. Excellent homemade music. Constant innovation, frequently in the guise of inspired play. Author Alan Weisman is an NPR reporter/NY Times Magazine (et al.) writer who handles the big story with ease. Very readable. Not so techy as to alienate the non-geeks. Written with a two-part focus on the people *and* the machines they design and build. Plenty of humor, reverence, and plainly stated cold hard facts.
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by Michael Braungart
by Barbara Freese
by Cormac McCarthy
