Buying a new car? That'll be 20 trees, please.
When we mention Brazil, we're usually speaking about their aggressive ethanol (alcoól) policy or their availability of flex-fuel cars. But today we're speaking about a creative proposition: The Brazilian Câmara dos Deputados is discussing a bill which will make planting trees mandatory as a means of paying fees for certain legal proceedings. Which ones? Getting married, getting a divorce, buying a new car or trading estate.
For example, if you want to get married, you would have to pay to plant 10 trees (25 if you later need a divorce). When purchasing a car, you would need to plant 20 trees, 40 if it's a light-duty van or 60 if it's a heavy vehicle. When trading estate, 10 trees would be required to sell a house, 20 to sell a business.
The idea is that all these activities harm the environment and so we should give something back. The law aims to recover the rainforest and offset the country's carbon emissions. Conservative estimates from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics calculate that about 65 million trees would be planted per year under the proposed rules.
[Source: Globo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Throwback 1:52PM (6/18/2008)
How does selling a house do harm to the environment? How about charging people for breathing? That's a lot of CO2.
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Richard 2:21PM (6/18/2008)
So, how is getting married ungreen? Don't married people consume less electricity, water, materials when living together? As a single person, you usually have to pick up your partner, married people are already together. Huh...
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s13hybrid 2:26PM (6/18/2008)
To bad it takes a government "fee" to make people help recover the rainforests, or help the earth for that matter.
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steven 2:44PM (6/18/2008)
So do you get a pre-divorce discount of you just pay for the 35 trees when you get married??
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bulgarian solicitors 1:33AM (6/19/2008)
Creative BS? Here's a thought, don't slash and burn the trees you have.
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Tormod Henne 3:42AM (6/19/2008)
I agree with #5 - Planting trees in Brazil is fine, but isn't it much easier to stop cutting down and burning millions of rainforest trees each year?
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retro77 3:47PM (6/19/2008)
Ya why do they cut down burn the trees anyways? Never understood that.
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Frank 4:25PM (6/19/2008)
@7 It makes charcoal. Poorly, but for poor people its worth it.
And those are rediculous justifications to suck more $ out of their citizens. Would they rather people built new houses, avoiding the $tree penatly instead of buying a used home? And marriage? WTF? I agree with 2.
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armmat 8:56PM (6/19/2008)
1) They slashed and burned much of the rain forests so that fat ass Americans and other people hooked on American junk food and what not could get the Whoppers and Big Mac's for $1.99. I don't know if they still do that BUT the damage has been done.
2) Activities that cost money DO SO because they incur energy costs...cost of moving, costs of electricity, costs of whatever...everything takes energy. And most things we do cause pollution. Of course, most Americans wouldn't understand that concept because they think everything magically occurs FOR THEM and is FREE and their RIGHT to have it. So it's no wonder most people here are scratching their heads wondering why they charge for building a home or buying a new one. How much waste, how much junk, how much pollution does one incur when moving their crap to another location?
3) It's hard to understand such issues when an outside culture that has no understanding of sharing, conservation, or preservation without war looks at another who doesn't think the same.
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