Environmental Talk

“Hey, we’re all going to go to jail for cutting these flowers . . . “

If you’ve been thinking about taking a vacation to Italy, you should go soon because traveling to the cradle of the Renaissance is about to get a lot more dangerous.There is currently a draft bill in the Italian parliament that will criminalize crimes against the environment.

Let’s ignore, for a moment, the gigantic hurdle of the total implausibility of a “crime” against the “environment” and just take a look at the proposed law itself.

According to a recent Breitbart.com article, “perpetrators of ‘environmental catastrophes’ would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”

Perhaps even scarier is the fact that the draft bill “‘anticipates’ a planned European Union directive on environmental crimes and puts Italy in line with ‘the largest European countries’” according to a government statement.

The law is, on its face, absurd and would appear to subject every citizen of Italy to prosecution on some kind of environmental crime. The law addresses all manner of “crimes” and “criminals” as evidenced by the following classifications:

“Polluters would be jailed for between one and five years and pay fines ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 euros (6,800 to 41,000 dollars).”

In the same way one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, this would appear to allow anyone who drives a car, smokes a cigarette or has a barbecue to be locked up and fined by the pollution police.

“‘Environmental catastrophes’ will be punishable by between three and 10 years in jail and fines of between 30,000 and 250,000 euros.”

Let’s think about this one. Ridding your house of a colony of ants or termites could certainly be considered an “environmental catastrophe” for the insects. The tougher case might be if your power-generating windmills wiped out a bunch of birds . . .

“…’alterations of natural heritage, flora and fauna’ by one-to-three-year jail terms and fines of between 2,000 and 20,000 euros.”

You have to admire the sheer egalitarianism of this law. This section of the law would appear to eliminate all building, gardening or even cutting your own grass. You might as well issue warrants right now for farmers, the old lady next door tending to her roses and the entire construction industry.

There will be those who say that nobody would take the law literally and that prosecutions would be reasonable and judicious. How’s that working out with those other laws like eminent domain, tax laws, drug laws and the Patriot Act?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Full enforcement of this law would turn Italy into a boot-shaped, weed-covered penal colony within a few years.

So, make your reservations now.

global warming, climate change, Italy, Under the Tuscan Sun, eminent domain, Patriot Act