Sao Paulo bans outdoor ads in fight against pollution.

• Author: Herro, Alana
• Position: EYE ON EARTH

In January, the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, enacted a ban on virtually all outdoor advertising. Billboards, neon signs, and even buses and taxis have been wiped clean of advertisements in the municipality, the world's fourth most populous. According to Mayor Gilberto Kassab, the so-called "Clean City Law" arose from a need to address rising pollution of all kinds. "We decided that we should start combating pollution with the most conspicuous sector--visual pollution," he told Adbusters.

Since its adoption, the law has eliminated some 15,000 billboards as well as other ads citywide and has generated more than $8 million in fines. While some advertising and business groups complain that the ban limits free expression, costs jobs, and makes streets less safe by reducing lighting from signs, the move has won more than 70 percent approval from Sao Paulo residents.

The ban has led critics to question whether there are not more pressing issues that deserve the large inputs of time and resources required to implement the ruling. But Worldwatch Institute researcher Erik Assadourian says such laws are important for a perhaps less-obvious reason: combating global warming. "It's not simply greenhouse gases that cause climate change--it's our consumer lifestyle that causes the greenhouse gases that cause climate change," he notes. "Until we...