Today I took my 11 year old daughter on a walk down by the Red River in Winnipeg. The river level usually drops off signifigantly in November, revealing all matter of things below the usual waterline. We both had the day off, so off we went on our trek.

We went on a 5 hour walk around the river bank, roughly a 30 kilometer hike. Along the way I was trying to explain to her that her life would be far, far harder, more difficult and more resource scarce than my life had been. I tried to talk about soil erosion, desertification, loss of fisheries, climate change ect, but the only point I think she really understood was about pollution.

The river bank was grotesquely polluted with all types of objects and material, some artifacts had undoubtly been sitting in the river for decades. We saw white plastic chemical drums with the labels worn off, we saw rusted shopping carts, white wall tires, bottles of paint thinner, consumer size chemical containers for things like liquid ethane, bleach, ect. Not to mention discarded plastic bottles of liquor from the bums that hang out along the river bank. Discarded (and dangerous) fishing line, gear ect.

Virtually all the relics of an industrial society were represented. The thing that struck me most was when we came to an area that appeared to have blue, red, white and green sand. I couldn't understand how their could be blue, red, white and green sand along the riverbank??. When we walked further on we found what must have been (decades past) an entire portion of the riverbank composed of discarded ashphalt shingles. You guessed it, they were blue shingles, red shingles, white and green shingles. Over time, sunlight, heat, cold, and wind weathering of the material had caused the surface coatings to wear off and now we have the uniqueness of multicoloured sand along the shoreline.

My daughter asked 'Dad why do people pollute the river so much'. I said there's no easy answer to that, and this all occured over a very long period of time. That the area was first settled by Europeans about 250 years ago and prior to that all of this area would have been pristine wilderness.

Then I had to tell her that our city is 'clean' compared with disaster zones like the Hudson river of New York, or the waterways of Detroit or of newly emerging enviromental catastrophies in the wings in almost every emerging developing city in the 'developing' world. She then asked me 'How can people go on polluting like this?'

I don't think she is old enough to understand enough about history, politics, war, and economics for me to even begin to explain the full scale of the global disaster in progress. I just finished on the note that in your lifetime expect that resources are going to be very scarce, and to expect that you will have more time to do things like taking long walks along the river.

Very poignant post.
In the US, there was an antipollution PSA with a native American in a canoe tearing up at pollution-it came to mind with your post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R-FZsysQNw

People don't actually chuck this stuff right into the river, it washes in during flash floods. I have seen shopping carts wrapped around tree in the middle of the woods. While kayaking I have seen woodpile washing down the rive like icebergs, likewise tree stumps, spare tires, and dead deer. The best is after Halloween when the river is full of jack-o-lanterns, which we would wear on our heads.

I can assure you that people actually do throw this stuff into the river. I have lived in Winnipeg my entire life and I have never seen a 'flash flood' washing garbage and chemicals into the river.

The area my daughter and I were walking in is right downtown in Winnipeg. You can see all the skyscrapers. The noise from all the major city arteries surround and encompass what would otherwise have been a peaceful hike.

The several tons of weathered ashphalt shingling, in particular, did not look like it had washed in from somewhere else. (Way too heavy and densely packed). It looked like their must have been a roofing company that dumped all their waste product and defective material on the the riverbank whenever they had it. The roofing company, that the material portends to, no longer exists at the site. A truck messenger company occupies the land above the riverbank where all this material is.

We also saw the remains of steel pipes, train rail nails fallen from overhead train bridges, spring beds, and long forgotten docks from long forgotten barge river crossing stations. The Red river is at the best of times black as mud due to farm run off from the countryside (Winnipeg is a prairie city of 630 thousand people). Only when the water level comes down is any of this visible to the few of us who actually care.

Yah, well that's canadians for you, living the illusion of unlimited resources.

Not quite sure what your point is vis-a-vis the OP's original post and the follow up.

I will say for myself, I'm starting to feel that removing garbage is simply creating an "out of sight, out of mind" illusion for most people. If it was in their face perhaps more of us would see the sense in consuming less, and taking care of our own refuse instead of simply hauling it to the curb

The hauling and storing is energy intensive, and people have no incentive to reduce consumption if there are no uncomfortable consquences like smells, vermin, disease, etc. . .

In other words, you finished on a positive note.


It's the green movement from the USA invading your country! Get it? Red, white, and blue.

In all seriousness, your post deserves kudos. An excellent anecdotal report on the disrespect we show to our waterways. Doesn't matter how it got there; it's pollution. I do not look forward to having these types of discussions with my son.


Canada would have near unlimited resources it if kept them all within its borders.


Have to agree with you Homesteader. People should either be charged the environmental impact of their garbage or have to take care of it themselves by storing it in their attic. I have complained on more than one occasion that the garbage co charges me the same whether I put out my trash once weekly or once monthly. There's no incentive to reduce the volume at all. At least where I live.

How are people expected to have any impact when the whole point behind capitalism is to promote a growing turnover of inventory and profit? Irespective of whether we dutifully dispose of waste or dump it out in the open, its proliferation will invariably overwhelm our environment.

On more than one occasion I have seen TV news reports and entire programs about water pollution in China and it's unbelievable.

Some small rivers and creeks that up until a few years ago were being used for drinking water now are day-glo green, purple, orange sludge flowing somewhat like molasses with everything imaginable floating in them including human bodies.

It's funny how so many on these message boards think that pollution has been eliminated in the United States over the last 40 years. I say the pollution is still here and is even worse just not as visible for the remedial action in many cases has only been only cosmetic.

When I was growing up near the Love canal in Niagara Falls NY, there was horrendous pollution happening. The legacy of that is probably with us long after any wealth it generated is long gone. One of my first efforts at political action was to circulate a petition against the "nominal processing of toxic wastes into the Niagara river".

Later, I spent many a blissful day kayaking beautiful rivers in North America. Amongst many paddlers there was an almost mystical reverence for the sanctity of rivers. They had seen and felt the life giving beauty first hand. One of the most striking things one paddler said to me about pollution is that we need to have zero tolerance for it. He said "Dilution is not the solution!". I think what he meant to say on a more practical level is that if human activities have to pollute (rivers at least), then they should NOT be done.
Impractical you say? Well consider the consequences of not adopting such a policy position. In a world with no population growth control, it is only a matter of time until we poison our beautiful planet beyond habitability.

I live a mile from the Mississippi River and while it may be cleaner now then in the past, its still has a ways to go. I once tried getting a microwave out of the bottom (it had been there for some time) and it wouldn't budge! A microwave! and it was in a back channel, far from the city... People are just STUPID.

We do have a river cleanup every spring which does do a pretty good job of removing a lot of junk, but there is still plenty more.

Canada? Go take a look at the tar sands...
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images ... 07_lrg.jpg



The only "good?" thing here along the Mississippi is people are well aware of it and the city has taken some steps to clean the river, limit runoff, etc... Then again, with no industry, we just sent our pollution to China!

I agree. Canada has no high moral ground on pollution. It has too many horror stories of huge polluting projects, like the Giant mine in NWT. For a country that has so much, we are doing very little to protect the natural world. It is disgraceful! The blame, as usual, should be on an apathetic public, greedy corps and corrupt/incompetant govt. The conservatives pay lip service to environmental impact assessments guaranteeing more Giant mines in the future. They have no national policy for protecting biodiversity. Their record on climate change is abysmal. It is embarrassing to see them asking the US EPA for relief from environmental standards. Humans (including this hypocrite) deserve what is coming IMHO.

Tackling population growth without terminating capitalism is a waste of time. We have to stop the culture of "built in obsolescence" upon which growth depends along with population.

Repent, chilling post and very similar to a conversation I had with my son while hiking along a river in my area. The amount of recyclabes was very disheartening but even recycylables are the modern day equivalent of snake oil. Reduced consumption and population control are the only routes to even beginning to get things back into balance.

One of the best first posts I've read. Brief and to the point.

I think that it should be evident by now that no matter whom we elect into bringing about change, no sooner are they in Parliament, and they are seduced by the trappings of political life. Peter Garret of the Austalian Greens is a good contemporary example. the German Greens are another example. The New Zealand Greens spent time in Parliament criminalising low income family problems.

Likewise with the man in the street. How can we have these expectations of the common man with his own short term focus. Capitalism places a high value on being successful which it equates with high levels of the consumption of obsolescence and we are all essentially hamsters on the treadmill of waste. Getting off is the challenge. There's always another one awaiting us and another bubble to be blown, even one's that appear to be green and ethical.

There's nothing green or ethical in halting the slide into fouling our nest terminally. We either foul it and lose it if we continue consuming as we do (which is a given in a growth oriented system) or we don't. Communicating that to our brainwashed fellow humans (and to ourselves for that matter) is easier said than done however.