Howdy!

I litter, and I am proud of it. Do you drive a car? (assuming that you do) I'll trade you, even up. I'll stop littering, if you stop driving.

While your arguement is technically correct, and littering makes a place less livable. Cars do far more damage. Plus, my tax dollars go towards cleaning up Saint Laurent Boulevard once a day. So my litter is very temporary. I don't think it would be as simple to rip up the concrete.

I see no reason to be so proud of willful disrespect of public areas. And I don't really care about something else being worse. Corporate pollution is technically worse as well, but I still want you to properly throw away your trash. Besides, I think it's much easier for a single person to put his litter in a garbage can than it is to try to get XYZ Corp to stop polluting.

And no, I don't drive. I take public transportation.

Zeke... are you on crack?! ;-)

It's true cars pollute, but they serve a purpose. Littering pollutes, but serves no purpose whatsoever. Maybe if people littered less (and lower St-Laurent Street is a fucking pig sty most of the time), some our tax dollars could be spent on improving Montreal's lousy public transportation system (which would encourage more car drivers to take said system) rather than spending them on cleaning the litter off our streets. And considering there are 3.3 million people living in the Greater Montreal Area (see stastcan.ca), it's a safe bet that it costs MILLIONS of $$ annually just to rid the streets of litter. That money could be used to buy more fuel efficient buses, expand the bus line network, etc... Better public transit = more users = less cars = less pollution.

If you're gonna say "just because something serves a purpose, it doesn't make it ok that it pollutes", you're right. But at the same time, if anything that pollutes which serves a purpose was never invented, mankind would still be in the stone age.

Incidentally, massive amounts of pollution and environmental damage are generated every day/week/month/year just to create the electricity which powers your computer (which allowed you to leave your comment to this post) and the light bulbs over your head. Think about the huge dams, the displaced wildlife, the millions of trees cut down to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of power pylons that move the electricity, the millions of liters of gas consumed/exhaust created by the hundreds of trucks which maintain that massive electrical grid, etc, etc...
If you really believe that people could live without cars (and we should probably include any form of transportation that burns fuel too, I guess, so let's nix planes, trains and boats too, while we're at it) and should use bikes, walk, run, swim, whatever, then people could live without electricity, too. We could all use candles, right? Or just do everything during the day.

And by the way, 'your' litter may be temporary, but you are not the only person who litters. Because MANY of the 3.3 million people who live in this city DO litter (even if it's only once in a while), litter is PERMANENT. It's around every single day, everywhere.

Zeke, tout ça pour dire que I think your reasoning (that littering is okay simply because you don't drive a car) is flawed, ridiculous, and unrealistic.

On that note, I would like to conclude that I hate littering and I never do it.

Peace!

Howdy!

Apologies for coming on a tad strong. As you don't drive I will stop littering.

As for corporate stuff and cars, it is (to me at least) as easy as getting that single person to stop littering. All you gotta do is talk to them.

I litter. Strangely, only when I'm in a car and there's a piece of paper that's bugging me. Then I throw it out the window.

Zeke, I've got to say that this is now twice that your response to environmental issues has struck me dumb. The first time I suggested that design magazines are guilty of wasting entirely too much paper and you responded with the following:

Umm, sorry to rain on your post “Why I don’t buy magazines anymore,” but saving paper is sort of like hoarding potatoes. Both of them are renewable resources that are grown on farms [...] In the US, 2 trees are planted for every one cut down - all of the paper made in the US comes from Tree Farms. And the US is far and away the biggest user of paper. No forests are harmed in the making of paper in the US :-) And I would imagine that it is pretty darn similar here in Canada.

To say the least, I was flabbergasted by your notion that trees are something that can be simply grown in a short time to renew the vast amounts we use. And now you not only happily admit to being a litter bug but suggest that littering is OK because you pay taxes?

Zeke, littering is against the law. It may not be on par with speeding but paying taxes does not give you the right to toss your litter on the ground. Wouldn't you rather a car sit and idle outside your place than have a guy scrawl a gang name on your window, or toss cigarette butts on your floor?

Besides, hydrogen fuel cells and alternative fuels are available and progress is being made to clean up our air but few efforts are being made (in Montreal) to stop the littering, or clean up the filth.

I don't litter. I've been known to discreetly stick an apple core in the dirt but never on the street or sidewalk. Being a plant lover, I know that my apple can compost nicely. Cigarette butts, plastic wrappers, foil wrapping, waxed cups, et cetera do not compost, nor do they break down easily. They clog sewer drains and can often cause flooding in heavy rains. All that is beside creating an ugly environment that encourages the more socially impaired people to add their own junk to the mess.

And P.S. I think tossing paper out your car window is absolutely, incredibly annoying. Anyone that has ever had the displeasure of living by a highway or freeway has seethed at those who race through neighbourhoods leaving their junk behind because they didn't want it cluttering up their car. Gawd forbid the inside of your car be dirty!

I don't mean for my response to come off badly but I'm just amazed at your audacity.

Regarding tree farms:
Even if for every tree cut down 2 are planted, it'll still take 10 to 20 years before those farmed trees are old and large enough to be cut down. The world's wood consumption rate far outpaces the growth of farmed trees.
Also, I have a good friend who travels far-northern Quebec to teach computer classes in native communities, and he has told me about the huge, HUGE areas of mature forests that are clear-cut for our wood/paper needs (and I've seen his pictures of it). Let's forget for a second about the tree farms (which in no way equal the thousands of square Kms that are clear-cut annually), and ponder what happens to the wildlife that inhabits those clear-cut forests. Where do THEY go? Are they relocated to those tree farms? No. Even if they were, those farms would not re-create their natural environment and their survival rate would be low. In reality, those animals are forced to coexist in habitats hundreds of times smaller than their numbers can survive in. Their ecosystem gets thrown completely out of whack causing entire species' populations to dwindle, and perhaps even become endangered or flat-out go extinct. Also, certain species' populations will grow exponentially because of lack of predators (which have died). Then those huge populations of animals will hunt their own prey (or eat certain plant life) into virtual extiction. And let's not forget erosion of the land because the trees are gone, and all the other problems related to that. Etc, etc, etc...
What about tree farms? Could all the clear-cut forests' animals be moved and expected to survive in tree farm forests that consists of small, new-growth trees?
No.
All of these things cause huge problems in the natural environment and EVEN in the local populated areas (think bears or coyotes or wolves that go into towns to look for food because the forests are shrinking - they get shot before they one day attack a human because it's hungry).
Trees farms do almost nothing to solve most of the above-mentioned problems.

Paper IS renewable, you're right. So is oil, for that matter (Mother-Earth will make more - it'll take her a few thousand or million years, though). But neither of them are renewable at a rapid enough rate to meet the world's demand (especially not oil). Oil consumption is altering and destroying the atmosphere, the weather, and air we breathe, and wood/paper consumption alters and destroys entire ecosystems, as well as animal and plant species. That affects humans too.
I find it quite surprising that you (Zeke) are resentful towards cars (or all gas-burning non mass-transit vehicles in general, I suppose), but seem to have little concern (according to Paolo's post) for trees (or paper, rather, but same difference) and their tremendous impact and importance that they have on the environment.
Tree farms are a small part of the solution, but on their own they are insufficient to repair the damage that the world's massive wood/paper consumption creates.

Don't get me wrong... I'm no granola-tree-hugger. I use paper on a daily basis, but I avoid wasting it and I re-use and/or recycle EVERY scrap that goes through my hands if and when possible. It's not a matter of trees (or any other natural resource, for that matter) being entirely, 100% renewable or not (which they aren't), but simply a matter of having common sense about the results of our actions, and trying to MINIMIZE the negative impact (there will always be SOME) we have on the environment.
I'll admit, I could do more than what I already do, but like I said, I'm no granola. I ain't about give up modern, 21st-century life and go live in the some forest, but what I AM is realistic, aware, I certainly don't waste.

Dammit Jonas! Look what you've gone and done!!! You've opened up a big can of worms here!

Later guys!

i may not litter but most of my friends litter a lot. its hard to tell them to stop because they'll make fun of me so i don't bother saying these things to them. u may be against littering but it doesnt seem so bad as long it isn't something big.

I DON'T KNOW WHY YALL BE LITTERIN BECAUSE THAT AINT
RIGHT,DO YALL KNOW THAT YALL CAN GET A TICKET FOR LITTERIN AND HAVE TO PAY A 500 DOLLAR FINE.U SHOULD'NT LITTER, THAT'S WHY THEY HAVE GARBAGE CAN OUTSIDE ON THA STREET