SUBMISSION TO COMMITTEE

CITY OF OTTAWA

DATE: 14 April 2019

PURPOSE: Comments of Denis Rancourt to the Standing Committee on Environmental

Protection, Water and Waste Management regarding two motions brought by
Councillor Shawn Menard for the hearing of Tuesday, 16 April 2019:
• Motion to declare a climate emergency in Ottawa
• Motion to delay introduction of plastic bags in Green Bins

FROM: Denis Rancourt, PhD

Long-time resident of Capital Ward (Ward 17)
Internationally recognized environmental researcher:
https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=1ChsRsQAAAAJ

TO: STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, WATER AND

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Sent by Scott Moffatt Chair

email Shawn Menard Vice Chair
to all Riley Brockington Member
members Jean Clouthier Member
George Darouze Member
Keith Egli Member
Allan Hubley Member
Catherine McKenney Member
Mayor Jim Watson Ex-officio

Motion to declare a climate emergency in Ottawa

This motion is ill-conceived and in-effect political rather than being evidence-based. It
recommends a costly make-work project, and would not address real and important
environmental matters. City staff and consultation resources would be expended with no
benefit to residents of Ottawa.

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First, I address each of the “WHEREAS” statements of the motion, as follows.

1. “WHEREAS Climate change is currently contributing to billions of dollars in property and

infrastructure damage worldwide …”

This is false. Violent weather events have always caused destruction. The more infrastructures
are built, the more destruction there is of infrastructures from violent weather events.

Historical climatologists have not concluded increased incidences of violent weather events.
There is no such statistical study from the field of historical climatology.

Specifically, there is no study establishing a higher or increasing or changing incidence of violent

weather events (storms, drought, hurricanes…) in the Ottawa area. There is no study showing
statistically deviant weather in the Ottawa area. Such studies performed elsewhere in North
America have found null results for statistically meaningful weather incidence deviations.

There has not ever been a single scientific study that demonstrates from data either: (i) climate
regime change, in terms of measured spatiotemporal weather incidences, since the 1950s surge
in use of fossil fuel, or (ii) that any weather events or groups of events can be attributed to
increased CO2 rather than statistical variations and the known decadal El Niño-Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.

Virtually all such suggestions of CO2-induced weather in the scientific literature are inferred
from tenuous global circulation model predictions, not actual weather data.

2. “WHEREAS, Climate change is currently jeopardizing the health and survival of many
species and other natural environments worldwide, stressing local and international eco
systems”

This is false and misleading.

It is misleading because by far the overwhelmingly dominant cause of threat to the natural
environment and to animal species is habitat destruction, direct habitat destruction by
industrial harvesting, industrial extraction, large-scale anthropogenic land-use re-assignment,
and anthropogenic water and forest management practices; followed by unprecedented
agricultural-sector tonnage application, world-wide, of herbicides (specifically, glyphosate) to
crops, which are genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant.

In addition to its environmental impacts, glyphosate is now being recognized by several

research groups as a cause of increased chronic diseases and conditions in humans, including in
North America.

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To attempt to resolve or finesse a “climate” component in these circumstances is a socio-
political exercise, in which some well-meaning ecologists, who are not historical climatologists,
are content to oblige.

It is false because there is no known 20th (or 21st) century example of climate change causing a
species to become extinct. Not to mention that there are no demonstrated cases of regional or
global climate regime change, in terms of measured spatiotemporal weather incidences, having
occurred since the 1950s surge in use of fossil fuel.

3. “WHEREAS Climate change is currently harming human populations through rising sea
levels and other extraordinary phenomena like intense wildfires worldwide, extreme
heat events, and more variable and unpredictable droughts and heavy rains …”

This is false and misleading.

It is false because there is no known example of the average global rise in sea level causing
human or property damage.

The global sea level rise has been continuous and stable, with a rate of approximately 1.2 mm
per year, for the last 200 years of measurements: 1

The regular rise shows no feature that can be connected to the 1950s surge in use of fossil fuel.
The geophysics of sea level change is complex and largely unknown, as several experts have
explained.

1
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USA

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It is misleading because other factors are overwhelmingly dominant regarding ocean flooding
events:
(1) Building more human infrastructure near ocean shorelines necessarily increases the
likelihood or “nuisance flooding”. (Not to mention that Ottawa is far from any ocean.)
(2) Pacific island stability relies on complex bio-geological processes, especially natural
erosion, and has always been variable in low islands of unconsolidated sand and gravel.
(Not to mention that Ottawa is not a Pacific island.)
(3) Natural erosion, after plate tectonics itself, is the most significant Earth-surface process,
and it acts to reduce the altitude contrast between continent and ocean, everywhere, all
the time.
(4) Sea level change is negligible compared to all the relevant natural catastrophic events:
typhoons, hurricanes, tide variability, coastal weather events, tsunamis, etc.

It is false, because “intense wildfires worldwide, extreme heat events, and more variable and
unpredictable droughts and heavy rains” are not “extraordinary phenomena”. They are natural
phenomena, ever present in a given climate era. Not a single study has shown a statistically
meaningful increase in such events since the 1950s surge in use of fossil fuel.

Forest fires are a good example. My detailed review of forest-fire science shows how the false
notion of increased modern forest fires was incorrectly introduced into the scientific literature,
based on comparing distinct and incompatible US-government historical databases, and was
corrected by historical climatologists, to no avail.2

Virtually all such suggestions of CO2-induced extreme weather events in the scientific literature
are derived from tenuous global circulation model predictions, not actual extreme-events data
analyzed by historical climatologists. 3

4. “WHEREAS recent international research has indicated a need for massive reduction in
carbon emissions in the next 11 years to avoid further and devastating economic,
ecological, and societal loss”

This is false. There cannot be “further and devastating economic, ecological, and societal loss”
if there has not yet been any “devastating economic, ecological, and societal loss” caused by
the increased use of fossil fuel since the 1950s.

I infer that the Mover of the Motion is referring to IPCC executive summaries. These are
political documents that reflect policy desires, not “international research”.
2
“Anatomy of the false link between forest fires and anthropogenic CO2”, by D.G. Rancourt, Reseach Gate, May
2016, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2059.6087. (18 pages, 69 references)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303446052_Anatomy_of_the_false_link_between_forest_fires_and_a
nthropogenic_CO2
3
Ibid.

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In conclusion, the Committee should take notice of the following facts when it considers this
Motion:
(1) There is no conclusive scientific evidence that climate change (unnatural increased
extreme-weather incidence) has occurred since the surge in use of fossil fuel that
started in the 1950s. There is only tenuous theoretical conjecture that such might occur.
(2) Not a single death on Earth has been scientifically attributed to “climate change”, which
includes Ottawa.
(3) Not a single animal or plant species has been scientifically established to have become
extinct from climate change. There is no scientific demonstration of such a thing.
(4) Weather data for Ottawa does not show increased incidence of weather extremes, or
any statistically meaningful deviations from the known natural variability (ENSO).
(5) Changes in Ottawa canal skating-season schedules result from ice-management and
safety protocol changes, not from (empirically known) weather data.
(6) There is no rational reason, based on empirical data, to believe that Ottawa is at risk of
climate change or is susceptible to anomalous future extreme weather events.

The Motion, in my opinion, is what can be termed “goodness propaganda”, which appears
intended to convince citizens of being looked after. In fact, this Motion is a waste of resources
and political attention.

It is verging on the ridiculous to think that the reality that 87% of world energy from fossil fuels
(oil, gas, coal) can be changed by policy statements or taxation.4 The only significant alternative
contributors, as now demonstrated by decades of publicly funded adventures, are nuclear and
hydro, both requiring massive structural investments, and both having large environmental
consequences. 5

In contrast, real environmental issues that should concern the Committee are many and
serious, and include:

(1) Deposition of toxic heavy metals and cancer-causing PAHs (Polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons) from major transportation lanes running through the populated city
centre. Such deposition is a known and well-studied scientific reality.
(2) Historical toxic-waste landfills in populated areas, including Vanier and the Mover of the
Motion’s own riding.
(3) The sustained and steadfast refusal of the City to disclose its soil toxicity study results
for Old Ottawa East in Ward 17, even to the resident participants of the study, including
me.

4
Source: World Energy Council, UN-accredited global energy body, representing the entire energy spectrum, with
more than 3000 member organisations located in over 90 countries and drawn from governments, private and
state corporations, academia, NGOs and energy-related stakeholders.
5
Ibid.

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 (4) The disproportionate lack of family-oriented parks in densely populated
neighbourhoods.
(5) The narrowing river access corridors and shrinking river-area green space with every
new river-adjacent or island urban development.
(6) The lack of air-quality and noise monitoring near major transportation lanes through
populated areas.
(7) The increased littering along new foot paths, from lack of litter infrastructure and
maintenance.

Motion to delay introduction of plastic bags in Green Bins

The plan to introduce plastic bags in Green Bins in Ottawa is a good plan. It takes the realities of
household convenience, user psychology, and 4,000 tonnes of pet excrement per year into
account. Otherwise, the Green Bin program is defeated.

The plan centralises plastic bag separation, thus accomplishing a task that users
overwhelmingly refuse.

Any environmentally concerned councillor should be concerned with a few related issues,
which are not mentioned in the Motion:

(1) Will the plastic separation actually be done, without compromising the purpose of the
organic recycling program?
(2) What verifications are available to the City with respect to the plastic separation and its
efficiency, and what reporting to councillors is planned regarding separation efficiency?
(3) In the long term, what can be done (federal grants, research institute partnership) to
develop dog-excrement collection and sealing devices that are inexpensive, practical,
and paper or cardboard and organic-oil-wax or modified-paraffin based, and thus
biodegradable, such as to circumvent the significant separation problem?

In my opinion, delaying inclusion of plastic in the Green Bins would be misguided. I would say
that the solution is to monitor, report, and improve, rather than delay.

The Mover of the Motion appears to be motivated by removal of plastic bags through
regulation, thus targeting the most disadvantaged members of society. The only real and
immediate problem here is preventing plastic from entering waterways. Ottawa has no vector
that leaks plastic into waterways, to my knowledge.

Please contact me if you have any questions or would like follow up documentation.

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ALL OF WHICH IS RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.

OTTAWA, 14 April 2019

DENIS RANCOURT, PhD

Resident, Ward 17

email: denis.rancourt@alumni.utoronto.ca

Cc: Made public