By Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Sun, November 21, 2017
A year after a site was selected for a new multi-billion dollar Civic hospital, officials are turning to the public for input on what the health institution should look like.
Public engagement sessions, which will take place across the region over the next three weeks, are a first step in the long process of building the hospital to replace the century old Civic.
By Joanne Chianello, CBC News Ottawa, November 21, 2017
After three hours of debate and a close vote on reallocating money for two staff members dedicated to the city's greenhouse gas reduction plan, the environment committee approved its portion of the the 2018 draft budget without change Tuesday.
A number of public delegations addressed the committee Tuesday morning and accused the city of underfunding its own environmental priorities.
(...)"What we see with the 2018 budget is that it continues a trend of under-investment on this specific initiative," Robb Barnes of Ecology Ottawa told the committee.
By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, November 17, 2017
We’ve been talking a lot this week about “traditional mainstreeets” in the context of the Salvation Army’s application for a shelter and health complex on Montreal Road.
At its core, the application is about whether or not city council should allow a shelter on a traditional mainstreet. The planning committee and council will need to decide if a shelter is an acceptable amendment for the land use at 333 Montreal Rd.
(...)However, the city’s planning department doesn’t think the real estate office would generate the pedestrian traffic sought for a mainstreet. A ground-level real estate office at the front of the building wouldn’t satisfy the intention of the zoning, the department concluded.
By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, November 21, 2017
Proposed increases to water and sewer bills received the environment committee’s endorsement on Tuesday, but councillors spent several hours considering the funding of new green schemes as part of the city’s draft 2018 budget.
Public delegates zeroed in on the city’s Energy Evolution program and asked councillors to increase funding for the first phase.
As part of the program, a $500,000 “community energy innovation fund” would be launched in 2018 as part of the city’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 80 per cent below 2012 levels by 2050. The money would be slotted into the tax-supported budget as a grant program, with the possibility of adding surplus Hydro Ottawa dividends.
Environmental groups, like Ecology Ottawa, want to see $1.5 million spent on Energy Evolution next year, arguing $500,000 won’t do much to reduce GHGs.
By Melissa Murray, Ottawa Community News, November 20, 2017
(...) Another local project, the design plans for extending the Michael Street multi-use pathway to St. Laurent station, received $100,000 from the federal program as well, also matched by the city. The construction of that project depends on future funding.
“These projects will support the growth of Ottawa’s public transit system and will also make it easier to get to and from work and school, and easier, faster and safer for transit riders,” said Anita Vandenbeld, member of Parliament for Ottawa West-Nepean.
By Peter Goffin, CTV News Ottawa, November 20, 2017
TORONTO -- Uber Canada has launched a new policy on how its drivers deal with customers who have service animals, but some disability rights advocates say exemptions built into the rules could still lead to discrimination.
The company's policy says drivers who refuse to give rides to customers with service animals will be dismissed.
By CBC News Ottawa, November 20, 2017
Canadians can expect a colder winter than last year — but forecasters are split about how bad it will actually be.
Chris Scott, The Weather Network's chief meteorologist, said the message from his forecast team is "buckle up because it looks like a stormy winter."
Scott said this year's La Nina weather system bears a striking resemblance to that of 2007-2008, when Toronto recorded its snowiest winter ever.
By Jim Whitteker, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, November 20, 2017
Fossil fuels foretell a grim future
Re: An Inconvenient Ottawa, Nov. 17.
We face an inconvenient future in Ottawa, and a catastrophic future in many parts of the world, if we continue to burn fossil fuels. Unfortunately, gobs of money can be made by digging or pumping these fuels out of the ground.
By Glen Gower, StittsvilleCentral, November 19, 2017
The City of Ottawa is holding an open house on Thursday, December 7 as part of the Environmental Assessment for the light rail extension to Kanata-Stittsville.
There’s a significant change in plans from the last open house held in June: An updated map of the potential LRT extension to Stittsville shows the end of the line at Hazeldean Road, instead of Canadian Tire Centre.
By Greg Allen, Ottawa Citizen, November 17, 2017
Information leaks, whether true, false or misinterpreted, may have political fallout. But there are gas leaks occurring that have fatal consequences for civilization and the biosphere.
Methane levels in the atmosphere have risen faster than carbon dioxide over the last century. After a hiatus over the first decade of this century, the levels are rising again. Since this was coincident with widespread hydro-fracturing in North America, researchers have been focusing attention on determining how much these practices are contributing.
Studies from Harvard and Cornell universities and, close to home, Carleton, confirm that the gas industry’s estimates of fugitive methane that are used in federal greenhouse gas inventories, are way too low. One study, using satellite data, concludes that up to 60 per cent of the global methane increase is due to North American natural gas production. When upstream emissions are included, natural gas accounts for higher GHG emissions than all other fossil fuels.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, November 19, 2017
It’s Canada Day, 2067 — our bicentennial.
In Ottawa, the peach trees have lost their blossoms and young fruit are developing nicely as mockingbirds and blue grosbeaks hop from branch to branch.
The kids are slathered in sunscreen. It’s uncomfortably warm in the city — not very pleasant weather for the Canada 200 ceremony on the Hill — and people are crowding the beaches, despite some early hints of smelly blue-green algae. The catfish are biting nicely. Dad keeps talking about the trout that lived around here, back in his day.
Politicians are debating what to do about the latest flood damage. The Ottawa and Gatineau rivers have once again inundated homes on shorelines and in old sections of Gatineau. You’d think the heat would dry up all that water, people say, but rain just keeps falling. It also washed out a lot of Eastern Ontario’s cornfields — again.
It was the fall of 2015 when newly elected Liberals arrived in Paris, enjoying the glow of the spotlight as Canada signed the Paris agreement to fight climate change.
“Climate change will test our intelligence, our compassion and our will. But we are equal to that challenge,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced. The reality is proving different. Canada has never been equal to this challenge because, despite many promises dating back to the 1980s, our emissions keep rising. Yet there we were in Paris, agreeing to further targets, saying we could achieve them.