G7 false commitments won't help us tackle 7-million air pollution deaths

During the hour that it took the world’s elite G7 politicians discussing climate change to wander through an enchanting meadow of flowers in Germany’s Bavarian Alps earlier this week, at least 800 people died prematurely from the impact of air pollution, most of it caused by the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels.

Wanting to show the world – particularly voters at home – that they care about the seven-million people a year dying from various pollution and carbon related causes, the leaders of the world’s richest countries, including Canada, signed a joint declaration calling for a global phasing-out of fossil fuels 85 years from now.

It’s unlikely that, during their deliberations in the picturesque Schloss Elmau at the foot of Germany's highest mountain, anyone at the Summit reflected on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report of a year ago that said in 2012 around seven million people died – one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure.

Multi-talented Nova Scotia writer wins 'neo-liberal' contest!

And the winner of my media challenge contest is… Joan Baxter, a journalist, an award-winning author and anthropologist who lived and worked in Africa for 21 years.

I had felt for some time that journalists in the mainstream corporate media were being intimidated by corporate owners and the Harper government from writing about the government’s destructive ideology – neo-liberalism.

In my January 11, 2012 blog, I offered a dinner for two valued at $150 to any journalist who would write in a mainstream Canadian newspaper about Harper’s neo-liberalism policies.

“Canada under Conservatives not what it used to be,” was the title of Baxter’s February 22 2012 article in The Halifax Chronicle-Herald, a paper not normally know for aggressive or in-depth journalism.   Marke Slipp of Wolfville, N.S. won $50 for spotting the Baxter article.