25 Runners… 28 days…
30 community events…
6000km for change…
and one Finish Line!
Our frontline emergency service workers went 6000km for climate change – click here to view the film of our finale event. How far will you go for change? Click here to be a part of the solution and help us get to our target of $1 million for a Safe Climate Australia.
Run for a Safe Climate is a unique and powerful project aimed at protecting life, property and the great natural icons of our country from a slide towards catastrophic global warming.
The run is being performed by active and serving members of Australia’s emergency services– firefighters, paramedics, police, military and emergency services workers – many of whom were directly exposed to recent climate-driven disasters in Australia such as the 2009 Victorian bush fires.
Our running group feels very strongly that global warming presents an unprecedented threat to our food bowls, cities, water, health, security and great natural icons, and has become motivated to run 6000 kilometres across Australia to raise money for an essential scenario and risk-management planning exercise for Australia — the Safe Climate Australia Transition Plan.
A team of 25 trained runners from the various emergency services will run in a relay over 6000 kilometres to link Australia’s unique, world-renowned natural icons, most of which will be devastated if atmospheric greenhouse gas levels are not brought back to a safe climate threshold. We will also visit some of the great climate solutions that are the key to a low-carbon and clean-energy future – solar thermal and wind plants, geothermal and clean marine-derived energy sources and research facilities.
The run will aim to communicate simply and powerfully, and resonate on a number of levels with the Australian community in terms of the urgent need to take strong action to address the risk of global warming.
Scientists and researchers
The run will engage lead scientists across each major ecosystem. For instance, while on the Great Barrier Reef we will visit the Heron Island research facility and take part in a guided tour hosted by Professor Ove Hoegh Guldberg, a world expert on the Reef.
Professor Ove will also participate in the community event we will hold that evening. In the Australia Alps we will meet alpine ecologists, and so on for each system. We will also engage the leading experts across each climate solution technology and provide an opportunity for each of these people to explain their technology, potential, economics, scaleability and the impediments to widespread uptake.
Community and schools engagement
At every stage of the run the local community is important to us. There will be a community event almost every night, in which we will look to engage local and state government members, the local emergency services, sports clubs, service clubs and other community organisations, the local business community, environment groups, indigenous communities, agricultural groups, universities and schools to participate. At each of these events we plan to have a public forum to talk about global warming risks and solutions and present the perspectives of the scientists and emergency services. These events will be designed to be fun, inclusive, apolitical, solutions-focused and science-based.
Our Cool School are partnering with the Run for a Safe Climate. They won’t be running but will be leading the runners in a 1940’s DC3 aircraft converted into a bus. Jason Kimberley – Cool Australia and Our Cool School founder – is jumping behind the wheel of the DC3 and will be visiting schools across New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia to talk to students and teachers about our environment and what we can all do to help. Our Cool School is the leading online educational resource for environmental information for schools around Australia. We provide free educational resources that are easily downloaded and taken straight to the classroom. All contain interesting environmental information that speaks to students at their level of understanding. It is designed for teachers and students from Years 1 to 10.