Walk Against Warming
Since 2005, Australians have taken to city streets in the annual Walk Against Warming to try to raise awareness of the dangers of global warming and the need to reduce our carbon emissions.
On Sunday 15 August 2010, Walk Against Warming will again get under way, aiming to highlight the need for political commitment and action on climate. In Hobart, WAW will get under way at 12 noon at Parliament House lawns. This year’s WAW is organised by Environment Tasmania and the Tasmanian climate movement. The walk aims to remind our political representatives that to secure our votes, they must ‘Walk with the People. Not the Big Polluters’. There will also be a Walk Against Warming in Launceston: details to be announced. Click here for further information.
A short history of Walk Against Warming by Cate Faehrmann
When I first started working at the Nature Conservation Council of NSW in 2004 I was disturbed at the lack of community engagement around climate change, particularly community mobilisation. As I said at the time – where are the people taking to the streets on this issue? So I called a meeting in Sydney at our little NCC office and Walk Against Warming was born. I was adamant that people would take to the streets if we organised an event that was pitched in a professional, family-friendly way. Our goal was to really influence the political agenda on climate change, not put on yet another demonstration or stunt that we could feel good about but that excluded many others who were also concerned.
It was important for us to encourage as many towns and cities across the country to also hold a Walk Against Warming. I figured that if just twenty people painted a banner and walked down their main street and stood on their town hall steps and took a photo then they’d create a media story. We wanted the Howard Government to notice that ordinary people everywhere were concerned about this.
And they did take notice. In 2005, the first year it was held, on the International Day of Action on Climate Change (coinciding with the UN meetings), 4000 people marched in Sydney while communities held similar, though smaller, events across the country.
In 2006, two months after the Stern Report and when interest in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was beginning to peak, Sydney’s Walk Against Warming attracted 40,000 people, including Cate Blanchett. A further 60,000 people at least, marched in another 60 parts of the country.
And the 2007 event, held two weeks before the Federal Election, made headline news in towns and cities across the country. We had inspired a nation!