As soon as I heard about the Walk for Solar I knew I wanted to go, even
though I already had plans for some of that time and I knew I'd need
some training walks in order to manage the 300 km from Port Augusta to
Adelaide.
The Walk for Solar aims to win state and federal support for building a
solar thermal plant to replace the old coal-fired plant at Port Augusta.
Port Augusta is one of the solar locations identified in BZE's stationary energy plan (for converting Australia to 100% renewable
energy), and for a number of reasons has always struck me as being the
best place to start - even more so now that the Playford B power plant
there is slated to close, and the Port Augusta council and residents are
keen to replace it with solar. Until it is implemented, the BZE plan is
"just" a plan (albeit an exciting one). Now we have a good chance to
start making that plan a reality!
What's not to like? An important campaign, walking through lovely
countryside in springtime, meeting lots of people who care about
climate, and getting more physically fit than I usually am! If you'd
like to join in too, you can find the walk details on the Repower Port Augusta website.
Initially this was just something I personally wanted to do, so I
started doing training walks and registered to take part in the walk. I
then suddenly thought, why not participate as a representative of the
One Person Can project? So now I'm wearing two hats.
I am using One Person Can resources to help promote the Walk for Solar,
and have set up dedicated result graphs to document what Walk for Solar
supporters are doing towards a safe climate in the other 50 weeks of the
year. I'm asking walkers, sponsors and supporters, and people attending
the associated rallies to take the OPC survey and to select "2012 Walk
for Solar" when they do so that their actions will appear in the Walk
for Solar result graphs. I'm hoping for some huge numbers in those
graphs so I can send them off to government decision-makers to show just
how serious all these people are about tackling climate change.
You can see the results so far at http://www.onepersoncan.org/graphNat1.aspx?ft=grp.
