Run for a Safe Climate

Mildura 19-26°C

Rain. Mostly cloudy. Warm

It’s onward and upward as we brace ourselves for the longest route we’re running all month, a whopping 480km from Barmah to Mildura, the town known as the centre of Victoria’s ‘Food Bowl.’ The heat out here has been stifling with no cool sea breeze our mountain air to cool things down. And the flies!! The flies are relentless.

Today’s focus is on the Murray River, what is at risk at as well as possible solutions to save the iconic river. With changes to the water supply and river flow, food security becomes a problem and the ecological impacts of water shortages in the area put the agricultural industries at risk as well. This is the food that we buy at our local supermarkets!

The upshot is that Mildura has an excellent grid giving it a fantastic opportunity to become a solar power hub for Australia (it has an average 122 clear days per year so the sunshine is good shine!). It also has great potential to become a place for carbon draw-down through soil carbon … locking up carbon in soils which means it’s out of the atmosphere and reducing global warming.

We’re coming into town by the Ornamental Lakes then you’re all welcome to run with us to the South Mildura Footy Club from 6pm to wind up the longest leg of this year’s run.

After we’ve recuperated a bit, we’re off to a community forum at the Mildura Function Centre that will be headed by Anne Mansell & Glenn Milne, Mildura Development Corporation who will talk about Mildura as a clean energy hub. We’ll also hear from Safe Climate Australia CEO Brendan Condon. So come on down if you’re in Sunraysia.

Happy running!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Run Log. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.