Have fun and reduce carbon emissions too | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

LOCAL environmentalists hope some fun events planned for the city next weekend will encourage people to reduce their carbon emissions.

"10:10:10 - A Global Day of Doing" is happening on Sunday, October 10.

The 10:10 campaign calls on people around the world to commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 10 per cent in one year.

Activites for locals are:

A leisurely cycle for frock lovers (organised by Frocks on Bikes), native planting in sand dunes at South Shore to live electronica music, and free makeovers for unused bikes at the Linwood Community Centre.

A climate smart film festival featuring 15 films and five guest speakers is also running throughout the day at the CPIT's Imagitech Theatre in Madras St.

For something more active, a one hour "Walk for Wellbeing" marking mental health week is also on offer at the Travis Wetland.

Sydenham environmental consultant and New Zealand 10:10 co-ordinator Rhys Taylor hoped the events would encourage more Christchurch residents to sign up to the 10:10 carbon emissions reduction campaign.

People can sign up to the 10:10 website and join like-minded people from around the world in making their commitment public.

"We've been working on the event since April as a way of publicising 10:10 in Christchurch," Mr Taylor said.

Since November last year 97,000 people from 35 countries around the world had signed up, he said.

Film-makers Franny Armstrong and Dunedin-born Lizzie Gillett launched the campaign following the success of their film, Age of Stupid which took a fictional and frightening look at what how the earth, ravaged by climate change, could look in the future.

Mr Taylor said reducing personal emissions by 10 per cent was actually "reasonably easy" to achieve.

For more information go to www.1010global.org/nz.