Rock Clime Project
(Development project)
Outline.
The Rock Clime project is designed to bring climbers together with scientists and science communicators to develop project ideas and share best practice on the climate crisis.
There will be workshops on climate communications, how to share good science, and just what the current science is. All this wrapped in a way that makes it easy for climbers to share with their communities.
But also this works the other way too. Climbers come with their project ideas and talk them through with climate scientists and educators to see where they can have a real impact in their community. Whether thats the local climbing wall, or a big expedition.
This will all take place over a 5 day climbing trip. Climbing in the morning and workshops and brainstorming sessions in the afternoon.
The Details.
The People: We’d split up the people into 5 leaders and 5 climbers. The 5 leaders will be a mix of climate scientists, communicators and journalists. Then we would put a call out online for interested climbers to join us on this trip. Ideally we would find enough funding to bring the climbers along with expenses like accommodation and travel paid for. Same for the leaders.
Locations: Obviously the further afield you go for this the more it will cost, and the more carbon you potentially emit. But the carbon handprint of this project has the potential to outweigh the carbon footprint. So in the summer months we think a UK based climbing week in Pembrokeshire or the Peaks or on the south coast may work well. And then in the winter months, Spain or Sicily could work well to guarantee some better weather.
Outcomes: For this our main outcomes are to develop some well rounded climbers who can be ambassadors for climate conscious ideals with the climbing community. The leaders will have had some great interactions and thought provoking conversations too. Then a slew of photos and a video at the end of this to promote the project too.
Film.
DURATION: 6 Minutes
FILM TEAM: Anturus Science StoryLab
LOCATIONS: Filmed on location with Rock Clime. Much in the same way Womens Trad Fest is filmed with short interviews and action sequences.
OUTPUT: A short film talking about what the project is all about but also some of the problems that leaders and climbers will have been talking about that week. Concerns that they have within the climbing community and actions they would like to put in place when they get back.
SHOWN: This would be ideal to sit on YouTube and share on social media. Theres the potential to film at multiple Rock Clime project locations and develop a longer film to be shown at festivals.
The Team.
Huw James.
Huw James is a Welsh Scientist, Adventurer and Film Maker. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical and Royal Astronomical Societies.
Huw has been delivering live science shows for over 15 years. His audiences are over 1,000,000 people on 6 continents and over 2 million on TV and YouTube. His background in Astronomy and Geology has pushed him to explore the world on a variety of expeditions all for science.
He has been a climber for 20 years and climbed across the world on walls big and small, hot and cold.
Natalie Berry.
Natalie is also Editor-in-Chief of UKClimbing.com and a freelance writer with bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times (How to Spend It), The Scotsman, WIRED UK and Alpinist Magazine.
Natalie graduated from Edinburgh University in 2014 with a Master’s degree in French and German and has two book translations to her name.
George Lonsdale.
George is currently head route setter at The Climbing Hanger.
He also works at University of Plymouth. George does research in Ecology and Zoology. His current project is 'Spatial Ecology of the Honduran Emerald Palm Pit Viper (Bothriechis marchi) in Cusuco National Park.'