Live Earth – Oklahoma style
By Jim Roth | Phillips Murrah P.C. |
The Journal Record
[ FEBRUARY 22, 2010 - OKLAHOMA CITY, OK ] - In developing countries, unsafe water causes 80 percent of all illness and disease, and kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.
To help solve the world water crisis, the Dow Live Earth Run for Water on April 18 will offer a series of 6K run/walks, featuring celebrities, concerts, and educational activities. Funds raised in the U.S. will be channeled to the Global Water Challenge, an international nongovernmental organization. The 6K length is equivalent to the average distance women and children walk every day to secure water in some countries.
Dow Corp., the title sponsor for Live Earth 2010, has pledged to provide funding to support drilling up to 10,000 water wells, with additional funds raised by Live Earth events, in an estimated 192 countries worldwide. Live Earth 2010 will focus on water scarcity and its solutions at the local, national and global levels.
Oklahoma City will be the site of Live Earth Oklahoma April 17 to 18, hosting a 6K run, a concert, the largest-to-date eco-village environmentally friendly festival, and educational forums on issues that are important to our economy and the environment. Participants will join millions of runners across the globe with the largest single initiative for a common cause.
The weekend of events will span indoor and outdoor facilities at Remington Park, the Oklahoma City Zoo and the Softball Hall of Fame. Runners will experience a professionally produced green 6K run through the Adventure District. The specially designed course will finish at the Softball Hall of Fame stadium, where they can watch themselves finish on the stadium’s interactive big screen while spectators watch from stadium seats.
The Oklahoma City Zoo will host the children’s 1-Mile Run for Water. Educational guides surrounding zoo exhibits will provide experiential education to children and parents about the impact of water scarcity issues on the environment and animals.
During the festival, water scarcity and resources will be emphasized and in addition, the eco-village is designed to showcase and educate Oklahomans on alternative energy resources, eco-friendly vehicles and environmentally friendly products and services. Educational forums will focus on conserving, protecting, reducing, reusing and recycling programs.
A portion of the proceeds from the Live Earth Oklahoma Run for Water will go to two local Oklahoma-based water resource organizations – SafeWater4Kids and Water4Foundation.
At the festival, breakout conferences will include publicly held forums with local and international water experts from several agencies and state colleges. Other educational breakouts will include home, community and business greening initiatives, strategies and the latest technologies.
Prior to the Run for Water weekend, Live Earth Oklahoma will also hold an eco-summit event March 31 at Oklahoma City University’s Meinders School of Business. Top corporate energy executives and representatives from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, state Water Resources Board, the city of Oklahoma City, Bruce Ray from A Fit Planet and a Dow Chemical executive presenting a corporate forum discussing water sustainability and other environmental issues.
Events like Live Earth Oklahoma can be great family fun while helping solve the water crisis through increased awareness of water conservation efforts and investment in sustainable, scalable and replicable water projects.
For information about Run For Water, the eco-summit, sponsorships or participating as vendors, call Chris Molar, executive producer, at (405) 517-5106 or Katie Wilkes-Ball, festival director, at (405) 979-0385.
Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma corporation commissioner, is an attorney with Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City, where his practice focuses on clean, green energy for Oklahoma.