Spring School Holiday Parkour Workshops 2009.

Townsville will join a worldwide parkour jump for climate change on The Strand tomorrow. By Isis Symes

IT'S building-jumping for a cause.

If you happen to see people leaping from highrise to highrise, no matter where in the world you are tomorrow, there's a good reason for it.

The biggest co-ordinated parkour jam in history will be held across the globe, including Townsville, in a bid to not only break a world record for the world's biggest parkour jam, but also to raise awareness of global warming.

The man behind the Global Climate Jam and London-based climate campaigner with www.sandbag.org.uk, Damien Morris, said more than 30 countries from Argentina to Australia, Brazil to Chile, China, England and USA - incorporating 100 cities - would take part in the record-breaking attempt.

* AUSTRALIAN PARKOUR ASSOCIATION


''Our numbers are now well in excess of 3000 traceurs (practitioners of parkour) and new groups are getting in touch every day,'' Damien said.

''We're setting this record to draw attention to our One Giant Leap climate change campaign,'' he said.

''We wanted an event which would inspire politicians and the public to get involved with this positive and practical vision of how climate change could be addressed, and felt the parkour community were perfect partners to communicate this.''

Parkour is described as the method and philosophy of moving from point A to point B with the ability to go back to point A in the most efficient time.

However, you can only travel by using the abilities of the human body.

The individual's goal is to run, jump, climb and vault themselves across a series of urban obstacles.

Damien said One Giant Leap had come together quite quickly.

''I'd hoped to involve the UK organisation Parkour Generations in some element of our Copenhagen campaigns since some time around May this year, but it wasn't until early July that this idea matured into the more ambitious concept of a global climate jam,'' he said.

''It was then that we approached Parkour Generations with the idea, and they agreed to partner with us to help spread the word amongst the global parkour community.

''It's just exploded in the subsequent two months.''

Damien said Sandbag would direct public support toward the UN meeting taking place in Copenhagen in December where they will be discussing the successor to the Kyoto Protocol - in a bid to jump-start a climate deal, reduce global power emissions by 10 per cent and roll out clean electricity everywhere.

''If included in the next global agreement, the One Giant Leap policy would control and reduce a quarter of all global carbon emissions - only 3300 power stations around the world account for this huge source of emissions.''

The Townsville event will be held at The Strand from 9.30am-11am tomorrow and Damien said local parkour practitioners would take part in the jam and show their support for the campaign.

''We're encouraging everyone of any level who is training with an established parkour community to participate in the jam,'' Damien said.

''We hope that many more people will come along to support as spectators and to sign up to the campaign petition.

''We invite people to come down and see the beauty of parkour in action and to sign up to our online petition.

''It's just a small step for them, but one giant leap towards a greener, safer future.''

No one turned up at 3.30pm, we waited until 3.50 and then moved on.