Fossil fuels are killing us. Yet fossil fuel companies are able to sponsor sports teams and run ads while their products cause climate change and its deadly impacts – killer heatwaves, megafires, floods, storms…
Australia’s national rugby team, The Wallabies, are sponsored by fossil giant Santos!
That’s why Rouser created The Dead Wallabies – a team killed by their sponsor.
The Dead Wallabies recently held a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra.
Fossil fuel companies use sponsorship and advertising to create positive associations with healthy community-orientated activities like sport. This social licence allows them to keep producing and polluting. Further delaying the urgent, drastic climate action needed to save lives and reduce suffering.
Climate-change-driven heatwaves were linked to over 60,000 deaths in Europe in 2022. Fires have recently killed scores of people from Greece to Hawaii. In September 2023 thousands were killed by climate-change-induced flooding in Libya.
It’s brutal reading but this is only the beginning!
Dr Kate Wylie, Executive Director of Doctors for the Environment, said: “Globally air pollution from burning fossil fuels kills almost as many people as smoking, and that number will be dwarfed by those killed or harmed by global warming in the coming decades, largely because of fossil fuels.”
To drive action, this intervention needs to be seen. Luckily, zombies are hard to ignore.
So far, The Dead Wallabies have generated over 120 million media impressions. Here’s some coverage:
The Dead Wallabies intervention is a collaboration with Comms Declare, the communications industry collective that founded the Fossil Ad Ban.
Rouser’s activism draws from experience in the entertainment, art, creative and environmental sectors to explore new ways of waking people up and making change happen.
Rouser exists thanks to seed funding from the Graeme Wood Foundation.
Rouser Climate Activism Inc. is a NFP and registered charity under the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission.
ABN: 97677044889
Rouser creates on unceded land. We acknowledge Australia's First People and believe a livable future depends on embracing First Custodians’ culture, knowledge and connection to country.