Want to be a super-hero and help save the world? Now’s your chance!

I am delighted to announce a new eco-initiative for this year. In 2008 we tackled the North Pacific Garbage Patch by reducing our use of disposable plastic cups, water bottles, and grocery bags. In 2009 we reduced our carbon footprints by walking more and driving less (or rowing more and flying less, in my case). So how were we going to top that?

We decided to round off the Pacific eco-campaigns by inviting you to become an Eco Hero. All you have to do is to log at least one Green Deed every day. For each Green Deed you’ll get points, and as you move up the points scale you’ll be awarded medals. Do more than one Green Deed a day, and you win more points!

Each week, the greenest of all our Greendoers will receive a special prize, donated by our sponsors SonyEricsson, who are giving away their eco-friendly Green Heart mobile phones, and DaKine, who have donated laptop bags made using their new Re-Gen bag technology. These aren’t available in the shops until the summer – so this is an exclusive offer especially for our Eco Heroes!

Green Deeds can be anything you like – pick up trash from your neighbourhood while you’re out walking, join an eco organization, write a letter to your newspaper or elected representative, start growing your own veg, start composting – whatever you like. Feel free to get ideas and inspiration from other citizens of our Greendom. Your Green Deeds will be scrutinised by the community – thumbs up means you did a great job, thumbs down means your Green Deed needs to go greener.

By playing the game, you’ll be connecting into a worldwide community of aspiring Eco Heroes. We hope that this initiative will take on a life of its own. I am just the first in what we hope will be a long line of Eco Ambassadors, leading the way to a better, healthier, greener future.

We gave a sneak preview to the National Geographic audiences last week, and 1,200 people have already signed up by SMS. The concept has received an enthusiastic response from everyone that we have mentioned it to. We’ll be putting out a press release next week to announce it to the world at large.

So how do you get started? At the moment we’re in the pre-registration phase. You can register your interest by going to the Eco-Heroes website and entering your name and email address. Of course we promise that we won’t pass these details on to anybody else.

Or you can register by SMS, by sending a message to 360-202-6062. Add +1 to the front if you are outside the US. Please use this standard format, to save Brennan from a lot of manual corrections:

Your Name, [email protected]

Please note the comma and space between your name and your email address.

This doesn’t commit you to anything at this stage. It just means that you will get an email from us when we go fully live around the time of my launch. You won’t have to register again. As soon as we go live, you can start logging your Green Deeds, and start saving the world!

Huge kudos to Brennan Novak for all his hard work in making this happen. The Earth thanks you, Brennan!