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!

Treading lightly on the earth/mud

It’s not easy to tread lightly upon the earth when you have 10lb of mud on each boot, but we try….

If yesterday was the hump day, maybe today was the clump day. The forecast was for sunshine and rain – but we got very little of either. It was a day of grey skies and grey fields. Thank heavens for our bright orange jackets and baseball caps to brighten up the day. I had the feeling that orange – as well as being symbolic of change – would be just the ray of sunshine we needed to boost our spirits on a drab winter’s day. And as I increasingly find as I tune into my intuition, it has turned out to be a great success.

The only dodgy orange moment was when we entered a field past a sign saying “Beware of the bull”. Laura asked the key question: “So what are we supposed to do about it?” To which I replied, “Not wave any red hankies in its direction?” “And what about bright orange jackets?” came the rather too pertinent response.

Shorthorn bull

Luckily the bulls, although large and funny-faced, were mostly benign. After a few faintly hostile glares they ambled off out of our way.

Today the challenges were less bovine, more medical. Jane has some new boots – alas, not Keens, our sponsor’s footwear not being available in Colchester at short notice – and by swapping between her new boots and Laura’s old boots was able to adjust the pressure points on her feet at regular intervals. Alison’s knee is like a melon, but she soldiers on stoically. We are considering how to make it through the rest of our journey without anyone suffering permanent injury, and have lined up a few environmentally friendly contingency plans.

Ouch! Jane's heel

It is fascinating to think that 200 years ago – even 100 years ago – walking was THE way to travel. Our 20th/21st century bodies are just not used to walking long mileages day after day. What softies we’ve become! Yet, no matter the aches and pains, it still feels pleasantly natural and, well, HUMAN to move at walking pace. When we cross over a motorway or major road, the traffic seems to whizz by at an indecently fast pace, the smell of exhaust fumes unpleasant, and the roar of internal combustion engines displeasing to our ears. By contrast walking, for all its limitations, seems to connect us to our human heritage. We have time to notice trees and wonder at their species, we surprise rabbits by approaching unheard, we send pheasants flapping hectically out of hedgerows as we pass. We see people working in their gardens and have time to say “Good morning” and comment on the weather.

It feels good.

Tomorrow night we take the ferry. Not as environmentally low impact as we’d hoped to be, but we didn’t manage to find a sailboat to take us across – and given the weather conditions the ferry is

probably a more reliable bet than sail. Out of interest, here are the CO2 comparisons:

Options for the outwards journey:

Flying from London to Brussels produces approximately 400 kg of CO2 per person.
Train (Eurostar) produces about 20 kg of CO2.
Our choice: Walking (with ferry across the North Sea to Holland) produces only 12 kg.

And for the return journey:

Flying from Copenhagen to London produces over 360 kg of CO2.
Our choice: A train ride from Copenhagen to London produces approximately 55 kg of CO2 per passenger.

To put this in perspective:

‣ The UK’s total carbon footprint is over 500 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the equivalent of over 420 million flights from New York to Los Angeles. Individuals account for 45% of this.
‣ The average carbon footprint per person in the UK is 10 tonnes. The average Indian is less than 2 tonnes and the average American or Saudi is closer to 20 tonnes.

And Alison is sitting here in the Sun Inn, Dedham (home town of the painter Constable) reminding me that if we want to save our snow – and the planet – we ALL need to get down to 2 tonnes. Wow.

Other Stuff:

Lovely mention by Act on Copenhagen, a subdivision of the UK government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change – click here to see it.

Please support my friend David Kroodsma, veteran of the Climate Ride (bicycle ride from New York to DC), tech guy for 350.org, long distance cyclist (San Francisco to Tierra del Fuego) and all-round good guy. He is hoping to be selectedby the Huffington Post as their Hopenhagen Ambassador to report back from Copenhagen. I personally would love to see him there, and believe he would make a great correspondent. Please watch his video and vote for him here!

[All photos today: credit to Alison Gannett and her trusty iPhone!]

I am in Vancouver for a couple of days – primarily to see off my friends Marcus (of the JUNK raft) and Anna from the Algalita Foundation, as they set out to ride their bikes from Canada to Mexico to raise awareness of plastic pollution in the oceans.

The plan had been that I would join them for a presentation at the Vancouver Aquarium last night. I was due to land from New York at 2pm, leaving nice time for me to check in at my hotel (big thanks to Fairmont for the comp room at the gorgeous Waterfront Hotel) and spend a couple of hours hanging out with Marcus and Anna, plotting ways to save the world (!) before heading over to the Aquarium for the event.

As it turned out, my flight from Newark was delayed by 3 hours, so I missed my connection in Seattle. The next flight was cancelled. The next one was full. So eventually I had to fly via Portland (south) to get to Vancouver (north). It was 11pm by the time I got to my hotel. The event I had flown across the country to attend was long finished, and my carbon footprint for the day was just horrible. That will teach me to take environmentally unfriendly forms of transport!

But on the bright side it was useful practice at being zen in the face of adversity – a useful refresher course before I set out again on the ocean next month.

I finally managed to catch up with Marcus and Anna in time to see them off from the Aquarium this morning. Safe travels, guys – and to all my “left coast” readers out there, please keep an eye out for the JUNK bikers, coming to a town near you!

You can follow their progress on their blog.