I am glad that after months of preparation we reached the point that we can send our first gnome on his world trip. I hope Kolden is going to meet a lot of people and that he succeeds in spreading the message to all of you.

Myself and the other GnomeDiaries team members are very curious what the traveling route of Kolden will be.

At first people laughed about the idea that four grown up men were about to launch a website with travelling gnomes in the head role. Before the website was online it was hard to explain how we were about to link travelling gnomes to the climate problem. But after a while when the idea shaped and the website reached the pre-launching phase we had something touchable to show our relatives and friends. During the process we found an artist and statue foundry who were willing to participate for free This gave us the confidence that we had something unique in our hands, and that our message will reach a lot of people.

Since we started this project I have learned that by making little adjustments in our everyday life we can contribute in reducing our Co2 exhaust. An Inconvenient Truth shows us that something has to be done. Spreading the word trough our website is one of the things I try to do. At the end of the film Al Gore encourages everyone to do something there selves, he says that we can start by spreading the word.

Eventually I realize that it wont be enough if we all spread the word and don’t do something ourselves. So I installed an digital thermostat, this should help in producing less Co2. And I bought my first set of LED lights, they replace a set of two 50 Watt halogen spot lights. Every time the LED’s burn, 93.2 Watt less energy is used. Besides this, I put on less lights in the evening, and every time I leave a room I flick off the light.

This brings me to an other great initiative which should get more attention. FLICK OFF is a movement to fight climate change by getting Canadians to use less energy. The people from flickoff.org are almost nine years on the go, to tell Canadians to flick off their lights. I believe it is time for the people from FLICK OFF to go abroad. I hope they spread their message to the rest of the world soon.

I will deliver the message to the next person in Koldens journey: 4th co-founder Roel Gillesen.

Every message needs a messenger, this time it was me!

Hermen Vorstenbosch.