YPD's Earthday Party

The Young People for Development in Australia will organise an Earthday party on April 18, 2008 at the YPD house in Cairnlea, located in the Western suburb of Melbourne. It hopes to bring young people interested in the environment and development.

The YPD Earthday Party is a carbon neutral event courtesy of the Eco-Asia initiative of the Young People for Development.

To register into the Earthday event, click here.

Buying carbon offsets

An article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph offers advice on choosing which carbon offsets to buy - or to avoid.

Interestingly, the article advises individuals to buy their carbon offsets from registered environmental charity so that they can claim a tax deduction.

This is exactly the path we hope to go down with our YPD partnership with Geres Cambodia to sell carbon credits.

650kg of Carbon for Christmas

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas in Australia, the UK or wherever you are in the world!

And just to bring us back down to earth... here's the carbon cost of Christmas for the average Briton as calculated by the Stockholm Environment Institute.

650kg of carbon just for Christmas!

We'd better start selling our carbon credits!

Green Fundraising for a Green World Youth Day--possible?

After almost two months of my stay here in Australia, I still can't do away with converting Australian dollars to my own currency in the Philippines. Either I end up not buying at all or I fall on a guilt trip afterward. Yes, everything out here in the land 'down under' is big.I came over here to help organize the next YPD training session in 2008 and to do something different. However, I still worry about the immense budget that the program will have. As to the big program in Sydney, I close my eyes and force myself to think of other things other than the onerous amount involved at such a gathering. The encounters made among different cultures, experiences, faiths, and ages is not quantifiable. But, drawing closer to the issue on climate change, I take a different stance and take a pledge to be creative in tackling the whole thing.Meetings, endless trainings and reflections were held in the preparation for next year. Most of it will touch on monetary concerns. Positively, we say that things will be all right. We bank on the generousity of people. We bank on the enthusiasm of the world to 'hop down under'. Still, the onerous requirement for those days loom into the picture.What have I done so far? What have we done so far? We push for the eco-solidarity thinking and look at carbon credits for the World Youth Day to move at a smoother pace. At the local level, we strive hard to put green actions and fund raising together. We just successfully launched the "Walk to church" campaign. Those that brought their cars were 'fined' a dollar for the Green World Youth Day program. We raised around $ 400 out of it. We are selling native plants in thanksgiving to the parishioners. I still feel inadequate with all the initiatives. Still, I dream of having a green fundraising for a greener world youth day.