[Falkor-info] Loesje initiative to improve the EC Youth programme

[info@falkor.org]

Forwarded from Loesje, keeptraveling@loesje.org:


Keep on traveling

The new youth programme of the European Commission will start soon and 
Loesje comes with an action to make it even better.

Young people are traveling through Europe every day to gain great 
experiences such as participating in an intercultural exchange, doing a 
voluntary or Erasmus year abroad. This is good and fun and we should 
keep on doing this. The distance of traveling can be rather far and 
sitting in a bus for 24 hours isn't ideal and the cheapest way of 
transport is in many cases by plane.

A negative side effect of this is as we know that planes are rather 
polluting and contribute to the Greenhouse effect. To compensate these 
greenhouse gases there is something very easy that can be done besides 
not flying, namely planting trees. Not you personally but there are 
companies and NGO's that organise that.

All these opportunities of traveling are financed by grants from the 
European Commission. What Loesje wants to reach is that these 
compensation cost for the greenhouse gases will be part of the travel 
expenses in grant applications. So when you apply for a grant and when 
you get it, that money directly goes to planting trees as compensating 
for the pollution that your project will give.

There are agreements inside the EU that we should fight the Greenhouse 
effect and lower the CO2 concentration. In that way this suggestion to 
the European Commission isn't something controversial but suits the 
existing policies perfectly.

As individuals but also as NGO's we have a responsibility, so why not 
take it when it doesn't take so much effort?

On http://www.keep.loesje.org you can read about the action and how to join.

Feel free to spread the news and improve the programme and reduce 
greenhouse gases world wide.

Kind regards,
Loesje