XSReviews

What do a 16 year old Swedish girl who regularly skips school and a 21 year old YouTuber who goes by the name MrBeast have in common? They are both trying to save the world

Unless you have been living under a rock, you would have heard the name Greta Thunberg in recent months. She first caught the attention of the public eye when, at only 15 years old, she began spending her days outside the Swedish Parliament campaigning for stronger action on global warming. She has gone on to speak at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, winning the hearts and minds of old and young alike. Thunberg comes from a generation that is often accused of retweet activism, a term referring to individuals who are socially and politically active on social media but do nothing to address these issues outside of the digital world.

In May 2019, Jimmy Donaldson, otherwise known as MrBeast, was challenged by his online followers to plant 20 million trees in order to celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers on the popular video-sharing platform YouTube. MrBeast, a challenger YouTuber best known for offering large amounts of cash to people in order to do ridiculous things, accepted the challenge, and thus, the TeamTrees campaign was born. The idea was brought to life by MrBeat, and former NASA engineer and fellow YouTuber, Mark Rober. They joined forces with the largest non-profit tree planting organisation in the world, the Arbor Day Foundation, and are well on their way to achieving the 20 million goal by the January 1st, 2020 deadline. The concept couldn’t be simpler, every dollar donated will result in the planting of a tree.

The campaign has already attracted attention from some of the world’s most successful people, who have put their money where their mouth is and backed the initiative. Some notable donators include Elon Musk, briefly changing his Twitter handle name to Treelon Musk and contributed $1 million dollars. Tobi Lutke, the CEO of Shopify, went one better than this, and after his company reached 1 million followers, decided to donate $1 million and one dollars to the campaign. There are numerous ways to get involved in the campaign. You can donate directly on the official website, or purchase official merchandise, with 100% of the money raised going towards the planting of trees. As well the involvement of some of the most prominent people alive today, teamtrees and Bitcasino.io have teamed up to allow you the opportunity to join the movement by planting trees using your loyalty rewards.

The trees will be planted on every continent, with the exception of Antartica, and if successful, will make a significant contribution to fighting the issues of deforestation and global warming. The planting of trees is a simple solution to ever rising carbon dioxide levels. Trees absorb and store carbon dioxide while emitting oxygen, and over their lifespan, the 100 million trees planted as a result of this project would be the equivalent of taking 6.2 million cars off the road for one year. This is a fantastic project, and one which perfectly demonstrates just what we can achieve if we take the responsibility to save the planet into our own hands.