Team Trees is a movement that was started by mrBeast, a youtuber who takes on challenges. His subscribers challenged him to plant 20 million trees, and he took it on! His goal is to plant 20 million trees by January 1st 2020. He started off by planting trees with some fans, but they only managed to plant a few thousand. He then partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation the largest tree planting non profit in the world. Donating one dollar on the Team Trees website and 1 tree will be planted. MrBeast himself donated 100,000 dollars witch will plant 100,000 trees. The largest contribution so far is one million and one dollars. But all contributions great and small have contributed to the project. Currently upwards of 15 million trees have been planted!
The Arbor Day Foundation receives money by selling trees. They understand the importance of trees in the struggle against climate change, and how they can help drain storm water. “As trees grow, they help stop climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the air, storing carbon in the trees and soil, and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. Trees provide many benefits to us, every day. They offer cooling shade, block cold winter winds, attract birds and wildlife, purify our air, prevent soil erosion, and clean our water” the Arbor Day Foundation site.
According to The Tree Advisory Board “Trees improve our air quality by filtering harmful dust and pollutants such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide from the air we breathe”. In addition to this, trees can attract wildlife, and shade land. Furthermore, trees release moisture into the atmosphere which cools down the area.
However, will 20 million trees make a difference? While planting trees is good, and does help the environment, is 20 million really enough? The short answer no, its not. In NY city there is a population of 8,550,405, to completely erase the carbon footprint edited by all the people living there, 342,016,200 trees would need to be planted. Furthermore, there is no way to know for sure how many of the trees planted will actually grow. So while planting 20 million trees is a great start to combating climate change, it will in no way solve the problem.
Graphic by Maya Rigler
