A collaborative effort by a group of YouTube celebrities is seeking to raise money in order to plant 20 million trees to tackle climate change.
The collection of YouTubers have over 650 million subscribers.
Yes, you read that right, and this group it would seem is finally using their immense reach in order to do something good for the planet.
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The campaign, now called #teamtrees, was spearheaded by one individual YouTuber.
The campaign was started by YouTuber Mr. Beast.
Mr. Beast is usually known for “outrageous” stunts. You know, it’s the sort of cringe-worthy “hilarious” content that sees typically shrieking people saying things along the lines of “I can’t believe we did this lol” while doing something like “Going Through The Same Drive Thru 1,000 Times.”
Yes, they really did that! Can you believe it? I can’t either! It’s almost like if I didn’t have a real job I’d have the time to do something so asinine.
However, #teamtrees is actually a good cause.
After forcing myself to escape from my prison of cynicism and hatred of the modern world for 7 minutes and 22 seconds, I found Mr. Beast’s latest video about #teamtrees to be genuinely interesting.
The idea of #teamtrees is simple, to plant 20 million trees; however, unlike going through a drive-though a load of times, this project requires a lot of hard work and dedication.
The plan to plant 20 million trees was to celebrate Mr. Beast reaching 20 million subscribers.
Mr. Beast (I’m aware that’s not his real name, I just very much enjoy referring to someone as Mr. Beast) released a video on his channel last Friday announcing the fact that he will be planting 20 million trees.
However, in order to do so, he had to get some help.
Mr. Beast partnered with other YouTube celebrities.
Other YouTube sensations supporting the cause include AsapScience, Jeffree Star, Marshmello, Mark Rober, Rhett & Link, Simone Giertz, and many more.
Supporting the cause essentially means making a video related to trees, and encouraging subscribers to donate to the charity page which Mr. Beast and co have set up called “#TeamTrees.”
#TeamTrees is working in collaboration with Arbour Day.
The organization has currently raised over $6,103,612, and due to the fact that one dollar allows the foundation to plant one tree, they’re well on their way to planting their goal!
Mr. Beast donated $100,000 of his own money to the foundation.
However, despite holding the highest donation top spot for a few days, he was eventually taken from the top spot by DJ and record producer Alan Walker, who gave Mr. Beast the old Price is Right treatment and donated $100,001 to the foundation.
The Arbour Day Foundation is a nonprofit conservation and education organization.
The Arbour Day Foundation is currently busy with its own tree-planting projects. However, they’re hoping to start planting saplings for the #TeamTrees project in January 2020, and hope to have them all planted by December 2020.
There have been largely positive reactions to Mr. Beast’s campaign
However, there have been a few negatives as well, with some people pointing out that planting 20 million trees will not suddenly stop the climate crisis currently happening.
Although, Mr. Beast addressed these concerns in a tweet, claiming that any amount of trees planted was still better than not planting any.
Mark Rober was also quick to defend the project.
Rober became a YouTuber after being an engineer for NASA and explained to Mashable , that the project was worth it purely in terms of raising awareness of climate change:
“The point here is to end the decade on a super strong note. It’s a constructive way to send a message to the politicians that it’s freaking time to do something about climate change. Plus, we just really love trees, so this is like a fist bump to Mother Earth.”
Hopefully, the trees will actually be planted next year.
It is possible to take a cynical approach to this (and I’m trying so hard not to that my eyes feel like they’re going to burst from my head) or to see it as someone finally using their platform for something actually well-intended and good. If they see this through and do manage to grow 20 million trees, then I genuinely believe that they will have done something amazing.
h/t: Mashable
