Reality Check - MrBeast's #TeamTrees

Reality check on #MrBeast's #TeamTrees campaign to raise 20 million dollars to plant 20 million trees.

When Jimmy Donaldson known as MrBeast on YouTube reached 20 million subscribers he decided to mark the occasion by launching a campaign #TeamTrees, to raise 20 million dollars to plant 20 million trees.

The goal was to raise the money by the end of 2019. Well that total was reached and passed 5 days ago on 23rd December, so congrats to all those MrBeast viewers who made a donation, apparently it was one of the fastest growing environmental fundraisers to date, helped along by donations from Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey.

The frightening truth is that we are losing an area of forest and jungle the size of a football field or about 600 trees every second. That's 51,840,000 a day.

Let's say you believe the figures are an exaggeration so if we say just 50 trees occupy a space the size of a football field. That is still 4,320,000 trees lost every day.

So working on this lowest possible figure we still have lost much more than 20 million trees in just 5 days since the target of the campaign was reached, 21,600,000 to be precise.

This together with the fact that they won't actually start planting the 20 million trees until next year and will finish planting in 2022 apparently, rather puts the #TeamTrees campaign into perspective.

Wouldn't that the money have been better spent protecting the trees we already have, especially when most of these mature trees are a life source for so many animals, insects, birds and indigenous peoples. Plus all the other plants around them that are lost.

The Arbor Day Foundation, which was chosen to plant the trees for this campaign, does already have many schemes around the world educating and supporting local people. One of the causes of forest and jungle clearing is local people trying to make a living. The problem is the way they farm, which causes the soil to only support two or three years of crops, then nothing will grow on it, so a new area is cleared or burned. Education can help these people to keep farming on the same land by sustainable means plus support for getting buyers for their produce. But I suppose planting 20 million trees sounds more grand and exciting to todays hyperactive society.