Planting a Tree! It’s the new cool!

Green Schools has been engaging with students for over 2 months now, and we’ve had a lot of questions about planting trees.  A youtuber named Mr Beast was challenged by his audience of over 26 Million subscribers, to plant 20 million trees. Mr Beast is known for taking on any challenge, so they partnered with the largest tree planting organization in the world, Arbor Day Foundation. For each dollar they raise, they plant a tree. So far they have raised enough money to plant over 15,000,000 trees! Planting trees is great because they give us oxygen and store the carbon we create from all the energy we use. Imagine how much carbon we could take out of our atmosphere if we were efficient with our energy usage, and planted all those trees! “Energy savings: Trees that are located near homes and other structures help to reduce energy bills. Tree canopies provide shade to buildings in the summer, reducing cooling costs; while in the winter, their structures reduce the cooling effect of winds, helping to lower heating bills. In addition to the direct cost savings, depending on the energy source mix in a given city, emissions of pollutants are also reduced as demands on power plants fall.”

“Trees in Halifax remove nearly 120 thousand tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year – equivalent to the annual emissions of 80 thousand motor vehicles.”

Source:  https://www.td.com/document/PDF/economics/special/UrbanForestsInCanadianCities.pdf

We are so proud of all the students who have donated to this amazing organization and hope to see this momentum continue! 

~Scott Ellis – HRCE Engagement Officer