EarthPlex - Climate Platform for Teens

  #TeamSeas - Everything you Need to Know In 2019, YouTuber MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) teamed up with Mark Rober and the YouTube community to plant 20 million trees . The project was a success, and more trees are being planted to this day. Two years later - on October 29, 2021 - Rober and Donaldson announced a new project: #TeamSeas. The goal of #TeamSeas is to remove 30 million pounds of trash from the Earth's oceans. They claim that every dollar donated equates to one pound of trash removed from the ocean. Is it Enough? About 16 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean every year. Estimates put the total amount of plastics in the ocean at 300 billion pounds. If #TeamSeas achieves its goal of removing 30 million pounds of plastic from the ocean, that would be 1/10,000 of the total, or 0.0001%.  Information about the amount of plastic in the Ocean is from the Ocean Conservancy . These numbers sound discouraging, but 30 million pounds is a good start, and it will spur investmen...

South Park's ManBearPig: Symbol of the Climate Crisis ⏱Read time: 2 minutes South Park is one of the longest-running shows of all time; they recently released the Vaccination Special, the second episode of the 24th season. South Park also created a character called ManBearPig that accurately represents how people viewed and used to view the climate crisis. Season 10 Episode 6 (April 2006) of the series is titled ManBearPig . The origin of ManBearPig In the episode, (then) former Vice President Al Gore visited South Park to warn the children of ManBearPig, a monster that would destroy the planet. The children helped Al Gore "fight" ManBearPig because they thought that the Vice President didn't have friends. To oversimplify the episode, Gore got the kids stuck in a cave because he thought he was saving the world from ManBearPig, and the episode made Gore look ridiculous. ManBearPig never made an appearance in the episode, leaving the audience to believe he didn't ex...

  Our Planet  Review  ⏱Read time: 1 minute Nature documentaries are quite boring for some, but for others, they showcase Earth's natural beauty. Narrated by David Attenborough, Netflix's  Our Planet is arguably the greatest nature docuseries of all time. The series consists of eight episodes that take place in different biomes. One episode takes place in the high seas, and another takes place in the jungle. Review My biggest complaint is that my TV is too small to capture the beauty of the cinematography. I am sure that Our Planet  would look crisp on a 100 inch TV, but I am unable to test that out. Every episode of the series tells stories about the plants and animals that inhabit Earth. The show is also action-packed, as it showcases animals hunting for food (which is bolstered by intense music and David Attenborough's lovely narration). Thoughts I highly recommend watching Our Planet if you like nature and have a Netflix subscription. The 2019 series effect...

The Message of Let It Grow - The Lorax ⏱ Read time: 2.5 - 3 minutes EarthPlex wrote about the environmental message of How Bad Can I Be from The Lorax a few months ago, so I decided to continue looking into the meanings of songs that relate to conservation and the environment. Let It Grow is probably the most well-known Lorax  song, and it's pretty catchy too. I looked into the message of Let it Grow , the meme-worthy song about planting a tree, and I realized its relevance in  2021. In the song, the residents of Thneed-Ville sang about planting a tree. One of the lyrics that caught my eyes - or ears - was "you can't reap what you don't sow." I have actually been thinking about this lyric for a couple of months, and I'm still confused about its meaning. My understanding is that people cannot profit off of something they didn't create, as O'Hare profited off of clean air.  Speaking of O'Hare, he sang the best line of the song. Just when it seeme...

 I Totally Hated That Oatly Commercial | Super Bowl LV ⏱ Read time: 1 minute Super Bowl LV aired yesterday, and fans from all over the country watched the action-pact, exhilarating, entertaining... commercials. One, in particular, stood out: Oatly. Oatly is a popular Oat Milk brand that EarthPlex plans to review in the future. To get notified when we release new posts, follow our (FREE) mailing list and our social media accounts!   The commercial featured the CEO of Oatly, Toni Petersson, singing about Oatly and that it's plant-based. The advertisement was terrible, which I think was what they were going for. Oatly now sells a T-shirt that says, " I Totally Hated That Oatly Commercial." This is a genius publicity stunt. Cow milk requires lots of land and water, making it an unsustainable method of production. Plant-based milks don't involve animal farming, so they use fewer resources,  and therefore, are an eco-friendly alternative .  EarthPlex has reviewed var...

Greta Thunberg's Perfect Tweet Destroys Donald Trump ⏱ Read time: 1.5-2 minutes Joe Biden became the President of the United States on January 20. That was a crazy day, and not just because of Bernie Sanders's flashy outfit, but also due to a Tweet that Greta Thunberg shared getting complete revenge on President Trump. The Tweet said, "He seems like a very happy old man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" He seems like a very happy old man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! pic.twitter.com/G8gObLhsz9 — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 20, 2021 In order to understand Thunberg's message, we need to look at the context. Donald Trump has a history of mocking Greta Thunberg on Twitter. In 2019, Donald Trump tweeted, "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" Greta Thunberg's recent Tweet uses Trump's words against him.  ...

 Would Thanos's Snap save the Planet? ⏱2.5-3 minute read I am a couple years late to this - but hey - EarthPlex didn't even exist when Avengers Infinity War and End Game arrived in theaters, and I've always thought about Thanos and the environmental impact of his snap.  Warning: Spoilers ahead! Avengers Infinity War concluded with Thanos collecting all of the infinity stones. He put on the infinity gauntlet and snapped his fingers, causing half of the population to disappear. To analyze how Thanos's snap would affect the environment, we must assume a few things. Thanos's snap only caused humans to die. The people's remains disappeared entirely. Less consumption  Obviously, with the population splitting in half, emissions will lower. Because of a drastically decreased demand for fossil fuels , wildlife will flourish and populations of endangered species could grow.  The population will regenerate If the current population of about 7.8 billion people in 2020 div...

 EarthPlex Reacts to Recyclops - The Office ⏱2.5 minute read The Office has left Netflix and moved to Comcast's Peacock, so many viewers are upset and angry. To mourn this loss, I decided to react to Recyclops, a fictional character created by Dwight Schrute. If you're interested in watching the entire episode, it's from Shareholder Meeting (season 6 episode 11). Note: The YouTube video that had been above this post was removed. Recyclops's backstory According to Jim, Recyclops began as an Earth Day tradition in which Dwight dressed up as a green cyclops who offered tips to live sustainably. After "a fictitious thing" destroyed Recyclops's planet, he turned evil and made it his mission to destroy Earth.  This is very upsetting. Recyclops had a passion for protecting the planet, and he didn't take his planet's destruction well. Every voice in the battle against climate change is important, and the environmentalist community is sad to see him turn. ...

TikTok and the Environment  It seems that everybody between the ages of 13 and 20 has TikTok, the social media app that has transformed American culture. It's owned by the Chinese internet company, ByteDance, and it's synonymous with teens dancing to "TikTok songs" and sabotaging Trump rallies. Let me put it out there: when I said everybody between the ages of 13 and 20 has it, I meant to say that everybody between those ages has it except for me. I don't want to lose my target audience by saying this, but I don't get TikTok. This isn't about my opinions, though, and we'll put all of my negative thoughts aside for my environmental analysis of TikTok. TikTok has gathered teens together, and it has done a really good job. Any post has the opportunity to reach millions of users, and some of the posts are very inspiring. A single post could potentially change lives, and some of them are about climate change . TikTokers have raised climate awareness, which ...

The Mysterious Environmental Impact of Supreme If you haven’t heard of Supreme, you may be intrigued to find out that a business with less than fifteen locations has taken the world by storm. Supreme is well placed in a market where exclusivity manipulates consumers’ decisions. They take a product, usually an article of clothing, and sell it at a marked up price. Supreme paraphernalia sells for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on the resale market.  But when it comes to their environmental impact, much is unknown. The company is private and secretive about their emissions. The lack of transparency means that they may have unethical practices that worsen the planet. Good On You, a website that rates clothing companies based on how ethical they are , recommends avoiding them because they don’t share their production practices.  If we were to try to estimate Supreme’s environmental impact, we would predict it to be relatively small compared to other clothing companie...