FELIX FINKBEINER -A TRUE HERO

FELIX FINKBEINER -A TRUE HERO 

I believe he embodies the most admirable of qualities we would like our children to embrace and emulate.

Here is his incredible story .

Felix was born on October 8, 1997 in Munich, Germany. 

In 2007, when he was just 9 years old, his class was given an assignment to complete a project on climate change. 

Felix was passionate about polar bears and became quite disturbed when he discovered that polar bears were in danger of becoming extinct due to global warming. 

As the polar ice caps were melting, polar bears were finding it more an 

d more difficult to locate food. 

Felix wanted to do something to help slow down global warming. 

In his research, he learned that many activities undertaken by people were responsible for creating greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane gas, and nitrous oxide and water vapour. 

The largest amount of gases came from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.

 Felix was quite surprised to discover that a very powerful greenhouse gas called methane gas came from manure as well as from the burps, farts and manure of cows and sheep.

  He discovered that massive amounts of greenhouse gases will trap the sun’s heat, so that it cannot escape back into space.

 As more and more of the sun’s heat is trapped in the atmosphere, the Earth becomes hotter and hotter. 

Scientists refer to this overheating of the Earth as global warming.

 Unfortunately, the trapped heat is changing climates all over the world. 

This climate crisis has triggered all kinds of extreme weather events such as out-of-control forest fires, more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, life-threatening flooding, more frequent and deadly tornadoes, and less rain leading to dried-up fields and drought. Felix also learned that trees can play a very important role in reducing carbon dioxide. 

 During a process called photosynthesis, the leaves of trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen. Trees also store carbon in their trunks, branches, and roots. 

In January, 2007 Felix gave a presentation to his class showing them how global overheating was triggering a climate crisis which produced weather chaos all around the world.

 Then he made an astonishing proposal. Felix advocated what seemed mind-boggling and absolutely impossible. 

In a very earnest voice, Felix suggested that the class should become involved in planting one million trees!

 His classmates shook their heads in disbelief. Then he made another stunning announcement.

To his flabbergasted classmates, he declared that the children of the world could plant a million trees in every single country. Nothing could stop this determined 9 year old youngster!

Just two months later, on March 28, 2007, with the help of his classmate he planted his first tree with his newly formed foundation, “Plant-for-the-Planet”.

 A few years later, at the early age of 10, he was readily invited to speak to the European Parliament. Bursting with enthusiasm, Felix eloquently urged the women and men in the European Parliament, representing over 40 countries to support his organization’s goals. Many people did not believe that it was possible to plant 1 million trees. Felix proved all the skeptics to be wrong! 

Three years later, Felix’s organization astounded everyone! How? His organization planted its millionth tree in Germany.

                         When he was only 13, he was invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly - this was a stunning achievement for a child! The UN was so impressed with his accomplishments that they asked him to lead the UN’s Billion Tree Campaign. The Plant-for-the Planet,  children’s and youth initiative, later learned from an ecologist, named Tom Crowther that planting a trillion trees in specific areas of the world would be the most effective solution for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

Felix therefore, decided to transform the Billion Tree Campaign into the Trillion Tree Campaign.

This is quite astounding. 

That means he planned to plant one billion trees 1, 000 times!

How long do you think it would take to count that many trees if you could actually count day and night?

 Would you believe it would take over 30, 000 years?

 In 2019, at the age of 21, Felix heads up a foundation with over 81, 000 members in 73 countries.   

His organization has hosted hundreds of Academies, where participants from age 9-12 learn about the impacts of global warming and the important role trees play in creating an ecologically healthy environment for all of us. 

  In 2015, Felix’s foundation decided to buy a barren section of land where all the trees had been chopped down. 

The empty wasteland was located in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

In March 2015, volunteers began to plant native saplings in the fields of grass. Due to the great care taken by over 100 workers and the warm climate, the saplings quickly grew into tall trees.

 In 2019, they have already planted over 3 million trees!

Since September, 2018, Felix has been working on his PhD at Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich. 

He is learning the best approaches to reforest the Earth. 

Tom Crowther, a scientific adviser for plant for the planet, urges as many people as possible to plant as many trees as possible.

How many trees can you plant? 

Check online for community tree planting projects.