+
Science

U.S. government says it will plant 1 billion trees over the next 10 years

This could make a world of difference.

climate change; new trees; U.S. planting trees

U.S. quadrupling the number of new trees planted.

For the past several years we have watched a good portion of the West Coast's forests catch fire, displacing families and decimating the trees. Climate change has contributed to many of these devastating fires and its impact has been devastating. Trees are home to forest animals and provide much-needed protection for the Earth by their ability to remove carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into oxygen. The importance of trees in the battle against climate change is not lost on everyone, which is why the Biden administration announced its plan to plant more than 1 billion trees over the next decade.


Yes, that's billion with a "B." The trees will be planted across the acres of scorched and dead forests in the west where thousands of acres of trees are lost to wildfires every year. Normally, the forest would begin to regrow without human intervention but climate change is affecting the ability for it to regrow naturally due to the increased heat of the recent fires. Trees being unable to regrow naturally has caused a backlog of 4 million acres that need replanting, according to the USDA.

Most of us learned at some point during our school years that trees are important for people. We learned they produce oxygen, provide shade and are habitats for animals such as squirrels, chipmunks and birds. But we didn't fully appreciate how much trees help combat climate change until the situation reached near crisis levels.

According to the Arbor Day Foundation, forests help to improve water quality in streams, lakes and rivers and filter pollutants out of the air. National forests absorb more than 50 million metric tons of carbon each year in the United States alone. The Arbor Day Foundation also explains that "forests increase rainfall, prevent drought, and cool the overall temperature of the planet." Fruit and nut bearing trees also help with food security. The more you think about the purpose that trees serve, the more you grow to love them, even if they drop a never-ending supply of leaves on your lawn every fall.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

Last year, the U.S. Forest Service replanted 60,000 acres but plan to now replant about 400,000 acres a year—more than quadrupling the amount of acreage. In 2015, 10.1 million acres burned after a record-setting fire season but 2022 is on track to meet or exceed that massive number. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement announcing the reforestation plan, "Our forests, rural communities, agriculture and economy are connected across a shared landscape and their existence is at stake. Only through bold, climate-smart actions ... can we ensure their future.”

The Forest Service plans to continually increase its spending on reforestation over the years, with plans to spend up to $260 million annually under the Repairing Existing Public Land by Adding Necessary Trees (REPLANT) infrastructure bill passed by Congress last year. Currently the Forest Service has invested more than $100 million this year for reforestation.

While this plan to replant a billion trees is a good one, it's important for people not to become complacent with hoping someone has a quick-fix plan. Trees take time to grow and we still have to do our part to reduce how much humans as a whole are adding to climate change. In the meantime, we should still celebrate this victory.

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

Canva

There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less