The 2021 Year in Review, Part 2

Jimmy Donaldson and Mark Rober’s follow-up to 2019’s Team Trees initiative has raised over $30 million. Photo: Team Seas

Team Seas Removes Over 30 Million Pounds of Trash from the Ocean

By MANUEL LOZANO-VELEZ

Team Seas is a fundraiser started by two of the biggest YouTubers: Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson) and Mark Rober. After the success of Team Trees, which was started by the same people, and had a goal of planting 20 million trees by the end of 2019, the duo stepped up their game on October 29, 2021, and set a goal of taking 30 million pounds of trash out of the Earth’s oceans by the end of the year. The team slightly missed their goal by the deadline, but Austin Russell, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, donated $4 million on the first day of January, 2022, allowing the team to pass the 30 million mark. 

The amazing part about this campaign is that they managed to make every dollar donated equal to one pound of trash taken out of the ocean by partnering with Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup. Another huge feat by Mr. Beast and Rober was using social media to their advantage, essentially marketing their campaign through many influencers by coordinating videos in support of Team Seas. The duo brought the internet together, showing that not all online influencers only care about themselves. Many of them, like Mr. Beast and Rober, want to help the world, though they can’t do it alone. 

The trash that is collected will either be disposed of properly or will be recycled. Although taking 30 million pounds of garbage out of the ocean will only make a small dent, since an estimated 11 million metric tons of trash enter the seas every year, it will bring more attention to the ever worsening problem of pollution, especially in marine environments. Hopefully this will shed more light on the bigger problem of climate change for politicians and other powerful people, leading to new laws to protect the environment. 

Is this grainy object an alien spacecraft? Photo: Department of Defense

The Pentagon Finally Releases UFO Data

By DARIA POZHOGA

A 9-page report on UFOs was released to Congress by the Pentagon on June 25, 2021. It included possible UFO sightings starting from 2004, now totaling 144 documented cases. Of these, only one has a definite explanation, which was a large deflating balloon. Another 18 reports cite “unusual movement pattern or flight characteristics,” which could possibly mean advanced technology unknown to us. Because of the uncertainty with most of the sightings, they are classified as UAP, unidentified aerial phenomena. The Pentagon states that even these sightings could be due to errors or technologies from other countries. There has to be further research done to gain high-quality data, and overall, there was no mention of extraterrestrial life.

This was the first-ever report on UFOs to be published by the government, making it an important moment. However, wasn’t it disappointing not to hear what we wanted to hear? You’d be expecting some more information on aliens, which was not brought up even once. It might as well be a useless report, as all the Pentagon stated was that these sightings could be errors and they do not have enough high-quality data. So we have the technology to identify new planets but not to identify what's on our own Earth?

This could only mean one thing: The Pentagon knows something we don’t. They have been collecting data on possible UFOs for years and were hesitant to release it. Yet when they released the information, it led to nothing. They could be concealing what they know from the public. The possibilities are endless. They could be hiding other forms of life, new technologies, or who knows what else? 

Marines guard an evacuation checkpoint at Kabul Airport on August 20, 2021. Photo: Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla

The Taliban Returns to Power

By DANIEL WANG

The Afghanistan War started after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden, the leader of terrorist group Al-Qaeda, and stayed with the intention of preventing other terrorist groups from operating in the country. After 20 years, former President Donald Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban, the Islamist group that used to control Afghanistan, to withdraw all U.S. troops. In return, the Taliban agreed to prevent any groups in Afghanistan from attacking the U.S. or its allies. The deadline for this action was May 1, 2021, but it was postponed to September 11 of last year by President Joe Biden.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan after the U.S. left and Afghanistan’s national army collapsed. Kabul, the capital city, had already fallen by August 15. The U.S. was not able to evacuate every American citizen by the deadline, and many were trapped in the country, along with Afghan citizens eligible for visas who had helped the U.S. About 170 pieces of military equipment were left behind – tens of millions of dollars worth – including mine-resistant vehicles, Humvees, helicopters, and other aircraft that were abandoned or destroyed.

This will be the end of the longest war the United States has been in. With 20 years and trillions of dollars spent, to accomplish not much, it has to be seen as a defeat. While the U.S. occupied the country, the Taliban, who in the past applied an extreme version of Islamic law that forbade girls from attending school, were driven out of power and the U.S held a strong presence in the Middle East. Now that the U.S. has withdrawn, the Taliban have gained control once again. This unstable government will be detrimental to the country and have lasting consequences. Millions of people living in Afghanistan will live in fear, and terrorism might grow in the region.

Elon Musk in a Tesla factory in Fremont, California, in 2011. Since then his net worth has increased by over $200 billion. Photo: Maurizio Pesce

Elon Musk Becomes the World’s Richest Person

By RACHEL DONG

On January 6, 2021, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, became the richest person in the world with an over-$200 billion net worth, thanks mostly to his 170 million shares of Tesla stock (TSLA), up over 700% since 2020. Musk, who entered the pandemic with “just” $27 billion, surpassed Amazon’s then-chief executive Jeff Bezos in the number one spot, a title he had been holding since 2017, after Bezos lost $38 billion in his divorce settlement.

The majority of Musk’s fortune comes from Tesla, the car company he founded, with the rest coming from SpaceX, the aerospace company he also founded. So what is the hype around Tesla? Teslas are luxury electric vehicles with innovative features such as autopilot, supercharging batteries, top speeds of 250 miles per hour, and acceleration speeds that can go from 0-60 miles per hour in just over two seconds. However, critics call the company, which was at times in 2021 worth over $1 trillion, overvalued, an example of a sky-high stock market bubble going up “endlessly on nothing,” in the words of CNBC’s Jim Cramer. Some analysts have discouraged investing in Tesla’s stock because of the difficulty in manufacturing electric cars and the high expectations of investors who believe the company will live up to its stock price with promising technology and sales that are more than theoretically possible, according to Forbes.

While the stock is expensive (a sentiment shared by Musk via Twitter), it isn’t completely unjustified considering Tesla’s innovations in EVs and autopilot technology. Still, other car companies, such as Toyota and Honda, sell 20 times the number of vehicles Tesla does, but are worth nowhere near the same market cap. In all, will Musk retain his top position on the billionaire’s list for 2022, or will the bubble burst and end Tesla’s seemingly unending growth? Cast your bets.