Plant For The Planet Combats Global Warming Apathy, Harnesses The Power Of Youth

Felix Finkbeiner is only 13 years old, but he's accomplished more in those 13 years than many adults do in an entire lifetime.

He's addressed the United Nations; he's a published author; and when he was 9, he founded Plant for the Planet, a non-profit dedicated to planting trees and combating climate change.

Four years later, the organization has expanded to 131 countries, and according to the Telegraph, recently passed its goal of planting 1 million trees in Germany.

What drives the youngster? Plant for the Planet explains, "if you let a monkey choose between having one banana now, or six bananas later, the monkey will always choose to have one banana straight away." Adults, he believes, are strikingly similar to a bunch of monkeys -- thinking in the short term at great expense to future generations.

That ethos has given rise to the organization's action-oriented slogan: "Stop talking. Start planting."

Still, despite his youthful exuberance and idealism, Finkbeiner is no fool. "We don’t believe that we can save the entire world just by planting trees," he notes on the organization's website. "If we want to have a more positive future ahead of us, we will need to do a lot more."

And he's well on his way. "We cannot trust that the adults alone will save our future," the youngster told CNN. "We have to take our future in our own hands."