It's important to me that you watch this

Hi, Jammers. Today I have a video I'd like to show you. It's only 18 minutes, maybe less. I'm sure you've sat glued to a single YouTube video for longer, given that website's popularity among Jammers. 

Maybe that video you sat glued to was about AJ, a cartoon, or some other form of entertainment. Something bright and flashy enough to grab your attention enough to sit still with it. 

The video I'd like to show you is very different from that, but it is very important to me that you watch it. Extremely important, even. 

So much time is spent playing fun and idle games that we can forget the "Animal" in Animal Jam, the reality that coincides with the fantasy. 

I wonder if you pay equal attention to all of the scientists working with AJ as well as to all the flashy items, games, and adventures. I wonder if you knew that along with being Mira's tears, the phantoms are an actual allegory for humans polluting the environment. 

This video I'd like you to watch is about the ocean. You may turn away and open up another tab at this point, thinking "Oh no, there goes DoomyPanda with another one of her boring environmental rants. *Yawn!*" Fine then, do that.

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You're still here?

Okay, good. 

This video is a TED talk by Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and was the first female chief scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A few months ago she and two other scientists spoke at the natural history museum in my city and it was unbelievably wonderful. It wasn't the stiff, boring stuff you'd normally associate with science, it was rich and emotional and empowering. 

I want you to watch this video because I care about the world very much. The natural environment is the world, really. It's everything, no matter how much you chop it down and blow it up and pave over it with asphalt. 

You wouldn't believe how much of this world is ocean. The ocean is what makes Earth such an oasis of life and diversity in this solar system of toxic, mostly lifeless planets. 

Learning about humanity's impact on the environment, particularly the ocean, can feel like a losing game, especially if you're a young kid. Maybe you'll be tempted to convince yourself that these issues aren't as big a problem as they're made out to be– trust me, they are –but the real solution to the anguish of powerlessness is to realize that you do have power! 

There are a myriad of things you can do to help in a big way, even if they don't instantly save the whole world with a click of a button. You don't need to make huge donations or even to become a scientist to do your part to help, though those big things do definitely help. 

It's a matter of creating small behaviors, like not using your car unless positively needed, recycling and composting, or picking up trash by bodies of water. Those actions ripple outwards and influence others to do that as well. This is why it's important to talk about the environment, to let people understand the situation and why they need to help. Inaction is more stressful than action, in this case where you need only change your behavior a little to have positive change.

So this short video I'd like to show you is about the beautiful ocean and the situation that affects every drop of the water, and in turn every animal and person. Sylvia Earle is a wonderful, inspiring speaker. Please watch this.

Hopefully this loads.

Everyone big or small has so much power, no matter how little you think it is.