Last year, 27,814 fires seared through the Amazon. That's the largest number ever recorded in such a short time span and 81 percent above the historical average.

Most of these fires were started by people.

What is even more shocking is 40-50 percent of the carbon gas released from Amazon fires immediately enters the atmosphere, having a direct impact on global warming.

I write this with a heavy heart. However, it is my hope that bringing light to the small efforts we can make will evoke some change.

This is where Ecosia comes in.

Ecosia is a search engine that works with several tree planting projects to plant a tree for every internet search. They have planted 94 million trees at the time of publication. I recently ran into an ad for it, and my first thought was that it was too good to be true.

How could this small search engine realistically uphold this promise?

I did some research because I know I'm personally a creature of habit, and making the switch was tough, but now you don't have to. I outlined the main concerns I had when switching to Ecosia. Hopefully, by the end of this, I will have you downloading Ecosia as your default search engine too.

Is Ecosia trustworthy?

Ecosia was started by German entrepreneur Christian Kroll, operating under the simple principle of taking ad revenue and applying it towards planting trees. In order for me to be convinced Ecosia was legitimate, I pursued the money trail of its financial reports. There were four main expenses per month…

30.9 percent Operating Costs
16.9 percent Marketing
10.2 percent Reinvestment
42 percent Tree Planting

These financial reports are in fact self-reported, and with this discovery, a question arose.

How do I know these self-reports are trustworthy? We know they generate revenue by selling ad space, but how does this directly impact tree planting projects?

Carefully racking through Ecosia's credentials and certification I found the B Corporation.

This corporation by definition is a "for-profit corporate entity... that includes positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment in addition to profit as its legally defined goals."

Essentially what Corporation B proves is Ecosia's legitimacy with their stamp of approval certified since 2014. Therefore, it is safe to say the money reports are reliable.

Where does Ecosia put in all the work?

After following the money, I wanted to find where exactly these trees were being planted. Smiling ear to ear, I was pleased to find 23 different tree planting projects working with Ecosia in biodiversity hotspots.

According to Ecosia, a biodiversity hotspot is a place that faces extreme threats, holds at least 1,500 species of endemic plants and have been diminished by at least 70 percent. Ultimately, by planting these in unique geographic regions it makes these plants and animals free from endangerment.

When reviewing the locations these operations were mostly concentrated in, I found it important to note that Ecosia doesn't just plant trees. Ecosia performs an extensive vetting process to determine locations which are in dire need of their ecological assistance. A prime example is Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa, which is suffering desertification due to drought and is one of many locations receiving help from Ecosia.

Is it more environmentally and ethically efficient?

How does Ecosia compare to other search engines like Google? When comparing other search engines, I found that Ecosia has recently switched to running on 100 percent renewable energy because they have built a solar plant that powers all of their servers.

This may not come as a surprise considering Google already uses 100 percent renewable energy to power its servers. However, Ecosia's tree projects take this one step further with trees estimated to take in 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, further offsetting their carbon footprint.

Ecosia is a charity search engine that displays an insurmountable amount of passion and devotion to the environment. They value full transparency and throw every resource they can at their project to plant trees and save the world. As an average Internet user, I found my experience with Ecosia to be a breeze. It runs fluidly and comes with gratification.

If you are wondering about using Ecosia, ask yourself, why not?

Unless you are a diehard Google user who NEEDS it in their life, you may think of switching to a search engine that works and helps our planet that may just need it more.