When I discovered that I needed to watch the movie The Lorax for a college level

course, I was excited. Most of my classmates watched the movie, but as an individual
working 30 hours a week and taking six courses, I decided to just simply read the Dr.
Seuss book. Quickly into reading this childrens book, I realized that the book was about
businesss harming the environment, and what the owners of these businesses will do
in order to make a quick profit. The Once-ler, the business owner, was an individual that
came to town. He quickly discovered that the Truffula Trees could produce Thneed,
which is something that customers will always buy. Buy having a raw material that could
easily produce profit, made the Once-ler greedy. This, in return, made him chop all the
trees down and destroyed the Loraxs enviornment. After reading this book, I decided to
do some research. I realized that The Lorax was written and published in 1971. This
was after the movement throughout the 1960s called The Green Movement. This
movement started after the environment was affected through actions taken by
businesses, such as toxic chemicals and overexploitation of natural resources. The
purpose of this movement was to spread knowledge and for individuals to take action to
protect their environment. The issue of pollution is still an issue today. This is why I feel
it was fitting the there was a new Lorax movie created. By having children, teenagers,
and adults watch this movie it brings to light, in a fun way, the harmful effects that some
businesses have on the environment. It may even have people reevaluate what harmful
things that we do on a day-to-day basis that could be changed in order to make a better
choice. Overall, I think that the message is clear about what Dr. Seuss was trying to
portray. If you own and operate a business, then it should be done in the greenist way
possible. By preventing pollution, it will help save the environment, and if the
environment is destroyed, it is gone for good.
The Lorax Reflection

In the Lorax, the Once-ler shows up into this previously undisrupted ecosystem and
begins to chop down the Truffula trees in order to create thneeds. The Lorax "speaks for
the trees" and warns the Once-ler that his actions will have consequences, but the
Once-ler continues until the trees are gone. At the end of the story, the Once-ler who
was telling the story gives the boy who was listening the last Truffula seed in the hopes
that he will choose to repair the situation.
In Truax, there is much less of a plot, and much more of just a conversation between
the Woodcutter and Guardbark about their differing views on the importance of tree
conservation. At the end, they supposedly come to the conclusion that they are in fact
on the same side and the Guardbark decides the state of the forest is not as bad as it
seems. The discussion that usually emerges from comparing the Lorax and the Truax
is where the value of forests and other natural resources comes from. Is it in their
beauty and shelter or in their commercial value? For many, the answer is the latter,
because many people have profit as their goal. It is much more difficult to make money
conserving trees than by developing paper and other consumer goods from them.
However, the true value cannot be measured; there is no figure that could accurately
represent the value of a irreplaceable resource. Though trees can be replanted, they
usually do not grow back as strong as trees that are allowed to grow naturally. Not to
mention endangered species! How can one truly put a price on losing something that
can never be regained? In the Truax the Woodcutter seems to suggest most
endangered species aren't special enough to keep, but every organism serves its
purpose in a cycle. Many times if a species' predator is eliminated the species will still
suffer losses due to increased competition. Endangered species, even if not obviously
useful, still are very much necessary for ecosystems to remain in balance.
Greed is a very dangerous and powerful influence in America's society but also all over
the world. The Lorax helped demonstrate that being greedy and selfish one can harm
many others around them. Using diminishing resources would be bad enough if it was
simply to gain something that was considered necessary, but the majority of the
damage being done is simply because people want more for themselves. Businesses
hope to make an extra profit when they truly could settle for less. The choice of personal
gain over the bigger picture that affects not only this generation but many to come is
simply unacceptable. Much of the Truax is not considering what is best for society, only
what is more profitable and making excuses for that behavior.
The most important piece of information to gain from this comparison is that nothing will
get better unless action is taken. The Truax ends with the Guardbark stating the
situation is not as bad as it seems, while the Lorax ends by acknowledging everyone's
personal responsibility. To simply accept the state of things even if there is room for
improvement is lazy. The Lorax implores everyone to make their contribution to better
the environment and conservation. There is always more to be saved and more to be
done. Do not settle for the way things are simply because they aren't so bad, always
work to improve the situation.
The Lorax: A Review & Reflection
Well, not so much :3 I don't actually plan on reviewing the movie. I do, however, feel like talking a bit
about this movie, inspired by the book of the same name written quite a few decades ago by the
fabled Dr. Seuss, and why I really enjoy the messages it has to offer. Hell, perhaps a few of you
fence-sitters will give the book and movie a try, yourselves, after patiently reading through my
yacking.

For those of you who don't know, 'The Lorax' was a children's book written and published by Dr.
Seuss in 1971. It told the story of a greedy man, known only as 'The Once-ler', who had an
insatiable vision to create the ultimate consumer product. This product, known as a 'Thneed', was
advertised as 'a fantastical thing that everyone needs', of which had 'a thousand uses'. In order to
achieve his dream, The Once-ler destroyed an entire ecosystem (a forest, in this case) to harvest
the trees' raw materials needed to create his thneeds. Though the guardian of the forest, The Lorax,
tried to stop him, he had no success, and the entire forest of the once beautiful Truffula Trees was
chopped down, forcing the animal inhabitants to leave.

With no more raw material to produce his product, the Once-ler's fast-growing, 'Too Big to Fail'
business crashed and burned. Alone and miserable as he regretted his actions, the Once-ler aged
into a reclusive hermit, living at the top of a single tower left over from his once thriving, polluting
factory. Years later, when a boy from a nearby town stumbles upon the tower after hearing legends
of the 'Legendary Once-ler', the Once-ler explains that it's his fault the forest around them has
become a desolate wasteland, and gives the boy the very last Truffula seed, saying 'Truffula Trees
are what everyone needs'.

A year following the books' release, an animated television special was released for the book. It
stuck close to what the book presented, making few liberties and being very loyal to Seuss' original
style. Decades later, last year in 2012, a brand new animated adventure was made for the book. For
the first time, the Once-ler was given a face and personality past his greed and later regret. The
movie follows a boy from 'Thneedville', a completely plastic city void of nature and trees, and
harboring perfectly happy people. After discovering the Once-ler through his grandmother (voiced by
Betty White, fuck yes), Ted learns of the history of this once beautiful paradise, and the rise and fall
of the Once-ler's dream.
The Once-ler is depicted in a great way in this movie, imo. While he was one big symbolic, faceless
individual in the past, he is now relateable, identifiable and a great contrast to create a full-circle to
what he was in the books. His progress from a completely harmless individual with an honest dream
to a ruthless tyrant corrupted by greed is believable, and is followed-up by the emotional realization
that he has destroyed an entire ecosystem, and he regrets his actions for years as a hermit. He then
assists Ted in replanting the last Truffula seed, which will one day regrow into the forest the Once-ler
once destroyed.

The reason I adore this book and the fantastic movie created for it is that, of all Seuss' books, I feel
this one was the perfect one to remake into a film for modern times. Don't pollute the planet? Don't
allow greed to grow your dream at the expense of others? Promote the well-being of the planet by
planting forests? Yes, please. These are messages that can't possibly be promoted enough,
especially in today's day and age.
The Lorax Reflection Task

The story of the Lorax is a great view of sustainability on Earth. It depicts the three major characters in
the tale of our Earths fight against Global Warming. The first is the Industry, represented by the money
hungry Onceler. The Onceler is a businessman who does things without thinking of the consequences
and remains slightly ignorant of the trouble he is causing until it is too late. The second character is the
Lorax, who portrays, not only those effected by the problems the Industry causes, but also those who
fight to stop the Industry and save what remains of their recourses. Or, a snappier title would be
Environmental Activist. And finally, the third of our three characters is the young boy. He is, in some
ways, the most important person in the story, not because he is the one telling it, but because,
ultimately, he is the one who has to pick up the pieces that were left behind by those before him.

In this story the Onceler creates a business, using the tufts of Truffula tree's to make things called
"Thneed's". But, every step he takes that pushes his business forward, pushes the environment and it's
creatures backwards. Through this story, we are shown some of our worst human-caused environmental
issues, like logging, garbage dumping and smog creation. By letting these things happen, just like what
happened in the story, we force the environment and it's inhabitants to change and move in order to
survive.

This story shows that our environment is in danger, and we have to find ways to try and keep it alive.
Some of the ways the Onceler good have done this was to make his business a lot smaller. Less workers
would mean smaller factories and less unnecessary tools, such as his chopping machine, which cuts up
to four trees at a time. Not just this, but if he had simply put in a policy that for every Truffla tree he cut
down, he would plant two more. This simple act would keep the tree population alive, thus keeping the
environment in balance. This is also an example that could be introduced too our world to help stop our
logging problem. This is further proof that the story of the Lorax is a simpler translation of our
environmental problems.

And on that note, I end this post. Yes, I know that it is a fair bit over the 200-250 word limit, but I
couldn't find a way to shorten it without skipping too many of the questions, so :P
 We are a family of quite dedicated Dr. Seuss fans when my husband and I got married
and combined our book collections, we discovered we owned two copies of The Cat in
the Hat.
Our two girls (now 6 and 7 ) have been immersed in Seuss writings since before
birth. The first book we ever read them was Oh, Baby, the Places Youll Go a
veritable tour through dozens of Dr. Seuss books, featuring Horton, Cindy-Lou Who
and a range of other characters from some of his most beloved books. Oh, Baby is
subtitled A Book to be Read in Utero and contains an interesting forward by Dr. Seuss
widow about the late authors interest in babies ability to hear sound while in the womb.
Whether its proof that the in-utero reading worked or not, I dont know, but we moved
on from there to many, many bedtimes accompanied by The Cat in the Hat; One Fish, Two
Fish; Green Eggs and Ham; and many other Seuss and Seuss-inspired beginner books.
Although we have always owned Seuss more advanced stories, we had only read a
few of them before other characters and genres (including lots of Fancy Nancy!) took
over our nighttime reading rituals and the Seuss books got left on the shelf more often
than not. And how ironic that, given I spend my days at The Nature Conservancy working to
protect forests, our girls had never read Seuss quintessential environmental tale, The
Lorax!
So, it was with great excitement that we took advantage of the release of The
Lorax movie a rare opportunity to be able to connect my profession with a time-tested,
kid-friendly story. And, even better than that, we were given the chance to see the movie
before it was out in theaters courtesy of The Nature Conservancys partnership with
Universal Pictures, which aims to engage movie-goers in a campaign to bring Earths
current equivalent of a Truffula forest back to life.
In preparation for our field trip to the theater, we dusted off our copy of The Lorax story,
and our girls excitedly produced colorful interpretations of Lorax characters and scenes.
Since many critics and moviegoers have now shared their reviews of the film, Ill
withhold mine. But I thought it would be fun to see what my daughters thought of it. After
all, like many parents, I am often surprised and entertained by how different my
childrens views can be on an experience we (theoretically) have shared. Among their
reactions:
Despite excitement about the perks of going to the exclusive screening (including an early
departure from school, an afternoon with mom, nice goody bag with T-shirts and pencils and
bragging rights with their friends), they were slightly disappointed that the American Motion
Picture Association Screening Room did not allow popcorn or drinks.
 They presumably like most kids were enthralled by the bright 3D visuals, the adventure
(bed going down a waterfall), many of the jokes (disco mode on the automatic tree anyone?) and
songs.
As to the underlying environmental message, it seems Ive been doing my job at home,
because they said emphatically that they would not want to live in Thneedville, because
theres nothing natural there.
That got us talking about why we would want to keep forests alive. To pass the time on our
metro ride home, they came up with a list of things trees are good for. Clean air not
surprisingly, given the movies message was first on the list. The others:
-Shade and shelter from the sun and rain
-Food like apples, peaches and pears
-Beautiful colors (from leaves and flowers) that make us cheerful
-Fun (supporting a zip-line or tire swing, providing endless hiding spots for backyard games)
-Homes for animals
Practically, they also noted what we cut trees down for firewood, paper and furniture.
Given a bit more time, Im sure they also would have mentioned the benefits of climate
control. After all, forests are the worlds lungs and air conditioners the reason why
keeping them standing, and replanting forests weve lost, is an important effort in
helping keep the planet cool and safe.
So Im thrilled that The Lorax encourages all of us to reflect on how nature makes our lives
better and reminds me why I do what I do everyday. What lessons has The Lorax taught
you and your family about nature? Share your stories in the comments section below.
[Images courtesy of Sarene Mashall/TNC]