Environmental Issues in Film The Lorax

In this film The Lorax advocates for nature and everything that lives inside of it. As you watch the Film you can see the spiritual and emotional connection the Lorax has to the land. The Lorax and the environment around him was sustainable and forever lasting until the Once-ler came around. The Once-Ler created his business alone and created a company, he was making the needs out of the Truffula trees. This wasn’t unsustainable until the Once-Ler took for granted the Truffula trees and started cutting them down at an unsustainable pace. The Lorax was very passionate about keeping the trees alive and the environment forever lasting.

I connect the Lorax to Indigenous people, in the sense that the Once-ler is a capitalist and would do anything to better the economy even if it means destroying the environment. The Indigenous people lived here long before us and sustained the land that they had a spiritual connection too. The capitalists came in and pushed aside the indigenous people, taking their land and resources. The Lorax fought and fought until there was nothing left to fight for. This film shows us that we as a society take for granted all we are given until there’s nothing left. There is a clear message to this film and that is that if we do not consider changing our ways we will regret it sooner or later. The capitalists are selfish and only care about now, not being cautious of our future generations and what they will have left if we keep living this unsustainable life. Instead of the Once-ler cutting down all the trees at the same time he should have found a more sustainable material for the thneeds. Considering the high demand of the thneeds the Once-ler created many machines that produced Carbon dioxide into the air, this killed and hurt the Humming Fish and Swomee Swans. We see this happening in our world as well. Not to such a drastic level but we do.

This film is a clear warning that something needs to change on a drastic level, that might be going eco- friendly or finding more sufficient resources but something needs to change. Our overshoot day was months ago and our world has not changed in the sense of being more environmentally friendly, if we don’t make a change soon the resources that we require will deplenish and eventually run out.

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