I have returned after a very long hiatus. There has been a lot going on in my life so forgive me for this being a light read. Theodor Seuss Geisel (and it was actually pronounced Soyce) is perhaps the American writer that everyone, spanning generations knows. My two year old Nephew knows The Cat In The Hat and so does my seventy-two year old Grandmother. For someone who draws picture books, that's quite the accomplishment.
Occasionally the Doctor wrote some great stuff. By that I mean of course books that every child should read and contemplate. The Lorax is one of them. I know most adults who could care to read The Lorax. Its a simple story but an effective one and not at all dated, save for maybe one potshot reference. Depending on the edition of the text you read though, you might not know why things are so bad up in Lake Erie. I like The Lorax so much because of how I can relate its content to the current world. Too many politicians brush away our planets health and deny the human impact we have on her. There's an island of trash the size of Texas floating in our oceans for crying out loud. Now I can be the bad guy and point out that ninety percent of that waste is coming from China, India, and Africa. Everyone has the issue though. When we live in the year 2020 and jokes like "There's plenty of fish in the sea" for hapless suitors becomes "There were plenty of fish in the sea but the trash killed them all" as common knowledge that no one really does anything about it just...sad.
Coral reefs are another huge hit. Coral reefs are actually complex organisms called polyps. Corals die when they get stressed out, which I can only assume are current events. I know this because I've had corals die over temperature, overcrowding, under-crowding, and a myriad of other factors. I am not an aquarist, mostly because I have no luck with fish but also because I was born in May. Jokes aside since the last thirty years we have lost over half of the worlds corals. It's so bad that in the new Pokemon game that my nephew plays they gave a regional form (hooray Darwinian evolution) to a coral Pokemon, and made it a Ghost Type and gave it the distinctive ivory white body of a coral's corpse. When even a game meant for children addresses an environmental issue you know we're in deep shit. Why should we care about the corals though? What have some weird, kind-of rocks, kind-of plankton, wait they're related to JELLYFISH?...have to do with me? Well in the next ten years scientists predict we could lose as much as ninety percent of our coral reefs. By 2050? Maybe all of them. Coral reefs are extremely important ecosystems. Not only do they support ecosystems (ever seen Finding Nemo? Ha, fun fact half the great barrier reef is dead white corpses), but they support HUMANS. There's a type of sea slug that lives in coral reefs that has a compound for cancer fighting medicine. Despite covering only one percent of the sea floor corals support over a quarter of all marine life. When the corals are all gone who knows what will happen to those ecosystems. Humans eat a lot of fish. A lot. In fact over one fifth of the entire world's protein comes from seafood. The fishing industry employing over 1.5 million jobs alone. Never-mind that fact that reefs attract tourists which helps tourism based economies. On top of that, coral reefs act as natural barriers for huge ocean waves, cancelling out about ninety five percent of the wave's force. According to Business Insider, building seawalls to offer the same protection would costs 2.5 million per mile.
But why am I talking about coral? What does that have to do with a book about a fuzzy mustache bear making a Capitalist cutting down trees sad? I could talk for paragraphs on paragraphs on the damage that is done to the rainforest, how the palm oil industry has crippled things. Cutting down over 78 million acres a year. Sure I mean we plant new trees NOW but in the mean time those trees take a huge time to grow and displace animals like the Orangutan, which depends on the trees of its Sumatran home to survive. The entire story of humanity can be summed in two words "Manifest Destiny". We conquer and use and destroy until nothing in left. I live in Kansas. Do you want to know the last time I saw a Buffalo? At our zoo. And it's our state mammal. They used to be all over the place, until the buffalo hide market boomed and crashed once they were all dead. What we did the the buffalo we will do the the coral reefs. We will do the rainforest. It's just in our nature. Now before I go all eco-terrorist, humans are the real monsters tirade, let me just say something else is in our nature. Compassion. Every day, I see people, normal people, picking trash out of the ocean. Cutting plastic off of seals and sea turtles. Planting trees. Conserving animals. Hell we got the California manatee and bald eagles off the Endangered Species List. Pandas are...well pandas. But we are trying. So for all the tree chopping the Onceler does in The Lorax, doing away with the truffulas like the wild west did away with the buffalo. Consider the final words.
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot
Nothing is ever going to get better
It's not."
Be the person that cares. Help our Planet. Get involved. Speak for the trees.
