The Lorax

Denis LaMar
Biology- 1120-400 Su16
Jessica Berryman

1. The Truffula trees are a scarce natural resource that were valuable and had
soft silk like tufts that smelled like butterfly milk
2. The Once-ler chopped down the first Truffula Tree to use the soft tuft to
produce a good called a Thneed.
3. The benefit the Thneed had for consumers was it was an everything product.
Kind of like a smart phone- it satisfies all your wants and desires.
4. The Lorax was wrong when he thought nobody would buy the Thneed. Once
the word was out everyone wanted a Thneed.
5. The Once-ler invented a new machine called the Super-Axe Hacker. It allowed
him to cut down trees very quickly.
6. As more and more Truffula trees were destroyed the natural habitat began to
disappear and the bears and other wildlife disappeared.
7. By cutting down all the trees the Once-ler removed his source of income and
destroyed the environment.
8. In the modern US economy, the citizens and the government would never let
anybody completely remove a resource from the economy.
9. The only reason I could see ever allowing a resource to be completely
depleted is if it carried some disease or other type of condition that would
harm another species.
10.When a product becomes scarce or unavailable the price of that product is
likely to increase.

11.The Once-ler attitude at the beginning was one of abundance and prosperity
but the time all the trees were gone, his family left him and he became
destitute he realized that the value of his acquaintances and the trees
were much higher than the dollars he made selling the Thneed.

Reflections

Reflection question 1.

The Once-ler was obsessed in becoming successful to prove to his

family, specifically his mother that he wasnt useless. The Lorax
was sent to protect the forest but he only had the power of
persuasion to convince the Once-ler that what he was doing was

immoral. The Lorax didnt believe that the people would purchase
the product allowing the forest to become depleted. The price and
the purpose of the product created the demand and he was
successful in marketing it.
Reflection question 3.
I think about what the generations of people that came before
thought of the environment often. Did they have the opportunity to
enjoy it as we do today or did they see the environment as an
enemy to be conquered. The forest was treacherous and scary and
full of animals that might eat you. The snakes would bite you and
kill you. I think that as a society we have grown to learn to love the
beauty that nature has. We dont have to fear it the mountains in
the winter because we have cars and coats to keep us warm. We
dont have to chop our firewood or hunt to cook or find our food.
The oceans fish are delivered to the grocery store. Nature has
matured in its beauty as we have matured as a species to
appreciate what nature has to offer. It wasnt until the last hundred
years or so that we started to consciously preserve our world for
the future. That alone tells me that nature was a beast to be
conquered and tamed.
Reflection question 5.
I work for a company that from time to time has to work with the
BLM and the Forest Service to cross the government owned land by
attaching fiber optics to poles or burying the fiber optics along

existing right of ways or existing roads. Typically, these roads are

already paved and poles already have other utility services on
them. The paperwork and timeframes in dealing with the
government can be very painful and recently we had an issue with
trying to deliver services to a company that is located in a rural
area on the other side of the Great Salt Lake. Well the Sage Gross
was the first obstacle, the mating season of the Red Tail Feather
Bird was the second and then some snail was having a bad day. Im
all for preserving the wildlife and the environmental surveys and
the impact statements, and I know that takes time and effort to get
accomplished. What I dont understand is how we can know so
much about our environment but know so little about how to live in
balance and unity with the world around us. Since this is a political
season I will get political on immigration and immigration control.
The policy of the current administration is to let everyone and
everyone in to discover and share in our way of life. What does that
do to our environment? To me, the open door policy brings in more
people meaning more mouths to feed, more environmental impact.
The government wins because now they have a larger workforce
with more bodies paying more taxes and consuming more materials
to keep the economy moving. So I started on a rant about
government agencies and ended with government policies on

immigration. I will end by saying government is too big. Where Is

Ronald Reagan when you need him and his leadership?

Reflection question 6.
An acquaintance of mine is a graduate of Northwestern University,
Kellogg Business School and he believes that people are only
motivated by fear and greed. Fear of getting fired and greed for the
almighty dollar. Two question were asked; if everyone needs
money? and how much money does someone need? I think the
question really is who has the right to tell me how much is enough
money to make? I dont condone destroying an ecosystem to
become rich but I also dont think that its anyones business if I
make a million dollars or if I live off food stamps. I want to be the
best person I can be and in our society that is measured in dollars.
Do I have more friends and more power and more influence when I

make more money? Am I more successful that the other person?

The Once-lers own mother and family members only paid him
attention when he was rich. When his business failed because he
consumed all the resources his family left him. What does that
really tell you about society and our social structure? Is money the
root of all evil? If it wasnt money would it be something else that
people coveted? Intelligence, education, looks, DNA? What is the
next greed that people will pine for and destroy for? When is our
society going to learn to be motivated by whats inside themselves
and not by fear and greed?

Reflection question 7.
UN-LESS I get emotionally and functionally distraught by current
events and the state of our socio economical issue in the world
today. I am affected by the war on Police, the Black Lives Matter
movement and the religious turmoil we are experiencing in the
world today. I have always been affected by it. When I was

stationed in Germany in 1988 before the end of the cold war I was
distraught one day by some current events and a friend of mine
came to me and asked me what was wrong and as I was explaining
it to him he reminded me of the Michael Jackson song Man in the
Mirror That change can only happen one person at a time and that
person needs to be me. I need to change my thought process, my
attitude and only then can the needs of the many be met. As a
society we need to take control of our perceived limitations on
conserving the environment and to become technology mature to
understand what we need to do, without fail to conserve our
environment. Too often it is a try and see approach we use. The
global warming or is it global cooling or is it climate change
discussion? Its not that people dont see that something is
happening, what they see is that the message is inconsistent. Dont
eat salt well you can eat salt now, Fat is bad for you so dont eat
fat. Fat is good for you, now its okay to eat it. Just kidding, oh wait.
The issue is the trust we place in people and the authority. We know
that GMOs are bad for you but our government needs to make sure
the people are fed so they approve legislation that allows for it to
be injected into our food supply. I was at the Farmers market this
morning and one vendor told me that cancer inflicts one in three of
our population. Is that a true statistic? I dont know but it goes to
show that confidence is low in our society. So UN-LESS you are

ready to get off the bandwagon and make changes to our society
for the better, then make way for someone who is.