Are we listening to the Lorax?

In Dr Seuss' wonderful book, the Lorax speaks for the trees... and the animals.

Did you know this book was banned in 1992 on one district of the USA (the land if the free?) because it "criminalized the logging industry"

But the book is actually broader than that. It's target is mindless progress that disregards the long term effect of unchecked business.

As the Onceler say
"Business is business
And business must grow"

In that way the book takes a swipe at the entire system if capitalism that is based in linear production - the notion that natural resources are infinite and externalized costs.

Indeed I suspect the name of the villain - the Onceler - is a reference to the misguided notion that you use resources up once and don't renew them.

I am a big fan of the notion of steady state economics, where we can get better rather than grow bigger. Does chopping down a forest to make a parking lot really grow our gross national product? It certainly does not grow our Gross National Happiness level.

We live in a finite world and cannot have a economic system based on infinite growth and externalisation of the true costs of production.

The Lorax is right and I hope we heed him before all that is left is a forlorn pile of rocks and the word "unless" and, like in the story, we realise too late that
"unless someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing will get better, it's not"

Tym Lawrence