“When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can't eat money."
-The Lorax
The famous quote from The Lorax has rung loudly in my mind this spring.
The story, published in 1971, is infamous for its painfully accurate, yet colorful, storytelling of an issue that has long been creeping its way across the world. In fact, most people don't need to be told the story - at some point in our childhoods, many of us read it. Most of us remember it too, as it's a story that is hard pressed to leave our recollection. It is because it hits so close to home for far too many of us. An ambitious businessperson becomes drawn to a forest of unparalleled beauty and potential. Potential to fill their pockets. So they exploit the land to fuel whatever demand they believe they are meeting. As with the story of the Lorax, the ending is clear.
The plastic pre-fabricated life is quickly becoming the norm. Visits into nature; trail walks and national parks, are an exciting departure from what we call daily life. We visit zoos to ‘oh and ah’ over native animals we might have once seen regularly. We pay good money to experience protected properties that display the peaceful way of life we traded for convenience. A convenience that most of us seemingly benefit from. Until we don't. Until the air is too dirty, the water undrinkable, the traffic unbearable, the price of living: unlivable.
Though some of us begrudgingly, albeit nearly all of North America participates in the industries responsible for the deterioration of rural life. Indeed, not being a consumer of the industry on some degree is unequivocally impossible. It is true, progress is happening and it can't be stopped.
Although, dear reader, I’d propose the problem isn't progress itself. It is how the majority wants to pursue progress. It is how the majority is lit from beneath with a flame of greed, spiraling them at earth-shattering speeds into a pattern of destruction, depletion, and abandonment. As soon as the going gets tough, go somewhere else? Get in, make money, get out.
We see this over and over again in the Texas urban sprawl. Land gets swept up in rural neighborhoods in anticipation of growth. Subdivisions get planned. Nobody is happy, but nobody formally contests it either. As the integrity and sufficiency of rural towns struggle to keep their cracks from spreading, trees fall to make way for new industries and homes these towns can't support.
Sand and gravel plants leave gaping pits behind them. Poorly built single-family homes crumble into unrecognizable ghettos. Empty warehouses become shelter for displaced wildlife and squatters. Lithium battery plants catch fire and poison people and wildlife stretching 30 miles.
What is truly tragic is that it doesn't have to be like this. Yet it is.
Furthermore, the fertilizer to this tragedy is that my generation has become one marinated in entitlement. We complain and whine about what we don't like, maybe more so than any generation before. Lately, I've surmised we can thank social media for that. Social media has a death grip on us. Tricking us into feeling like we have done something productive with our time. Shouting into the digital void. Hoping to solicit help from the right person who has the guts we don't, to do the thing that needs to be done. We armor ourselves with excuses and defend our entitlement on the battleground of self-righteousness. All behind the screen.
As I have attended city meetings it is far too clear that my generation is missing from the room. Where is the young adult generation?
Could it be that we have entirely lost our senses? Fallen asleep behind our black mirror, inside our skyscraper, a hundred miles from the nearest forest. Those of us who have sought the solace of rural residency, could it be that we have let fear stop us from starting? Have we allowed ourselves to feel defeated, so we have become defeated? There was a time, not too long ago, when people gathered together when things weren't right - tied themselves to trees - and made a change.
The time to tie ourselves to trees may be past. Still, there remains a palpable void of potential influence from those of us who simply grumble as we drive past new signs for air quality control permits. The window of opportunity is closing on us. Those of us who care must rally together and find a way to protect this land from the damage being done. Where there is a will - there's certainly a way.
As the famous words from Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax remind us:
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
