
Last week, we explored the face-value premise of the book and movie, “The Lorax” — that natural resources can be exploited and that companies hire their own “Loraxes” to ensure that their businesses are sustainable. I also discussed how government regulations, scientific understanding of ecosystems, and sustainable forestry certification systems are now in place to ensure that natural resources are not overused — systems that were not present in the Lorax’s world.
There is still another threat to natural resources that is more subtly presented and less intuitive in “The Lorax,” though. That threat is one that we all tend to ignore and prefer not to talk about. The cliché, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” comes to mind.
In the movie, there is a scene where a horde of people descends upon the young “Onceler” (businessman) and demands his product, the “Thneed” that everyone needs! THIS is the threat to natural resources that we have to worry about, and one that is not monitored by any Lorax. Let me explain.
This country was founded on a concept of abundant natural resources that stretched on, seemingly forever. In effect, our policies and systems were designed in an atmosphere of unlimited space. Hundreds of years later, populations have expanded and space is far from unlimited, yet our concept of open space, our economic success and our selfishness continues to drive public policy more toward sprawl and less toward density.
Forest acres have increased in North America each year since about 1920, yet the majority of our forest products are now imported. This growth of forestland was fueled by improvements in agricultural technology, allowing greater crop volumes to be produced on fewer acres. Thus, unused agricultural acres slowly were reclaimed by forest. In this decade, we will see that trend reverse and forest acres will begin to decline. The decline will be fueled by development coupled with the fact that we no longer have agricultural acres reverting to forest to offset the development growth. In fact, food crop acres will start to increase and forest acres will decline.
We all want our spacious homestead lots and our large houses. The popular American aspiration is to have a house in the suburbs where there is space between you and your neighbors. This aspiration in reflected in our zoning laws, which encourage larger house lots the farther you get from an inner city. It is also reflected in our property tax policies, which assume that every private forest is available for development and should be taxed based on the potential development value, not the value of the forest. There are other policies too numerous to mention that also encourage forest parcelization and development.
You may say that our government will regulate to save the forest, but in our system of democracy we are the government, and public policies reflect our aspirations as a society. This will not change, as “The Lorax” states, UNLESS we care a whole awful lot. “Things will not get better (in terms of conserving forest land), they will not.”
We, like many species in the forest ecosystem, are very adaptable and the future is certainly not yet written. I see things getting better with the advent of more fuel-efficient cars and more condo-type housing units being built closer to cities and using less open space. To continue these positive trends, we all need to acknowledge our societal impact upon natural resources and stop looking to blame others (factories have been a common target for decades, as has government). If we want things to get better, we have to adjust our aspirations to ensure a more secure future.







