Lessons from the Lorax

This past weekend, the movie "The Lorax" based on the Dr. Seuss book was released.  I took my children to go see it and they loved it.  Lou Dobbs recently was claiming that the movie was trying to indoctrinate children into believing the liberal agenda of environmentalism.  As I've blogged about before, I'm not sure why protecting the environment should be a political issue.

The planet belongs to everyone, regardless of your political affiliation, so why wouldn't you want to keep it as beautiful as possible.  Whether or not you buy into the global warming/climate change debate, this should be something everyone should be vested in.  Natural resources, such as trees, are limited, so let's use them less and protect them more.

"If you put it in a plastic bottle, people will buy ANYthing!", touted one of the characters in the movie.  In this case, they were talking about selling bottled air since the air had become so polluted without the trees (that had been all chopped down many years ago) to provide oxygen and clean air.  This could also be said about how we've bought into the bottled water craze.  Some companies have become a little more eco-conscious and started making the bottles with less plastic or with plant based components, but it still ends up as trash in the landfill, or worse, in the ocean.

So indoctrinating your kids into caring about what kind of Earth is left for future generations isn't really a bad thing.  Remember some of the lessons we grew up with?

Give a hoot, don't pollute:
This little slogan began in the 1970s, teaching kids to not litter and to clean up their environment.
 
This land is your land, this land is my land:
This song didn't really have to do with the environment but did talk about the beauty of the United States of America.  I've always interpreted it to mean "Take care of our land" but that's just my hippy state of mind fitting it to what I believe.  :)

And my favorite, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle:  
I remember this mantra from my youth which was first coined in the first Earth Day back in 1970.  Most recently, Jack Johnson made a song with the same name which was featured in the movie "Curious George".  It's a catchy tune, sure to get your kids singing and hopefully living it.

Here is a link to the Lorax website that gives kids (and their adults) tips on how to be green.  Print out the list (on recycled or the back of used paper) and put it up so you can be reminded daily on little things you can do to make a positive impact.

We could learn a few things from the wise Dr. Seuss.  :)