I remember the first Earth Day in 1970.
Back when Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin proposed the event, the environment was in pretty bad shape.
But it was an exciting and hopeful time.
Young people staged celebrations, protests and teach-ins.
According to his biographer, the children’s book writer/cartoonist named Theodor Geisel “believed in the movement but didn't care for its rhetoric."
He thought it was "preachy and bossy.”
So, Geisel published a book called "The Lorax" under the name Dr. Suess.
Dr. Seuss once stated, "'The Lorax' came out of me being angry. The ecology books I'd read were dull ... In "The Lorax" I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might."
In 1972, “The Lorax” was adapted as an animated musical television special.
I can’t even imagine how many times over the years since then I have read the book or screened the original animation for school children and Interlochen campers.
But I can tell you, this modern fable has done more to inspire environmental stewardship than all the lessons I could have presented about air and water pollution, deforestation and climate change.
I wish this on Earth Day, I could celebrate all of the progress we have made—and there has been some.
Just not anywhere near enough.
So it is fitting to quote the final words of the Lorax, “UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
