Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
“Hop on Pop,” “The Cat in the Hat,” “Oh the Places You’ll Go”: classics by Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss), one of the great writers of the 20th century. Then there is my personal favorite, “The Lorax,” the often overlooked, last book by the good doctor — a brilliant piece of literary work. You see, the Lorax spoke for the trees because the trees have no voices. Back when the Swomee-Swans rang out in space, and long before the advent of the Presidential race, people loved and enjoyed their environment; smog, mining and coal power could not take its place.
It is good-bye to those trees, those fabulous trees, those beautiful pine, redwood, magnolia trees; almost without a thought or care; gone in a breeze, signed and traded away for years of black lung disease.
It is not paranoid to say that President Bush is attempting to sneak his destructive environmental policies past us. The majority of the president’s policies that have a negative effect on the environment are issued or signed on Fridays, when the majority of Americans are too busy planning their weekend to notice.
Industry’s gluppity-goo will eventually harm me and you. The environment has an impact on all of us, not just New York, Nashville or Kalamazoo. Let me just tell you about all of the mercury-muck, the toxins, the fumes, the slimery-sluck. Please pay attention Mr. President, we need your support; please Mr. President, ignore your earnings-report.
On Friday, January 30th, President Bush issued a set of proposals for mercury regulation known as “cap and trade,” a credit system where a company is allowed to have a plant that is in violation of standards if it has a counter-balancing plant: owning one plant that produces 20 percent too much mercury is all right if another plant, in another location, is 20 percent under standards. What we are left with are toxic hotspots that are in substantial violation of basic health standards for adults, nevermind children.
Oh, the Frists, the Bushs, the Cheneys, the Newts, looking so cute in their big business suits. Driving out clean air, water, ducks and the cute Bar-ba-loots, polluting the environment and enjoying political fruits. The Lorax would say: I speak for the trees, Mister Bush you cannot just do as you please. No longer will the grassy-grass be so green; and oh the bright blue sky will no longer be clean. The clouds, the Bobolu-birds that cannot speak with their tongues; the politicians, the humans are polluting their lungs.
On Friday, April 2nd, the Bush administration approved the sale of 155 acres of land near Mount Emmons Colorado to the mining company Phelps Dodge. The average land value in the town of Crested Butte, where the 155 acres is located, is roughly $100,000 per one-tenth of an acre. Citing an obscure mining law from 1872, the 155 acres was sold lock, stock and barrel by the federal government for a grand total of $875. President Bush is not only supporting the mining industry at the cost of conservationists, he is thumbing his nose at efforts to preserve the environment by giving ludicrous price breaks to companies such as Phelps Dodge.
There is hope still for the environment; all is not lost or scary, but it is not up to Bush, Dean, Ralph Nader or Kerry. There is hope for the birds that fly around in the sky; those that bob in and out while they play, sing and fly. Politicians will take note, only if we vote; the environment belongs to both you and I.
The last words of the Lorax were to warn the Once-ler “unless,” and his warning should cause action, thought and distress. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”