Cannibalism And The Lorax Similarities

The tragedy of the commons, a theory of mankind’s actions turning into one big collapse, or something that should be dismissed altogether. Garett Hardin summarizes the idea that when everyone uses a small amount of a limited common good, it can be depleted very quickly, even when seeming to be harmless. The world can’t continue to use the same method it has used for the last few decades, the world is evolving so its ways have to evolve as well. “The laws of our society follow the pattern of ancient ethics, and therefore are poorly suited to governing a complex, crowded, changeable world”(Hardin). This is very similar to an occurrence in a place called Easter island when tribes migrated around the island and used all the trees for woodwork.

In a Dr.Seuss story titled the “Lorax”, similar things occur, people begin to use all of the truffula trees for these “thneeds” (Seuss). The trees soon die off, so the production causes pollution, and all animals have to migrate from the area(Suess). Each paragraph will compare and contrast the two scenarios, and will show you the true danger such as loss of common resources, supply and demand, and overpopulation. The main relationship between the story is the increasing depletion of the common resource, the trees. “A finite world must only only support a finite population, therefore population growth must eventually equal zero”(Harden). In both scenarios the trees are all cut down, in the lorax, the production does extreme harm to the environment and revokes homes from the animals(Seuss). In Easter Island, thetrees are all cut down for statues, weaponry, shelter, etc. The trees go away soon and the tribes can't provide for each other, so they resort to cannibalism. Yes, the actions both cause differentiating results, but all are negative, so this proves the true tragedy of the

As the uses for each resources grew, more attraction is brought to each. With the trees,people all around herd of the wonderful thneed, but were oblivious to the beginning of the damage it would cause(Seuss). Similar to the Lorax, at Easter Island the trees were not seen as something that would go away. Thereso the tribes began to cut them down also unaware of the impending danger. All occasionsrepresent what the tragedy of the commons means, and shows the peril that may come with it. The final relationship is overproduction. In the Lorax, the thneeds become a hit, so more peoplebegin to come buy the thneeds and the car traffic only begins the pollution(Suess). The land is too overpopulated for the slow rate of the hand knitted thneeds, so a factory is built, which adds to thepollution(Suess). The number of trees can’t be solved by any other way than slowing down tree growth, not any other way, such as decreasing the population of people wanting thneeds(Seuss). “The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way”(Hardin).In Easter Island, the land was already too overpopulated, so this makes the tree production just stay at a rapidly decrease. The overproduction killsoff the trees to quick, and this begins the manslaughter of their own kind for the people’s survival.If you understand the consequences of your actions prior