The Lorax: Ethical Citizenship

The environment is a very important aspect of our lives. It is something definitely worth saving. This theme of “keeping our environment healthy” can be seen in a variety of literature, for example the book Hoot, or the movie The Lorax. Environmental advocates all around the world demonstrate the importance of being a upstanding citizen by striving to keep our planet strong. The movie The Lorax depicts global and ethical citizen citizenship better because the Hoot characters’ uncivilized actions do not demonstrate ethical citizenship, The Lorax characters are working towards a cause that will benefit the environment on a more global scale, and The Lorax shows the consequences of being a bad citizen while Hoot does not.
The Hoot characters uncivilized acts of vandalism do not demonstrate ethical citizenship. Mullet Fingers (Napoleon) put four-feet long alligators into the portable bathrooms to delay construction (Hiaasen 26). Putting alligators in public port-a-potties is a rather unprincipled way to save some owls. He

“There, standing by the hole and peering curiously at one of the meatballs, was the smallest owl that he [Roy] had ever seen. Mullet Fingers chucked him gently on the shoulder. ‘Okay--now do you get it?’”(Hiaasen 124). In this part of the book, Mullet Fingers is asking Roy whether he understands the reason why he has been vandalizing the construction site: for the sake of the burrowing owls. Although this could be used as an example of global and ethical citizenship, it only affects one small lot of land. On the contrary, we have Ted, who planted the first Truffula tree (Renaud 2012). This impacts the environment on a much larger scale. In conclusion, The Lorax shows global citizenship better because what the characters do affects the environment more globally than