When the Once-ler finds a place where the grass is green, the clouds are clean, and the land is full of Truffula trees, his heart is filled with joy. But his joy is not a glory in the place for itself, it is instead a nasty, calculating kind of pleasure in knowing that there he can make himself wealthy. And so he proceeds to chop down the trees, smog up the air, and clog up the water for the fish who live there... never stopping until the moment when the last Truffula falls.

Yet from the very first crack of an axe on a tree, a creature called the Lorax speaks for the land, urgently trying to awaken the Once-ler to compassion. The Lorax gives voice to the Truffulas, protesting their loss, arguing against the insatiable technology. But the Once-ler only laughs, committed to making more STUFF -- because stuff is what everyone wants, because stuff makes money.

In the end, there is no land worth living in, there is no air to breathe, there is no color to that piece of the earth. The previous inhabitants have gone searching for a new place to be home, one that is still untouched by the long fingers of Once-ler greed.

The Lorax is one of the most striking commentaries ever written about the insatiability that drives industrial "progress." The Once-ler is a man obsessed; he will not perceive the world around him so long as it interferes with his lust for success. And his customers are the kind of fools we all have been, buying things without seeing the roots behind them, buying because buying is what we do.