Once-ler

Exactly.

And he leaves this town to find reclusive, ruined old man known as the Once-ler, voiced by Ed Harris.

The Once-ler then tells Ted the story of his youth, how he arrived in this beautiful forest, became obsessed with manufacturing and selling a completely useless product called a Thneed, and slowly gave into capitalistic obsession until every single tree was dead.

And he recounts how he ignored the constant warnings of the titular Lorax, voiced by Danny DeVito, who is this gruff, small orange creature desperately trying to, quote, "Speak for the trees."

DeVito was such perfect casting for that, by the way.

Instead of just feeling bad about the world, they see kids their own age doing something about it.

Exactly.

It's a narrative way of saying to the audience, the older generation, represented by the Once-ler, may have made catastrophic mistakes driven by greed, but your generation has the power and the responsibility to fix it.

Oh, is that what was happening? Is that the...

They were chopping down the Truffula trees to make the books? I mean, how do you make books? We'll just blame the Onceler.

Circus McGurkus to the left.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish ahead of us as we pass the Lorax.

It really is

The story features a thankless industrialist named the Once-ler who discovers a pristine valley full of beautiful Truffula trees.

He chops one down to knit a useless consumer product called a Thneed

And out of the stump of that first chopped tree pops the Lorax, a creature who says, "I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues"

Right

He begs the Once-ler to stop

But the Once-ler ignores him.

He builds a massive factory.

At the time she was seven, and I was reading to her The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

And at the end of the book, just like you said, hey, um, there's this, there's this Once-ler, the, the guy who, like, basically destroyed the environment, cut down all the trees, killed all the birds, killed the, killed the fish, and he's now sitting in his now-defunct factory, you know, basically ruminating on how he's k- how he's destroyed everything he loved.

And this little boy comes up, and he starts to hear the story and, and he, and, and the, and the Once-ler, the bad guy, says, "Now the words of the Lorax seem perfectly clear.

Unless someone like you comes along and cares a lot, cares a whole awful lot, nothing will get better.

It simply will not.