Something I have noticed over the years, with the help of my Father, is that not all natural areas yield the same level of biodiversity. It is exciting to be able to walk in the woods or parks and spot lots of wildlife, such as birds and deer, and see lots of different plants and trees. I’m not sure what the average American plantlife IQ is, but I’m guessing that most folks aren’t that interested in ‘plant identification 101′, or ‘name that beetle!’.

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I have always been amazed by the transmogrification process of caterpillar into butterfly. How wonderous it must be to be transformed from one body type, to something that outwardly looks completely different, and therefore behaves rather differently. You are now flying over the earth instead of being bound it, no longer crawling along on your stumpy legs, but flitting, in some cases like the monarch, across a continent. Did we humans once have this capacity to change, and more importantly, do we still have it hidden in our genes? As I wrote a few days ago, it can be surprising to find out how closely related we are to very different-looking beings, such as the purple sea urchin.

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Our energy usage as a nation is vast, and the battle to curtail it by inventing more efficient cars, for instance, or electronic devices, is ongoing. Naturally, lots of other issues can be folded into this complex dilemma, including politics and good old-fashioned capitalism, as last I checked, oil companies are floating on an ocean of capital raked in during the especially profitable past few years. I’m always most interested in how energy usage affects the environment, from air to water quality, to other types of pollution such as those that soak into the land itself. Here is a very interesting story regarding a couple that decided to drive a car fueled by vegetable oil, and the resoundingly negative and confused response they have gotten from the state of Illinois.

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