Fiege made a number of interesting points including a discussion of how Lincoln's life on the frontier influenced his views on nature as a resource to be improved. Along those lines, popular UIS Environmental Studies professor Tih-Fen Ting asked why Lincoln didn't develop an attitude toward the environment more similar to Henry David Thoreau. Fiege responded that Lincoln's viewpiont was more common for the time and it's more useful to ask why Thoreau didn't hold Lincoln's views.
My opinion is that Thoreau had the luxury of viewing the environment as an escape because he grew up in a well established New England town living a privileged life before going to Harvard. He didn't experience nature the way Lincoln did, as a wilderness threatening his survival, or as a back-breaking barrier to growing food. It's no wonder that Thoreau described nature as an escape from daily boredom while Lincoln viewed it as a resource to be used with reverence.
Early in his comments, Fiege referenced Lincoln's obscure lecture on "Discoveries and Inventions." Lincoln's prescient comments on the power of wind are what make this a good post for the blog action day on climate change.
Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth’s surface—for instance, Illinois—; and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. ...As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of the wind.
We finally have the technology 150 years later but we still aren't using wind to its full potential. There's currently a proposal to build a wind farm outside Springfield in rural Sangamon county. Since we already lend his name to everything else in town, I suggest we call it the "Abraham Lincoln Prairie Power Wind Farm."