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What is the single most important subject, that this generation of the worlds mothers and fathers, should be teaching their children about?
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Learning about energy shouldn’t be considered as one more chore in our busy lives. In fact, it can be the most valuable resource in helping us to make sense of today's complex world.
"Here we're in an age of data overload, so if you learn about energy, you're addressing three concerns at once, national security, the economy and the environment," says Harvey Sachs of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy based in Washington, D.C.
There's no civilization without energy.
No economic activity today can take place without the consumption of some energy," says John Tobin, executive director of the Energy Literacy Project based in Evergreen, Colo. "We need energy to heat homes, drive to work, electrify offices - to simply live."
But most people don't realize the importance of energy until something goes wrong. "One of the scariest examples of how people rely on energy came in pictures from the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean from a few years ago. We saw people lined up for hours to get fuel oil just to boil water so they could drink it and cook their food. It shows how energy is essential to people."
Energy is so important that wars have been won and lost by access to energy sources. An ample supply of coal to feed its armament industry helped the Union win the Civil War. Coal also helped Imperial Germany build a fleet to challenge Great Britain and start World War I, while switching its own navy from coal to oil helped Britain prevail in that conflict. In World War II a lack of oil stopped Rommel's tanks in North Africa and docked much of the Japanese fleet in the Pacific.
Today, much of the international tension revolves around access to oil, whether in Iraq and Iran, in Nigeria and throughout Africa, around the Caspian Sea or in the South China Sea.
Are we ROBBING OUR CHILDREN?
Because energy is so crucial to our lives, we have developed an expectation that all forms of energy will always be cheap and plentiful. The public is accustomed to having abundant energy available at all times. They expect to fuel their vehicles with petrol, heat their homes with natural gas and have electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Do we all really believe that "The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shall be fuelled by cheap and abundant energy?"