ENERGY, the ability to do work, is the most important dynamic, organic, and vital part of the human drama. For the past 10,000 years, we have simply grabbed some wood, oil or coal to make a fire.

"See you on the barricades!" is one of Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s signature phrases, and it aptly summarizes his attitude towards fighting the root causes of our current environmental crisis.

The subject of POWER might not seem, at first glance, appropriate for a magazine focused on Human Potential. Broad in meaning, this common term can and often does evoke mixed reactions. However, whatever emotion the word may provoke, we should not be deterred from looking deeper into this challenging concept.

Today, every man woman and child in the United States is responsible for the consumption of over 3 gallons of oil every single day. This rate of consumption has far-reaching implications for our security, our environment, and our relationship with the rest of the world. I want to talk a little bit about how we got here.

PBDEs are a bromated version of PCBs which were banned in 1977. PBDEs are widely used today in household products: televisions, computers, microwave ovens, upholstery, clothing (children's pajamas) and other textiles in furniture, bedding, transportation seating (polyurethane foams), and building materials.

The Information Age. Cyberspace. The images are clean and lean. They offer a vision of business streamlined by smart machines and high speed telecommunications and suggest that the proliferation of e-commerce and dot-coms will make the belching smokestacks, filthy effluent, and slag heaps of the Industrial Revolution relics of the past.

The price of our lifestyles has caught up with us. Escalating consumption of fossil fuels has led to the environmental havoc created by global warming. Recent ecological disasters, combined with a steep rise in fuel prices, have caught the world's attention and are forcing us, maybe for the first time, to seriously question how we became so absolutely dependent on oil and who is responsible.

What is the purpose of education? What exactly are we trying to achieve by sending kids to school for twelve years? Many people talk about reform, but Dr. David Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, says we need to rethink our school systems altogether.

When Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods was first published in 2005, it hit an international nerve. Its basic message, that children are suffering from what he calls "Nature Deficit Disorder," galvanized a movement to reconnect kids with the natural world.

Erasto Njavike was a typical Tanzanian teenager in 1992, pestering the local dogs and cats and not thinking too deeply about his relationship to the earth or his community. But then something happened: Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall, Ph.D., DBE, came to speak at his school. Her talk inspired him to rethink his attitude, and a short while later Njavike joined Roots & Shoots, which at that time was a fledging program that Dr. Goodall had created the year before to empower kids to tackle local environmental and societal issues.

The following five cities stand as examples of places with sustainable and ecologically friendly practices developed in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative.

"Having to be taken care of by the women in our march, I was bossed, intimidated, humiliated, and much of my pride and hate had to give way to survival.