Young people today are inundated with information but often lack the tools for understanding the complex issues that stir public dedate and dissension. Over the last century the lives of billions of people around the world have been fundamentally transformed by new machines and technologies - and by the quest for energy sources to power the equipment and innovations of the evolving industrial age. Natural gas has been a part of the energy picture in the US and other advanced nations. the status of natural gas changed in the late 1990s as scientists and engineers came up with a new technique, fracking, for unlocking huge reserves deep under the earth's surface.