How new developments in the frontiers of business, politics, youth culture, and labor are rebuilding the environmental movement from the ground up.

Fossil fuels gave rise to America’s industries, our military, our cities, and our digital economy-- to virtually every aspect of our lives. Amanda Little will describe how energy built the American superpower. She has traveled from deep-sea oil rigs to the guts of the electricity grid and the offices of the Pentagon to understand the inner-workings of America's energy system. She will explain why energy has become the single most important issue of our time, and how the shift to a leaner, smarter energy system will rebuild and renew our economy.

Amanda Little will explain how efficiency and environmental strategy are transforming the most powerful businesses in America. For her reporting in Forbes, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, she has interviewed chairmen and CEOs of Walmart (H. Lee Scott and Mike Duke), General Electric (Jeffrey Immelt), Duke Energy (Jim Rogers), GM (Bob Lutz) and News Corp (Rupert Murdoch), and will offer case studies from these companies to illustrate how sustainable practices are spurring innovation and improving their bottom lines.

The energy landscape is changing dramatically. The cost of solar has come down 80 percent in the last five years; the wind power industry will reach nearly $75 billion globally by 2015, with 235 GW installed capacity. New extraction methods are expanding access to oil and natural gas. Innovation is exploding in algae fuels, super crops, electric cars, liquid batteries, zero-energy buildings, and beyond. Efficiency, meanwhile, remains the cheapest, quickest and least polluting way to meet the world’s growing demand for energy. Amanda Little will describe the most exciting innovations on the horizon in clean-tech and energy efficiency, presenting a portrait of this changing energy landscape.