{"id":178,"date":"2023-04-10T18:22:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T18:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/?p=178"},"modified":"2023-04-10T18:22:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T18:22:18","slug":"survey-literature-reflections-and-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/2023\/04\/10\/survey-literature-reflections-and-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey, Literature Reflections, and Sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings readers! For my final blog post, I wanted to take the time to share some final thoughts about the research that I was conducting for this course in Germany. For those of you who are reading my blogs for the first time, my research is focused on the question asking what the German public opinion is regarding natural gas as an energy source and does the German public support it as a viable means to the energy transition?<\/p>\n

The existing literature that attempts to answer this question covers the idea that the war in Ukraine has significantly altered the supplies of gas that Germany has been relying on for their energy security. With that being said, There exists a high amount of evidence that suggests that German opinion on gas has shifted significantly away from its dependence on other countries for economic purposes but now to stress energy independence within the country out of fear of manipulation from other countries (like Russia) (Belkin 2022). With the war in Ukraine in mind and Germany’s former dependence on Russian gas for its energy security in mind, there exists a discussion about tensions between the Western block and Russia and how these are indirectly affecting Germany’s energy preferences. Since Germany is a close ally of the United States, much of the lost energy from Russia has been shored up by the United States’ rich natural gas and fracking abilities. This relationship only strengthens Germany’s ties to the West and likely has caused public opinion on Russia within Germany to decrease as tensions increase (Grigas 2017).<\/p>\n

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A pro-Ukraine rally in Germany which resulted in the German government increasing its support to Ukraine in 2022. (Source<\/a>).<\/p><\/div>\n

As existing literature suggests that tensions between Germany and Russia have heightened in recent years and the dependence of Germany on Russian gas has significantly been reduced from the beginning of the war, my research is intended to take these points made in the existing literature and to present some early findings of the actual opinions of the German public. From what my small sample size has determined, the approval rating of Germans on Russian gas before the war was around 4 out of 10. Today, the number has plummeted to a 1.5 out of 10. When asked about the alternative options to natural gas as an energy source, most Germans referred to renewables while shunning other options such as nuclear or coal.<\/p>\n

While my findings are definitely aligning with the current research by suggesting that the Germans are beginning to sour on natural gas as a result of the war, the strong focus on sustainable alternatives such as wind and solar suggests that the shift in public opinion will likely indirectly affect the sustainability of the energy grid within the near future. As German opinion continues to become more favorable to renewables, it will only increase the rate in which Germany shifts away from energy sources like coal and natural gas.<\/p>\n

I think that the research that I am conducting can very much be related to the MENA region. Particularly, as renewables become more common and oil is increasingly phased out as an energy source in Germany but also worldwide, I imagine that countries who focus their economic interests heavily on fossil fuels will begin to suffer as a result of a decrease in demand. I think that through learning about this and being aware of it, this viewpoint can be applied to a globalized context and to help further integrate the economies and relationships between the MENA region and the rest of the western world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings readers! For my final blog post, I wanted to take the time to share some final thoughts about the research that I was conducting for this course in Germany. For those of you who are reading my blogs for the first time, my research is focused on the question asking what the German public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4837,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/advancedenvironmentalresearchandtransformativesustainabilityexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}