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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

war, political conditions, alternative fuel reform, United States, Brazil

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Political Science

Abstract

Energy often plays a central role in both domestic and international conflict. Many scholars, activists and policymakers agree that the environmental, economic, and political costs of the United States’ self-proclaimed “addiction” to oil for its use as transportation fuel, among other functions, are unsustainable, even dangerous. They assert that the industrialized world’s dependence on fossil fuels is perpetuating global warming, leading us to a world wide economic “peak-oil” shock, and setting up massive geopolitical struggles across the globe. If the global community is to avert the potential calamity that a continued dependence on unsustainable energy may incur, a wide-scale effort towards the development of alternative energies must be made. If the US and other countries ever hope to successfully diversify their energy consumption away from unsustainable sources, it is essential to determine what the required political conditions for alternative energy reform are.

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