12/2/2009
There are a few things that has made me wonder and think about what is happening in the world today just from our first two class meetings. One thing is the US recession and how far we are in debt. 800 trillion dollars is a lot, and China owns our debt. Another thing that has was surprising is that the US is ranked 40th in innovation when we were once ranked 1st during the days when we put the first man on the moon. I really enjoyed our speakers. Dr. Pillay, however, was more helpful. He explained how the medical field is making money by producing 1 pill that replaces 5 pills for the treatment of HIV/AIDS; and how they haven’t released a CURE because if they did, they would lose money. They are making money by selling medication that can only FIGHT or CONTROL HIV/AIDS. Things like the soccer game where 150 people where killed was an eye-popping statistic! Its crazy that that many people would be killed at a social sporting event over nations dividing. During Mr. Morris’ lecture, he showed a picture on the slide show where fans where divided at the game. The terms for the Geo-Genius were kind of hard to find and some of those terms, I never even knew about. In one of our recommended readings called “Global Business,” some of the article talks about Africa and its resources. Another part of the article talks about how China and India want what the West has. “All development makes pollution. But China and India want what the West has, so they want energy, and we offer an energy solution” (Pat Davies, Chief Executive of Sasol). In the “Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather” article, it talks about how global warming has increased over the years. It gives statistics on how global warming has an effect to make hurricanes more powerful. “For every rise of 1 degree Celsius (most of it man-made) in surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, rainfall from a tropical storm increases 6 to 18 percent and wind speed of the strongest hurricanes increase by up to 8 percent. Overall, the moral of the first two days of class is that the US needs to step it up because we're way behind compared to the rest of the world. Our generation has to solve these problems.
Posted at 3:48 PM by Chaz Dial