Sunday, January 8, 2012

Wednesday, January 4th

At 10:30 this morning we had a lecture by Professor Christopher Wright from the University of Sydney Business School in the Education Building. He talked about “The Business of Climate Change.” It was very interesting to hear his views on climate change from an Australian point of view. He told us that Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and they export a lot of that coal to China. Australia also has a carbon tax of $28/ton of carbon. Professor Wright says $28 is not enough, but despite this there have been protests against the carbon tax. I think what impacted me the most about his lecture was when he addressed the emotional aspect of the argument. He explained how you can’t take emotionality out of the equation, but the real challenge is how do you have passion without being seen as too passionate? You don’t want to be so zealous that people just write you off and ignore your ideas.
At 3:00 pm we toured the Museum of Sydney, which details the history of Sydney from 1788, when the first European colonists arrived, through to the present day. Most of those first colonists were convicts who were sentenced and then transported to Australia. I was surprised that this museum had an entire room dedicated to surfing history in Australia, but my favorite part of the museum has to be the “Edge of the Trees” sculptural installation. This piece symbolizes the first meeting of the Aborigines and the European colonists. The vertical timbers are inscribed with the signatures of the First Fleeters and names of botanical species in native languages and Latin. In the "Edge of the Trees" from L to R are Zelynne, Callie, Katie (hidden), Alex, Jimmy, Taylor, Preston, Emily, Stena, and Danielle. Janet

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Wang Center for Global Education, Pacific Lutheran University, 12180 Park Avenue S. Tacoma, WA 98447 253-531-7577