Over the past couple of weeks in many of my classes, the events unfolding in Venezuela have been a hot topic of discussion. This led me to dig a little deeper into the situation at hand, after which I was shocked beyond words. Essentially President Maduro who has served one full term was re-elected to a second term. After being elected to a second term many Venezuala citizens and members of the National Assembly deemed the election to be illegitimate, which enables the President of the Assembly to take charge as interim president until fair elections are held. In this case, the president of the Assembly happens to be Juan Guaido. This has created a split in Venezuela in which the majority of citizens believe the election to be un-democratic and are in favor of a Guaido presidency, however, Maduro holds the support of the military creating a very tense environment. Protests have strewn the streets for weeks on end. This issue is one however that involves the international community as Nations across the globe formally recognize different presidents with America recognizing Guaido. To make matters even worse this stalemate in Venezuela has caused a halt to its economy resulting in massive inflation (prices have been doubling every 19 days) which was measured at 1,300,000% in December. While my summary of the events in no way does justice to the nuances pertinent to this situation or brings about the full gravity of the events unfolding, it goes to show how serious things are right now. Many citizens are struggling day to day simply to find buy food. More recently there has been a nationwide power outage as a direct result of the failing infrastructure of the nation. After grasping a better understanding I began to realize how attractive and hypnotizing power can be. While it is certainly possible I have a misunderstanding in the exact nature of the events, it seems quite certain that this warlike state in Venezuela is doing a vast amount of damage. President Maduro has a responsibility to the people of Venezuela which is not being upheld. Losing power for the betterment of the people you serve is a hard decision. We see this in America day in and day out. The idea of having control and influence too often causes us as humans to lose pieces of our humanity and do things in our own interests regardless of the effect it has on others. I hope this situation comes to a close sooner rather than later and that people can learn something from this situation to reduce the liklyhood of something similar from happening anytime soon.
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending Aaron Fyke's presentation on Global Warming and Sustainability. This presentation was just as educating as it was enjoyable. He was an incredibly animated speaker that kept the audience engaged. He was also able to transform the heavy environment into a lighthearted one with clever jokes throughout the night. However, the most important aspect of that night was the content. As someone who knew a fair amount about the issues and mechanics of Global Warming already, I was happy to have learned more about the issue at hand. I was also received more clarity on how the issue worked and can now explain the importance of this issue using sheer logic. Although this presentation allowed me to become better informed it also opened my eyes to what nations and companies across the globe were already doing to combat it, all of which was new information. It was exciting to see the stats about the reduction of coal use, increase in efficiency o
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