July 20, 2009

Today we went and visited Shell. On the way over I got my first glimpse at a church being renovated for apartments. It was really depressing to see. All of the crosses had been taken off the tops of the buildings and flags flew in their places advertising these new apartments. I just couldn’t imagine living in an old church; it would really bother me. The Shell visit was fantastic. The man that spoke was a Christian and he gave us part of his testimony which was amazing to hear. I really enjoyed the Shell visit – mainly because of their technique of creating scenarios. They are constantly looking towards the future, and I mean by more than 5 years or so. Their latest scenario was developed in 2005-2006 and has now been released to the public. There are two situations Shell sees happening: Blueprint and Scramble. In blueprint, nations work together, and ahead, to solve these environmental issues. It is the “harder” course since action is taken before the need is seen, but in the end we end up in a much better place than Scramble. In Scramble, events precede actions, resulting in the world struggling to find a solution. While it still ends up working out, the disasters and problems are much greater through this situation. This new scenario released by Shell, being the latest in a line of 50 years of this practice, is the first time they are publicly stating which scenario they prefer over the other. In this case, it is Blueprints (obviously). It will be interesting to see how everything plays out in relation to what Shell sees happening. Either way, that business model is quite fascinating. After the Shell visit, we headed back to the hotel to have lunch downtown and then class. We only have one more class in Paris before our final exam in London! Again, dinner was on our own. A few of us headed to the beach for the evening. Me, Billy, and Amy all decided that it would be fun, since it may be the only time in our lives, to go and take a swim in the North Sea. So we did! The water was really cold at first, but once we were in and got used to the temperature it felt just like the water on the East Coast late in the evening. I can now say I have swam on both sides of the Atlantic, even if this was technically the North Sea. After our swim, we ate at McDonalds since it was the cheapest restaurant there – even in Europe, everything is overpriced at the beach. Afterwards we headed back and I just spent some time away from everyone – it was getting to me being around the group all of the time.