Bear Traps

One of the most difficult tasks in the human family is to admit getting caught. We spend hours trying not to get nabbed for those "crimes" we have done without any thought at all. In fact psychologists marvel at our attitudes to use reciprocity and tit-for-tat type of thinking. We garner favors in all that we do; we have a scratch your back if you scratch mine life style. In fact the axiom is clear today as it was yesterday: it is not what you know but who you know. This type of thinking creates traps, not the small easy to get out of traps (lying to protect someone, making a deal for temporary relief with the assurance of a trade). No, these are sure enough traps, the kind bears fear.

Our societies are so intertwined that when we make theses deals (notice I excluded the word PACT) the balance of power almost collapses. There is no room for any meaningful compromise.

Case in point: Global warming. Today the G-8 plus five (these are the up and coming Nations Brazil, India etc.) hashed out an agreement to keep global warming to two degrees Celsiusi. I am not kidding -- 2 degrees Celsius or for the rest of us 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit, by the year 2050 -- forty-one years from now. I can not speak for anyone else but all of us will be old as dirt ( I will be 96, my niece will be 45, just to prove my point) and a host of us -- well, we will be old as black pepper. That is a lot to ask for 3 degrees! Now, one may ask why just 3 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius? Here is where getting caught in traps come in. History teaches us that the US and other industrial nations polluted their environment with all of their smoke stacks, spillage and raw sewage for years. In fact some nations were exploited by the waste or refuse from these nations. Now in an age when Al Gore calls global warming as important a fight as allies and the Nazi party one senses the hyperbole has reached an interesting level.

The new kids on the block (industrialy speaking) want to be pollutors too. Sounds infantile yet it is so. You all got to do; it we want our turn, and how dare you tells us not to. Therefore to keep peace we settled for 2 or 3 degrees so that commerce will not be interrupted. Again bear traps with no pleasent escape for the nations upcoming or on the wane.

Funny, relationships are like that also. The inability to extricate ourselves creates traps we may never escape. But that topic is slated for another day. Later.