Negotiating Globally: How to Negotiate Deals, Resolve Disputes, and Make Decisions Across Cultural Boundaries, 3rd Edition

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Social Dilemmas

“Plastic bags are not indigenous to the Pacific Ocean” reads the picture caption in a National Geographic article.¹ The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre covering more than seven million square miles between California and Hawaii is full of plastic—big pieces such as water, milk, and juice bottles that have not yet broken down; plastic bags that fish take for jellyfish; and tiny bits of broken-down plastic the size of a grain of rice. An ocean gyre is an area of circular current formed by wind patterns created by the rotation of the Earth. Its rotation draws debris into its relatively calm center where the debris is trapped. That the North Pacific gyre is full of plastic is of course our own fault, our failure as a civilization ...