Crazy week.  Lots of grading to do for my day job as a college teacher.  All those short papers I assign come back to bite me.   But that is behind me for now, and I can finally catch up with normal blogging. 

     Although you would not know it from reading the US press (which is quite restrained and understated on this story), an international meeting in Montreal found a way to keep the Kyoto process alive, working to find ways to reduce global warming in the future.  Indeed, the Toronto Globe and Mail reports:

Delegates cheered and hugged when Mr. Dion, president of the
conference, brought down the final gavel shortly after 6 a.m. local
time.

"You have upheld the trust the people of the world have placed in
us," he said. "Facing the worst ecological threat to humanity, you have
said: the world is united and together, step by step, we will win this
fight."

     And this from the BBC:

…the deal was finally agreed in a mood of some euphoria…

     It seems like a good thing.  So, I asked the I Ching: what are we to make of the current situation on global warming?  The oracle replied positively, but with some foreboding about the continuing recalcitrance on the part of the US government to join the Kyoto process.

    Here are the particulars of the reading: Hexagram 58, "The Joyous," with a pure yin line in the sixth position, thus tending toward Hexagram 10, "Treading."

    "Joyous" seems to capture the reported mood of many of the delegates at the Montreal conference.  But the oracle is telling those who want to work to counteract global warming that they must focus on the task at hand and apply themselves to the long term effort:

…joy must be based on steadfastness if it is not to degenerate into uncontrolled mirth.  Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in social intercourse.

    But with this right attitude, good things can happen:

The Joyous.  Success.
Perseverance is favorable.

     And the perseverance required has a collective aspect to it:

Lakes resting one on the other:
The image of The Joyous.
Thus the superior man joins with his friends
For discussion and practice.

    There will be many meetings, many opportunities for "discussion and practice," over the coming years as the Kyoto process continues. And that is good: slow and steady collective work may bring success.

     The moving line in the sixth position suggests possible trouble, however.   "Seductive joyousness," it states simply.  I am not quite sure what to make of this completely (any ideas from readers?).  But, given the context of the question, it suggests a person who has "lost direction in his own life," and, to me, on the issue of global warming, this points to the US government, which continues to deny the importance of global warming as an international problem, and which also continues to refuse to join the Kyoto protocols.

    The role of the US is suggested in Hexagram 10, "Treading,"  which seems to be telling other countries how to deal with American recalcitrance:

      The situation is really difficult.  The which is strongest [the US] and that which is weakest are close together.  The weak follows the strong and worries it.  The strong, however, acquiesces and does not hurt the weak, because the contact is in good humor and harmless.
     In terms of a human situation, one is handling wild, intractable people [the Bush administration?].  In such a case one’s purpose will be achieved if one behaves with decorum.  Pleasant manners succeed even with irritable people.

     We all know how irritable the current US government has been and can be.  Let’s hope the oracle is right when it says the sensible people struggling to contain global warming will have a salutary effect on wild and intractable.