Washing One's Hands Off A Decision

Climate change action is all about negotiations - hard negotiations. There's a lot of give-and-take, horse-trading, and as Australians say "argy-bargy".

The whole point of negotiations is to achieve a compromise position, by definition. It is somewhat hard to achieve a consensus and a constructive outcome, if one party is steadfast in its position, to the point of being stubborn, bigoted and blind to reason.

Here's a trick, that I have, admittedly, not quite worked out how to implement. It so happens that people who wash their hands are more predisposed to being open to changing their minds (read story with link to Science paper here). Yup, you read me right. It appears that washing one's hands is akin to washing one's mind.

So, how might one put this to use. In line with my blog title, I will think-e-loud:
- Perhaps one can select or veto the membership of one's negotiating counterparts based on voyeuristic observations of their bathroom habits
- Perhaps we can attempt to surreptitiously influence their decisions with gifts of fragrant hand-soap (Bath & Body Works has some pretty nifty fragrances catering to a variety of preferences)

A bit light on actionable ideas...maybe, I need to go wash my hands to clear my head.