Dear Sir/Madam,

What went on between John Prescott and his French counterpart, Dominique Voynet, in the early hours of Saturday morning in the Hague, resulting in failure to reach an agreement on emissions of greenhouse gases, casts
a revealing light on the neglected source of most of our problems:  the fact that we are living in a manmade rat race (French anger at 'macho' Prescott, 28 November 2000).

Dominique Voynet is obviously not so well adapted to the rat race as John Prescott, who reproaches her for being tired and unable to cope with the complexities of the negotiations in the early hours of the morning - a time when rats are naturally wide awake, but anyone with a more human disposition is in need of sleep.

Negotiating this vitally important agreement under such stress was absurd and irresponsible.

Why is life a rat race?
Because so many of us behave like rats.
And why do we behave like rats?
Because life is a rat race . . . .

This is a viscous circle that we need to break out of, because the rat race and the rat-like human behaviour that drives it are responsible more than anything else for the damage we are doing to our planet's environment (Earth's life-supporting ecosystems) and climate.

There can be no sustainability (= survival) without an end to the rat race.

And there may even be other advantages - apart from survival - in turning away from rat-like behaviour and behaving - and perhaps becoming - more like human beings.