Football lesson

 The problem to be solved:

To combat the worst effects of global warming we need political consensus as well as technical innovations.

A football story
I’m a Manchester man.
Back in the 1960’s, at the height of the cold war, when mutual suspicions were high, I was travelling as a student through Yugoslavia. For a few Dinar I purchased a lift in a car with a big hard looking man, who was travelling from Belgrade to Zagreb.

Shortly after leaving Belgrade he attempted to take advantage of my vulnerability by demanding further payment. The situation began to look ugly, made far worse by our lack of any common language. I was disturbed but not cowed, because the car sported a football banner.

With genuine emotion, I recited a litany of names known by every Manchester school boy of my youth. “Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Tommy Taylor, Liam Whelan, David Pegg, Mark Jones, Geoff Bent".
 

Then, " Manchester United, Red Star Belgrade, Munich.”

The big man stopped the car. He hugged me with a footballer’s passion, he bought me a good lunch, I bought treats for his children. Then we drove on.

The footballers were all 1958 Manchester United “Busby Babes” who had died in an air crash at Munich Airport, after playing against Red Star Belgrade.

 The lesson: If we can identify a thread of shared human experience, hostile strangers can rapidly reach a consensus and become friends.

 Our proposal: The countries of the European Union offer a unique pool of shared human experiences, because of their diversity of languages, cultural and colonial pasts.

The EU should sponsor the building of a top of the range cruise liner having ample accommodation to meet the needs of several thousand passengers.

Each year three or more politicians and their families from all of the United Nations countries, plus emerging nations such as Palestine, would be invited to spend a week away from the media, on board the liner.

The ancient Greek tradition of honouring safe passage to the Olympic Games would be imitated, allowing all political leaders to attend.

During the early years (at least) there would be no business agenda for the cruise week. Politicians, their partners, children and grandchildren would have time away from the world’s eyes to get to know each other as human beings. Serious international political and environmental issues could be taken up later, uplifted by a knowledge of common ties. - Perhaps during a second cruise for politicians and their advisors, later in the year.

Each nation would be allocated permanent consular rooms on board the liner. This would allow the ship to earn its keep by acting as a unique floating centre for international business and professional conferences.

A name for the vessel?

Pangaea. from the ancient Greek for "Entire Earth".

Pangaea is the name of a theoretical super-continent that geologists assume existed 250 million years ago, before continental drift ripped it apart to form today's continents.

Speculation
Many wars are the result of isolated political leaders misreading each others intentions. Its possible that the two Gulf Wars and the Kosovo Conflict could have been avoided if the political leaders of the battling countries had been in regular informal contact.
How many lives would have been saved if Pangaea had been afloat twenty years ago?

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