"Happy Planet Index"

[bloom]

Happiness doesn't cost the Earth

People can live long, happy lives without consuming large amounts of the Earth's resources, a survey suggests.
The 178-nation "Happy Planet Index" lists the south Pacific island of Vanuatu as the happiest nation on the planet, while the UK is ranked 108th.

The index is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than national economic wealth measurements such as GDP.

The study was compiled by think-tank the New Economics Foundation (Nef).

Size doesn't matter

One of the authors, Nef's Nic Marks, said the aim of the index was to show that well-being did not have to be linked to high levels of consumption....

Nef is calling for the adoption of a "global manifesto for a happier planet" that will list ways nations can live within their environmental limits and increase people's quality of life. The recommendations include:

• Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
• Recognising the contribution of individuals and unpaid work
• Ensuring economic policies stay within environmental limits

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5169448.stm

[blindpig]

1. U.S. 150th

So why do we put up with this shit?

Blow up the TV.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. US place is mainly due to its huge ecological footprint

Similarly for UAE, Kuwait and Qatar; on life satisfaction and life expectancy, all 4 do OK.

[bloom]

3. Are you getting that from this article?

I may have missed something -but I didn't see that.

There have been other things that suggest more mental illness in some (industiral type) countries more than others- like this:

Schizophrenia Update, December 2002

By: Veronique Mandal Star Health-Science Reporter, Windsor Star
October 9, 2002 Wednesday Final Edition

Geography plays a role in the incidence of schizophrenia, scientists suspect.

Other countries with a high rate of schizophrenia include Croatia, a part of Yugoslavia and some of the Scandinavian nations. In other countries, such as New Guinea, Torrey says schizophrenia is hard to find. Low rates have also been found in Italy and Spain, as well as in most developing countries. Schizophrenia has also been hard to find in remote parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.

Rates are higher in India and Sri Lanka, with studies in India showing that the illness is more common among the upper castes -- those who are more educated and exposed to western technology.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/New/Dec2002/irishDec02.htm

I also found this:

Is Depression an Adaptation?
Randolph M. Nesse, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2000;57:14-20.

Many functions have been suggested for low mood or depression, including communicating a need for help, signaling yielding in a hierarchy conflict, fostering disengagement from commitments to unreachable goals, and regulating patterns of investment. A more comprehensive evolutionary explanation may emerge from attempts to identify how the characteristics of low mood increase an organism's ability to cope with the adaptive challenges characteristic of unpropitious situations in which effort to pursue a major goal will likely result in danger, loss, bodily damage, or wasted effort. In such situations, pessimism and lack of motivation may give a fitness advantage by inhibiting certain actions, especially futile or dangerous challenges to dominant figures, actions in the absence of a crucial resource or a viable plan, efforts that would damage the body, and actions that would disrupt a currently unsatisfactory major life enterprise when it might recover or the alternative is likely to be even worse. These hypotheses are consistent with considerable evidence and suggest specific tests.


From the Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/57/1/14

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Oops, sorry, I meant to post the link to the Index itself

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/list.htm

They've colour coded the ratings in red, orange and green - or deep red for teh ecological footprints of those 4 countries.

[bloom]

5. So it's not saying that we are unhappy - but that we are inefficient.

And that people in countries with a lot less do just as well as on the happiness/life satisfaction scale - esp. island countries.

Though I don't think that means that someone could up and move there - Vanuatu - and that it would make a difference. It's being part of a culture.

"...Island nations score well above average in the Index: They have higher life satisfaction, higher life expectancy and marginally lower Footprints than other states. Yet incomes (by GDP per capita) are roughly equal to the world average. Even within regions, islands do well. Malta tops the Western world with Cyprus in seventh place (out of 24); the top five HPI nations in Africa are all islands; as well as two of the top four in Asia. Perhaps a more acute awareness of environmental limits has sometimes helped their societies to bond better and to adapt to get more from less. Combined with the enhanced well-being that stems from close contact with nature, the world as a whole stands to learn much from the experience of islands.

It is possible to live long, happy lives with a much smaller environmental impact: For example, in the United States and Germany people’s sense of life satisfaction is almost identical and life expectancy is broadly similar. Yet Germany’s Ecological Ecological footprint is only about half that of the USA. This means that Germany is around twice as efficient as the USA at generating happy long lives based on the resources that they consume."

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/reveals.htm

[bloom]

6. .....