The Happy Planet Index
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but according to the New Economics Foundation, a self-proclaimed "think and do tank", if you live in the U.S., then you’re one of the most unhappy people on the planet. Grab a tissue and choke back your tears for a minute while I explain.
The NEF recently published a report called the Happy Planet Index (HPI), The HPI attempts to gage the overall happiness of a country by comparing the average life expectancy of its people to the country’s environmental impact on the planet, so countries where people consume very little and live long lives have a higher HPI than countries where people live as long, but consume more. The HPI rankings have Vanuatu (HPI=68.2) as the happiest country on Earth with Colombia coming in second. The U.S. (HPI=28.8) is pretty far down the list, well below most of the countries in Central America, the Middle East and Africa, which are often thought to be the third world. You gotta love it when economists set out to model something like happiness.
It’s worth mentioning the fact that scientists have actually found that animals tend to live longer the less they eat, so the HPI makes a lot of sense. Thus far I haven’t found any mention of this scientific research in the NEF’s report.
The HPI is clearly subjective and doesn’t account for things like oppressive political regimes, war, lack of surfable waves, or anything else that might make people unhappy. So far it has received a lot of constructive criticism from the media. Despite it’s numerous flaws the HPI is an interesting idea to consider and should serve as a solid foundation for further research on the topic. I doubt people will read the HPI rankings and move to Pakistan, but hopefully it puts a bug in people’s ears and makes them think about how much their own sense of happiness depends on their daily level of consumption.
Now, wipe those snot bubbles from your nose and pack your bags because we’ve got a little research project of our own. Someone’s gotta check out the waves in all those happy countries, so we can bring the HPI down to earth.
Hmmm…. US ranked below Sri Lanka and Palestine? I know we’re far from perfect here in America, but this HPI doesn’t seem to concern itself with minor details like international recognition of your state and the effect of living in a war zone. Sounds to me like it’s more of a measurement of how happy the planet is than how happy the people are. I’m sure the planet would just as soon prefer that the human race was wiped out, but until then, I’ll stick with the real economists and the HDI.
http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/indices/about_hdi.cfm
Clearly Stephen has been eating drunken pelicans. My personal opinion is that I doubt the international recognition of the US is anything to be joyous about. While I do think those are important considerations that you point out, if they are to be included, then a country’s foreign policy (ie reasons to engage in war) and domestic policy (ie environmental) must also be considered.
I think the meat here is that the joy of day to day life of the average citizen is related to emphasis placed on consumerism and social status as core values.