"Then it is dark; a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains." - John Cheever

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

UK 108th in new ‘Happy Planet Index’

A new global measure of progress, the ‘Happy Planet Index’, reveals for the first time that happiness doesn’t have to cost the Earth. It shows that people can live long, happy lives without using more than their fair share of the Earth’s resources. The new international ranking of the environmental impact and well-being reveals a very different picture of the wealth, and poverty, of nations, says the New Economics Foundation.

[Btw, I can no longer post to this blog using the 'blog this' button on Google toolbar, and when I try to add comments they generally don't work either. Any ideas why? I'm using Firefox, but did recently allow a bunch of MS security updates, which might be responsible.]

6 comments:

Tom said...

Interesting, but not such a surprise - there seems to have been a lot of research in the last few years all pointing to the same conclusion: i.e. that a wealthy society is by no means a happy one. In a similar vein, though temporal rather than spatial, I recall that NEF did some work showing that the UK was at its happiest in 1976, when GDP was about half what it is now.

Col said...

I was happier in 1976. But I was 4.

John said...

Who's coming up for the festival next month? (I think) Seumas is going to visit chez Main sometime in August...

Tom said...

Unlikely I'm afraid - number 2 son due in a week, so it's going to be hard to get away. We've also moved house (Stoke Newington). That's the thing about communicating through a blog - you tend to concentrate on the big stuff and neglect domestic trivia.

John said...

flipping flip. nice one tom!

Col said...

I'll be in Scotland from 12th to 26th Aug. Mostly cycling/walking in the hills, but will be in Edinburgh at some point and would love to hook up. When're you going to be up Seumas?