Always Anna

With the sudden popularity of “green thinking,” you’ve probably been seeing articles or news casts or blog entries lately that talk about how integrating sustainability into the world will be tricky to do without disrupting the economy.  And for every media source that says that, another one pops up saying that being environmentally conscious doesn’t have to mean that the economy falls apart - it just means a change in what type of jobs and products are out there.  Personally, I fall into the latter camp.  But that said, the following questions have to come up at some point in either discussion: Does it matter if being green upsets the economy a little bit?  If so, why?  And if not, why not?

As I caught up on No Impact Man’s adventures in green living yesterday, I found an interesting post about the link between economic ”success” and happiness.  Apparently some people think that being financially successful means you have an increased level of happiness.  But I’d bet that even more people think that they aren’t necessarily related - if money can’t buy love, after all, how can it buy happiness?  Of course money makes some parts of life easier - but if you hate your job, and air pollution makes you sick, and you have no social life, how happy are you really going to be?  So, if money can’t buy happiness for an individual, who’s to say that a country with the strongest economy is going to be the happiest?

Apparently the New Economics Foundation decided to do research into these very questions, and calculated the “Happy Planet Index” (or HPI) for each country around the globe.  The measurements are based on surveys that include questions about job satisfaction, social activities, emotional and physical health, and environmental impact.  It’s a really cool way to look at happiness and see how countries compare to one another… and it’s particularly fun because there’s a quiz you can take online to see how you stack up against people around the world!

Oh, how I love online quizzes.

Overall, it turns out that I am much happier than most people in the US… but still less happy than the world average, which is due to the fact that our country has a much more negative environmental impact on the globe than most other countries. 

So… I’m off to do a little more reducing, reusing, and recycling!