The Happy Planet Index map
Establishing what makes a happy place without spiritual or mystic tones is actually an arduous undertaking. Scholars from the New Economics Foundation, a think and do tank for the new economy, as they rather provocatively define themselves, have attempted it, launching the Happy Planet Index in summer 2006.
The criteria for measuring happiness taken into consideration by the British analysts cross-reference the life span with the level of satisfaction in the local population in comparison with the standard of living on the basis of nationwide surveys. The result is then compared against a parameter known as the "ecological footprint," meaning the environmental price, which is expressed in the number of hectares of agricultural land used to maintain each person.
The result is that the happiest nation in the world is the island of Vanuatu, situated in the Pacific Ocean with total surface area of just 14.000 square kilometres. Even those most favourable towards this new field of scientific exploration recognise that they are dealing with what is, in fact, a fairly indefinite and arbitrary concept. Indeed the island of Vanuatu is followed by a series of South American and Caribbean places generally to be found at the bottom of any traditional list.
Nevertheless, one good thing about the Happy Planet Index is that it point out how to produce a level of satisfaction of their citizens, western countries destroy a disproportionate quantity of natural resources, so much so, that in order to make everyone “be fine,” two or three planet Earths would be necessary.
(16/06/2006)
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