Two good friends: happiness and sustainability
Einstein is said to have remarked: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The new Happy Planet Index Report indicates that something like this could be driving the religion of endless growth, one of the central pillars of traditional economic thinking.
Driven by evolutionary instincts, which the writers of the Bible documented so well by letting God state ‘go forth and multiply’, western societies still have the official goal to chase the end of the rainbow. Everybody knows we have only one Earth (for the foreseeable future), and everybody who cares can find out quickly and easily, what the inevitable result of exponential growth with limited resources is. Hint: it’s not pretty.
Continuous quantitative and compounding growth is always exponential.
Glass 1, 2 and 3 of that tasty Bordeaux brings great relaxation, glass 8, 9 and 10 misery and sickness. If we grow our consumption by 1 percent every week or month, we die a horrible death.
Surprise surprise: quantity does not create happiness. Ask Michael Jackson.
Do you care about quality? Do you care about happiness? Check out the report: Happy Planet Index
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August 18th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
You can take a survey here to find out how you score on the Happiness Factor: http://survey.happyplanetindex.org/index.php