Happy Planet Index

Quote "The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered. This website introduces a measure of something more fundamental. It addresses the relative success or failure of countries in supporting good life for their citizens, whilst repecting the environmental resource limits upon which our lives depend. " (end-quote)

Now where would a developed country like US should stand on Happiness Index ? Top 10, or 50, ... no, at 150 ! (yes, at one hundred fifty ), now that compared to developing countries like Mexico at 38, China at 31, India at 61, Cuba at 6 (?). Now if that seems surreal, and doesn't feel right ! you should spend sometime on this http://www.happyplanetindex.org/introduction.htm.

Ofcourse, the rankings are not that important, but interesting is that this seem to highlight an important takeaway that "Happiness doesn't always necessarily correlate directly to the Wealth". I like their published global manifest as quoted from the nef website

Global Manifest of Top 10 list for a happier plant :

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Increasing social disparity systematically undermines opportunities for people in extreme poverty to build good lives for themselves and their families. There is an urgent need to redesign our global systems to more equitably distribute the things people rely on for their day-to-day livelihoods, for example: income, and access to land, food and other resources.
2. Improve healthcare.
The World Health Organization estimates that everyone in the world could be provided with a good level of basic healthcare for just $43 per person, per year.
3. Relieve debt.
4. Shift values. value systems that emphasise individualism and material consumption are detrimental to well-being,
5. Support meaningful lives.
6. Empower people and promote good governance.
7. Identify environmental limits and design economic policy to work within them.
8. Design systems for sustainable consumption and production.
9. Work to tackle climate change.
10. Measure what matters.

Surprise ?? As recent economist survey points out, the emerging world now accounts for over half of global economic output, measured in purchasing-power parity (which allows for lower prices in poorer countries). Many economists prefer to measure GDP using current exchange rates (which put the emerging world's proportion closer to 30%). But even on this basis the newcomers accounted for well over half of the growth in global output last year. And a barrage of statistics shows economic power shifting away from the “developed” economies (basically North America, western Europe, Japan and Australasia) towards emerging ones, especially in Asia. Developing countries chew up over half of the world's energy and hold most of its foreign-exchange reserves. Their share of exports has jumped from 20% in 1970 to 43% today. And, although Africa still lags behind, the growth is fairly broadly spread: they may be the most talked about, yet Brazil, Russia, India and China account for only two-fifths of emerging-world output....

Interesting Perpsective - not necessarily I agree with !!

Development should mean more than survival

....... Those who truly believe in development should be guided by a simple maxim: Only what is good enough for us in the developed world will do for those in the developing world. We have access to cars, clean water, electricity, the internet, roads and telephones, and so should they. Everyone should enjoy the benefits of living in a modern industrialised economy.

This is the only realistic way to deal with the scourge of 'natural disasters' such as the tsunami, and other problems linked to economic scarcity. Life is about more than mere survival......

----
Daniel Ben-Ami is the author of Cowardly Capitalism: The Myth of the Global Financial Casino, John Wiley and Sons, 2001

http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA883.htm

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Though I agree with the above article that the basic infrastucture is absolutely essential for development, but what that relevant infrastructure should be is not to be necessarily guided by what has worked well elsewhere. This typical bi-polarization of world into developed or developing is immature, and going so far is to say that we should have a world that look exactly same as west is preposterous !!

Did UN respond to my post ??

DEVELOPMENT GOALS NOT UTOPIAN, BUT EMINENTLY ACHIEVABLE, SECRETARY-GENERAL

SAYS AT LAUNCH OF MILLENNIUM PROJECT REPORT

......
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9678.doc.htm

New report to UN proposes solutions to problems of world poverty

The report is recommending that rich countries double their investments in poor countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving extreme poverty by 2015 and going beyond to eliminate it by 2025.
....

Fact : As of now (2005 Jan), more than one billion of the world's six billion people live on less that $1 day, and 2.7 billion live on less than $2 a day.

Low-income countries need investments of $70 to $80 per head per year from 2006, rising to $120 to $160 per year in 2015, it says, adding that many middle-income countries could fund those investments themselves, given adequate debt relief and appropriate, specialized technical assistance.

(source : United Nations, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13063&Cr=millennium&Cr1=development)
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Great ! these are noble ideas and interests !! and wonder which of the s0-called rich countries are willing to donate to the cause of the poor. We had seen the struggles or I would call the "sick disaster politics" of Tsunami Aid about the contributions made by rich countries.

This is the utopian socialist dream.

I haven't read the 3000 pages in all but what bothers me is that this doesnot recognize the fact that living happily or progression of human society doesn't necessarily have to focus primarily on whether an average citizen is earning 1 or 1million a day. If that would have been the case the generations gone-by were mostly bankrupt and totally underdeveloped because probably a majority couldn't make buck a day in current monetary terms.

Development is not to be measured in monetary terms.. because the value or price of anything in this world is purely derived out of the created fictitious demand, and not necessarily its intrinsic worth.

So it is not to be assumed that a person in a so-called poor country not making a buck a day is on the lower rungs of development, as compared to that guy making a milli0n a day, because you can't measure the happiness or self-dignity or complacency etc etc., that the poor individual carries which could probably be a million times worth intrinsically than what the rich guy has.

This is because I believe there are thousand other factors that are crucial to development or the quality of life that are not in anyway direct proportional to the money or wealth, nor can be directly bought with wealth.

With my own assessment comes what practically I have seen in India, since my childhood. The cost of living or the earning potential or the average income levels has gone up probably 5-10 times if not more in the last 10 yrs, but the lack of moral values or drive towards the material wealth is degenerating the society to such levels that I cannot call that as development or progressing towards the right direction, especially when compared to what my grandfathers or fathers had.

Yes, my father earned more than my grand pa, and I earn much more that my father, but unforutnately I don't think that makes us the most happiest of all the generations, as we continue to be drawn towards artifical, material needs and forget about the basic purpose of life or why we exist?.