"The 178-nation "Happy Planet Index" lists the south Pacific island of Vanuatu as the happiest nation on the planet, while the UK is ranked 108th.
The index is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than national economic wealth measurements such as GDP. "
The calculation of the index is rather simplistic:
| HPI = | Life satisfaction x Life expectancy |
| | |
Ecological Footprint |
and favors long-lived idiots. It completely ignores achievement or success. It appears to me that the index is specifically designed to rank western cultures near the bottom (the US is 150th, Russia 172nd, and the UK falls lower than Lybia) while favoring small, isolated subsistance cultures in highly productive climates such as top-ranked Vanuatu (not to imply that Vanuatu is just a bunch of subsistance farmers, but they aren't far above that).
This index deliberately penalizes resource usage in an absolutely negative way (global area is divided by population, so any culture that uses more per capita than that average is ranked lower). Cultures that exist in highly productive climates are given an artificial bonus because they naturally require less land than the naive global average ( global-area/global-population) figure.
A better method would be to determine the area required for minimal subsistance for each locality. More land is required to support a person in the Siberian tundra than in the Brazilian rain forest, so it doesn't make sense to penalize people living in Siberia for using more land to support themselves.
Unsustainable overconsumption should be penalized, so when total global consumption exceeds total global productivity (as it does now, natural resources are being consumed more quickly than they are being produced) localities that use more land area than required to subsist in their locality can be penalized at a rate dependent on the average over-consumption.
This allows a locality to consume resources greater than subsistance level penalty-free as long as total global consumption is sustainable. When consumption exceeds sustainable levels localities with the greatest consumption over subsistance in their locality receive the highest penality.
By such a measure the USA would still fall pretty far down on the list as a result of our over-consumption, but tropical subsistance cultures would drop as well, as a result of loosing their bonus for using less land than the global average.
There are additional complexities that are difficult to track. For example, the top country is an island that depends on tourism from and goods and technology developed by countries at the bottom of the list (the USA, china, etc). Without the over-consumption of these countries it is possible that the happiness level or ecological footprint of the country would be affected.
There is also no consideration given to the stability or survivability of a culture. One might call this the 'happiness stability' of a culture. While the inhabitants of a south pacific atoll might be ecstatically happy with absolutely minimal resource consumption, they may also be hugely impacted by the first typhoon or tsunami that comes along. If they are like most cultures this would likely affect their happiness level.
Better technology (which requires more resources) can increase the happiness stability of a culture by providing the tools necessary to deal with catastrophy in relative comfort and to quickly provide relief to other areas in times of need.
Since global disasters are likely in the future (large earthquakes, supervolcanos, asteroid strikes, global climate change) species-wide happiness stability would ultimately be maximized by increasing the self-sufficent populations on other planets. This is not a level of stability achievable by a low-technology culture.
So while the index provides a short-term measure of happiness, it doesn't reflect the fact that technology is necessary to provide sustainable happiness and that improving technology requires consumption of resources.
The message the New Economics Foundation is trying to send is clear and correct, we need to focus on reducing needless consumption. However, the analysis they've provided is so flawed that not only is it useless, if it were widely accepted as the definition of successful happiness it would be severely damaging to humanity (unless of course one subscribes to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement).
