DP 4 | Ending with Happy Planet Index

We already know after my previous post, how professor Easterlin established relations between human´s universal goal, happiness, and three main factors contributing to it (material level, family circumstances and health).We concluded that family and health circumstances  typically have long lasting effects on happiness, however having more money doesn´t. And I remind that Easterlin developed the above theory taking into account that countries have already met their basic needs.

In one hand, the author has tried to take into account broader concepts than Psychology studies do and he has tried to understand how those three factors affect human´s happiness. However his approach was very much in some way also close to the  Psychological side by stating that although some cirsumstances in life can increase or decrease our happiness level at a certain point in time, human beings tend to a genetic setpoint of happiness. Through an adaptation process we will more or less move back to our original baseline of happiness. So this means that permanent happiness increase or decrease won´t occur.

But my reflexion is, despite “external circumstances” (considered as 10% accountable for our happiness for the Psychological approach) such as health, only means a decrease in happiness at a certain moment, and in the case of marriage a boost in happiness for a limited time; why not focussing on this punctual boosts? when these boosts occur aren´t our happiness levels affected much more than a 10% although temporarily? At the end, aren´t these temporary boosts the ones which make up a person´s life? Isn´t life composed ultimately by happy and painful moments?

I believe, as mentioned in previous posts, that finally the term happiness is totally subjective and under one´s control, so researchers looking for  the method to increase individual´s happiness by, for example, policies, should take into account that they are adressing their efforts to a 10% of people´s happiness.  However, looking for a higher percentage of impact, I reflected on the so called intentional activities (which account for a 40% of out happiness state). This ones include social relationships, meditation, grattitude expressed, empathy capacity and changes in our thinking, but important is that they include also pusuing goals. Isn´t it here were also from outside it can be influenced ones happiness level?

As we have seen, influencing happiness from the outside is difficult and taking into account particular external measures (such as material level, family circumstance) to create an index, we are not approaching happiness and so if people feel “good” or not, but we are approaching “life satisfaction”.This last one is meant as “the way a person perceives how his or her life has been and how they feel about where it is going in the future”. This is a concept which, in my opinion, brings together the factors which are able to motivate people to pursue and reach their goals.

When we refer to the widely researched topic of  “satisfaction with life” one of the most known index that comes up is The Global HPI –Happy Planet Index.This innovative measure is shown by nef, an independent think-and-do tank where they believe in economics as if people and the planet mattered.

HPI is an efficiency measure calculating well-being delivered per unit of environmental impact. In my opinion a very interesting index measuring happy life of societies by incorporating three different indicators, in one hand ecological footprints and in the other life-satisfaction and life expectancy. Here it comes, life-satisfaction. But now, how is this measured? With the following question, as it stands in their oficial website, they measure life satisfaction:

“All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”

Responses are based on numerical scales going from 0 to 10, where the smallest grade means dissatisfaction and 10 is satisfisfaction. Plenty of researches have demonstrated that this question results in meaningful results.

The individual´s answers revealed that the level of life satisfaction in countries tend to result higher within countries where people enjoy higher levels of social capital, high levels of life expectancy, better climate, abundant natural resources, better standards of living.(NEF, 2009)

Such measure of life satisfaction and life expectancy focus on how attainable human goals are depending on the opportunities in a given society, culture or government. But the means used to achieve those goals are also a key issue to be taken into account.

This is the most interesting part, means to achieve our life goals should be sustainable, so how to address the ‘sustainable’ aspect of well-being? This method, strategic for those countries where limited resources are required to support well-being, takes as  approach the known as ecological footprint, developed by ecologists Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees.

To measure the ecological footprint of an individual/country/group of countries should be calculated by the amount of land required to reach the fulfillment of its resource requirements in addition to the amount of vegetated land surface required to absorb their CO2 emissions plus the CO2 emissions coming from the products consumed by the individual/country. This final figure is expressed in ‘global hectares’.It is important that European and global HPI do not use the same measures to calculate the ecological index.

So at the end, the HPI reflects the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed.

To conclude the HPI, as we have seen, is not an indicator of happiness accross countries, but after the many difficulties arised, this one shows the progress towards the goal of providing sustainable long-term well-being, definitely a relevant index showing our trends towards sustainability.

WEB INFORMATION

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/learn/

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