The Economics of Happiness
One of our greatest disappointments in developing the Cascadia Scorecard was our inability to include a measurement of northwesterners' own sense of satisfaction with their lives and communities. The cost of gathering such data, and the technical challenges of reliable measurement, proved prohibitive. Someday!
But in recent years, academic research on happiness has exploded, bringing the day closer when it'll be possible to track Cascadia's happiness quotient. The implications of doing so would be profound, even revolutionary, according to a group of leading researchers who spoke recently at a Brookings Institution panel in Washington, DC. (Short summary here; full proceedings and papers available here.)
In essence, they argue, as a society, we've been scratching in the wrong place. We've been trying to maximize GNP instead of gross national happiness.
A few highlights, to entice you into reading further:
Americans' inflation-adjusted income is three times that of their grandparents, yet Americans are no more satisfied with their lives now. In fact, young people suffer more stress and depression.
Fire at Will
British Columbia may be in for another summer of forest fires. Similarly, forests in the western United States also appear headed for another season of fires, the fruit of an ongoing drought. Fire, which is often beneficial to the forest ecosystem, can give rise to extensive salvage logging, which isn't.
Officials in the province point out that people are responsible for 292 of the 323 fires that BC has already experienced this year. But people may be responsible in a less obvious way too. Climate scientists, like those at the US Environmental Protection Agency, have long worried that global warming may increase the risk of forest fires in certain places.
