Blog posts on progress - January 2011

From Wikiprogress.org

January 2011

• The well-being economics debate continues… (Beyond Green 27.01.2011)

A new film, The Economics of Happiness by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick & John Page puts a new spin on the wellbeing economics debate by looking through the lens of localism.

• How do you measure progress? Say it in a 3 minute video (Moving Images, Moving People 27.01.2011)

How do you measure progress? Count simply the economic growth numbers? Or something more? Are people in richer countries necessarily happier? If not, what’s the key to real progress that makes people better economically, environmentally and socially?

• Our Nation's Gap in Child Wellbeing- a look at the state ranked 5th (Stop the Storm 26.01.2011)

KIDS COUNT overall rank – Massachusetts now ranks #5 in the nation on overall indicators of child well-being. When this report was created In April 2001 the state ranked in the top 10%, yet, according to this 216 page report the problems in the state fall exactly along the lines the United Nations reported in their 2010 report card on child well-being among the globe’s 24 richest nations with the United States having nearly the widest gap between rich and poor.

• GDP not the key to happiness (Sustainable Scotland 26.01.2011)

Public bodies and NGOs, including Forward Scotland (now Future Balance), Friends of the Earth, WWF, Oxfam, RSPB, Scottish Wildlife Trust, and the Scottish Human Rights Commission, unanimously condemn the use of GDP as the primary indicator of prosperity.

• The 2011 Quality of Life Index: The 10 best countries (A View From England Blog 26.01.2011)

The Quality of Life Index results for 2011 via International Living magazine.The countries are chosen by calculating scores using these nine categories: Cost of living, culture, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and climate.

• Happiness and Data- Somerville's Well-Being Survey (ResiStat 25.01.2011)

We here at SomerStat/ResiStat have been working on a city-wide survey of well being, which will ask some unique questions about happiness.

• Measuring happiness- The GNH (The Examiner 23.01.2011)

The concept of happiness has long been debated. Are there things that actually make us happy? Or is it an attitude or perspective that comes from within?

• Quality of Life Index 2011 ranks Ukraine 73rd among 192 countries (It's Ukraine 23.01.2011)

192 countries ranked and rated to reveal the Best Places to Live. Established at the beginning of each year by Irish magazine International Living, the Quality of Life Index 2011 ranked Ukraine 73d internationally, a slot it shares with South Africa, Botswana, Tunisia, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Namibia, as well as Trinidad and Tobago.

• Introducing Gross Domestic Happiness (a contender to replace GDP) (Justin Beach 22.01.2011)

Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) may be the alternative we need to the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

• The Data is in, More Money = More Happiness (Center for Global Development 18-01-2011)

According to Richard Easterlin, counterintuitively, wealth beyond a certain amount does not make us happier, as once we've achieved a reasonable degree of financial security, our basic needs are met and sense of well-being does not continue to improve with greater income. Justin Wolfers debunks this stating that "the world really is as simple as the rest of us thought all along... rich people are happier than poor people." Wolfers applies these finding to his call for greater economic development of poor countries.

• In search of general wellbeing (Progress Online 13.01.2011)

Challenges lie in store for the government's otherwise welcome drive to measure happiness. Greater consumption is now known not to be the answer, but neither is encouraging a fraught atmosphere in times of austerity.

• Study Finds People are Returning to Previous Happiness Levels Despite Less Income and Wealth (Minyanville 11.01.2011)

Don't believe the Corporatocracy hype: despite lower incomes and wealth, the lower velocity life is leading to richer life experiences and, ultimately, the same level of happiness as before. At least that's part of the findings in a paper recently published by Yew-Kwang Ng, of the Dept. of Economics at Monash University.

• Wealth, Economics and the Attainment of Happiness (Go Articles 11.01.2011)

As 2010 draws to a close, we could safely argue that it has been another economically perplexing year for Australia and the world at large.

• Tim Brodhead - Becoming Visible 2011 - Dethroning the GDP (Al Etmanski 11.01.2011)

Tim Brodhead is one of Canada's intellectual leaders and most accomplished activists. He is also President and CEO of the JW McConnell Family Foundation and co-founder of Social Innovation Generation (SiG). Here is his response to the question: What would you like to become more visible in 2011? You can also Download Becoming Visible - the complete collection of 58 essays including Tim's.

• The Pursuit of Happiness (The Philosophers Eye 11.01.2011)

David Cameron has recently announced and, due to widespread scepticism, defended the coalition government’s decision to introduce a national £2m government funded ‘happiness-index’, to gauge the happiness of the British people.

• Jews Score Highest On "Well-Being" Survey (The Huffington Post 08.01.2011)

American Jews scored the highest of any religious group on a "well-being" index even though more than half of Jews are nonreligious, according to a new Gallup survey.

• The Pursuit of Happiness. America, live up to the ideals of your Declaration of Independence (Open Education 06.01.2011)

Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, put the pursuit of happiness as one of the unalienable rights for human beings, on a par with life and liberty.

• Job Growth, Environmental Well-Being Tied to Biotechnology Advancement (Environmental Leader 05.01.2011)

Prospects for adoption of a national Renewable Portfolio Standard appear to have dimmed for the foreseeable future. That is at least the prevailing opinion among respondents to the recent BIO/Biofuels Digest “11 Hot Trends for 2011” survey. Fully 41 percent of respondents predicted that Congress would not bring up a new energy bill in 2011.

• Wellbeing index- Smile please. Happiness is the new GDP -Prime minister acts on pledge to find out what makes the nation content... How happy are you? (Behavioral Health Central 04.01.2011)

In 1991, the author Michael Frayn wrote a book, A Landing on the Sun, about a British prime minister who tasked his advisers with looking into happiness and what the government could do to promote it. The prize proved elusive, the adviser went mad and died.

• The Happy Planet Index (Slow Food 05.01.2011)

We are now beginning to talk about happiness and well-being in their proper sense, and not in the material terms we are accustomed to using. The idea of measuring the levels of happiness in different countries was developed by Nic Marks, a researcher at the NEF (The New Economic Foundation) in London with a degree in management, a passion for statistics, human psychology and the environment.

References

See also

For blog posts on progress prior to 2011, see:

• The Community Portal Archive

External links