Vanuatu is the happiness place on earth:
The tiny South Pacific Ocean archipelago of Vanuatu is the happiest country on Earth, according to a study published measuring people's wellbeing and their impact on the environment.
Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica and Panama complete the top five in the Happy Planet Index, compiled by the British think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF).
The index combines life satisfaction, life expectancy and environmental footprint -- the amount of land required to sustain the population and absorb its energy consumption.
This ranking may be bogus, for a number of reasons.
First, wouldn’t life expectancy and environmental quality already be included in measures of life satisfaction? If so, the index weights these two factors too heavily. Already, I’m skeptical that the NEF is more about economic environmentalism than environmental economics.
Second, wasn’t Vanuatu the island on Survivor, season 9? It is hard to reconcile Chris and Ami eating gruel and, basically, struggling to survive while acting like bad people in order to win $1 million (pre-tax) when they are really good people ("I promised myself I would never lie to anyone ... unless I have too in order to win $1 million") … with the happiest place on earth.
The other reasons involve a longer story. So as not to lose readers, and in a sad attempt at a self important blog “series,” I’ll trickle this out during the coming weeks, and come back to my first point towards the end.
