How can happiness help the environment?

I've always been interested in the Psycology of Happiness, what it is that makes us happy and gives us a sense of wellbeing. Living in present, noticing the little things, nurturing our relationships and being part of a community, seeing the positive and doing a bit of exercise to keep all this going or help get rid of your frustrations if you're not seeing the positive!

I'd thought about how these are the important things rather than the material possessions that you have and have gradually changed my life around a bit to make it easier to do more of these things. My mum has been out staying for the past 3 weeks and I'd been talking to her quite a bit about it too and then I came across this video, again in the great green razor newsletter from the Greenpages.

Nic Marks at TED talking about The Happy Planet.

Did you know that that Costa Rica has the same levels of wellbeing as western Countries but achieves this with 1/4 of the ecological footprint? I didn't.

• They have a life expectancy of 78.5yrs, higher than the US,
• 99% of their electricity is from renewable sources,
  
• They plan to be carbon neutral by 2021,
  
• They abolished the army in 1949 and have invested in social programs of health and education instead,
  
• and well they have a 'latin vibe' which values family and community and having fun.
  

Other latin American countries are going the same way. So our challenge is to get all countries heading this way. We need to measure progress in terms of wellbeing not economic growth, looked at like this we don't have to give anything up just to make less environmental impact, we might gain. Marks argues that it may be a way to turn around the climate sceptics, who are possibley afraid that to admit it is happenign will mean they have to reduce their lifestyle, if we look at quality of life in terms of wellbeing then they wouldn't have to.

A great video use it with our lesson Feeling Good in the Big Consumption module. We look at Bhutan and how it measures Gross National Happiness rather that GNP and students come up with policies to help achieve that in their country. Marks also talks about how government could encourage this at the end of his talk too. All in all just a great vid which might just help you feel good too! Vertainly put a smile on my face.