This is just pure silliness. You should only take this map seriously if you think youd be happier living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Angola than in the U.S. One of the sub-factors the HPI methodology uses to assess aggregate happiness is a nations Ecological Footprint. Theres nothing wrong with responsible stewardship of the environment, of course. Obviously, care for the environment is something we should all encourage. But this sub-factor is basically inversely proportional to development — which seems quite highly unlikely to be positively correlated to happiness. Allow me to provide an example from the source data. (Also note: Lower scores mean better results.) Haiti has an ecological footprint of 0.6; the Democratic Republic of the Congo has an ecological footprint of 0.8; and Angola is at 0.9. By way of contrast, the United States ranks a 7.2, Sweden is at 5.7, and evil Luxembourg is at 10.7! Silly, silly, silly!
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 01:20:34 +0000
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