How often do you cook a meal from scratch? For 11% of British people, the answer is never. But subsisting entirely on processed food and ready meals is not only bad for your health, it is also bad for the planet. It makes little sense financially, either: it is cheaper to create a meal using whole foods and fresh ingredients than it is to buy a substandard supermarket version. Eating well shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for the well-off, everyone can do it: it is part of the Economics of … [Read more...]
Averting the apocalypse: lessons from Costa Rica
Earlier this summer, a paper published in the journal Nature captured headlines with a rather bleak forecast. Our chances of keeping global warming below the 2C danger threshold are very, very small: only about 5%. The reason, according to the paper’s authors, is that the cuts we’re making to greenhouse gas emissions are being cancelled out by economic growth. In the coming decades, we’ll be able to reduce the carbon intensity of the global economy by about 1.9% per year, if we make heavy … [Read more...]
An Economy of Meaning – or Bust
It’s not often that a scientist gets to use the words love, creativity, and wisdom in a paper, especially when writing about economics. Perhaps that’s because economics, the dismal science, is obsessed with dismal systems – make that abysmal systems, relative to need. To be clear, I’m not speaking of the specific policies of the US, the EU, China, the World Bank or others. I’m speaking of dominant economic systems as wholes – especially their underlying conceptual models (macro and micro) and … [Read more...]
Globalization and the American Dream
“... America is a new kind of society that produces a new kind of human being. That human being – confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future-oriented – is a vast improvement over the wretched, servile, fatalistic and intolerant human being that traditional societies have always produced.” — Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great About America Editor's note, October 31, 2018: This post has been updated to reflect the most recent statistics on child and adolescent mental health issues; school … [Read more...]
Globalization and Terror
For people in the modern world, there may be nothing more difficult to comprehend than the group calling itself the Islamic State, or ISIS. The beheadings, rapes, and other acts of cruelty seem beyond understanding, as does the wanton destruction of priceless ancient monuments. Perhaps most mystifying of all is the way ISIS has been able to recruit young men — and even some young women — from the industralized West, particularly Europe: the conventional wisdom is that the cure for ethnic and … [Read more...]
Mental Health and Globalization: An Alternative Theory on the Mental Health Crisis
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society." – Jiddu Krishnamurti I have a secret that I usually keep locked up inside of myself, hidden from even those who know me well: I suffer from depression. At times it is a deep, bottomless depression, an intense loneliness, serious end-of-the-world-thoughts depression. … [Read more...]
Big Picture Activism
This piece is excerpted from Localization: Essential Steps to an Economics of Happiness, a new publication from Local Futures. Despite the countless grassroots projects already under way, the global economic juggernaut can seem too powerful to stop. But because more and more of us are becoming aware of how disastrous the global economy is for people and the planet, I believe that the chances for meaningful change are greater today than ever before. The environmental costs of the … [Read more...]
22 Ways to Foster an Economics of Happiness
Transition Sarasota, Florida, recently screened the Economics of Happiness. While there were other aspects of the event, the following article (which can be viewed in full here) was undoubtedly in-part inspired by the screening. The following ideas were generated by the more than 85 people who participated in the World Cafe discussion that was part of the Economics of Happiness Summit + Launch of the Common Wealth Time Bank on September 3rd. We hope they will inspire and challenge you to make … [Read more...]
What a Month: The Economics of Happiness Conference
This is reflection of The Economics of Happiness Conference was written by Emily Zionts, who attended the conference. Her entry here is taken from the Woolman blog. Woolman is an education community in California which offers a semester-long, progressive, experiential courses in environmental science, peace studies, and global issues. One year ago, I stumbled upon a documentary called, “The Economics of Happiness” and have been showing it to each semester ever since. The two-part film is … [Read more...]
Bhutan leads the world to a new economy of happiness
Next week Bhutan will host a high level conference at the United Nations in New York with the hope of placing happiness, rather than growth, at the heart of the economy. By Jo Confino from guardian.co.uk on March 29. Helena Norberg-Hodge, the founder of ISEC and co-director of "The Economics of Happiness" will be attending the meeting in New York. Read the full article here We have seen the power of disruptive technologies and companies, but are we now witnessing the birth of disruptive … [Read more...]