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July 4, 2009 By Fausta

Happy Planet: Cuba’s the 7th happiest country in the world

Via Memeorandum, an article in the Guardian’s “ethical living” category:

Costa Rica is world’s greenest, happiest country
Latin American nation tops index ranking countries by ecological footprint and happiness of their citizens

Costa Rica is indeed a lovely place, even when Mel Zelaya wasn’t all that happy about being sent there, so I was curious about the rest of the top-10 countries, which are rated

The HPI measures how much of the Earth’s resources nations use and how long and happy a life their citizens enjoy as a result. First calculated in 2006, the second edition adds data on almost all the world’s countries and now covers 99% of the world’s population.

NEF says the HPI is a much better way of looking the success of countries than through standard measures of economic growth. The HPI shows, for example, that fast-growing economies such as the US, China and India were all greener and happier 20 years ago than they are today.

“The HPI suggests that the path we have been following is, without exception, unable to deliver all three goals: high life satisfaction, high life expectancy and ‘one-planet living’,” says Saamah Abdallah, NEF researcher and the report’s lead author. “Instead we need a new development model that delivers good lives that don’t cost the Earth for all.”

Looking at the list, here are the top-15:

  1. Costa Rica
  2. Dominican Republic
  3. Jamaica
  4. Guatemala
  5. Vietnam
  6. Colombia
  7. Cuba
  8. El Salvador
  9. Brazil
  10. Honduras
  11. Nicaragua
  12. Egypt
  13. Saudi Arabia
  14. Phillipines
  15. Argentina

Contrast that with the Freedom Index:

  1. Hong Kong
  2. Singapore
  3. Australia
  4. Ireland
  5. New Zealand
  6. United States
  7. Canada
  8. Denmark
  9. Switzerland
  10. United Kingdom
  11. Chile
  12. Netherlands
  13. Estonia
  14. Iceland
  15. Luxenburg

Not much in common between those two, but I assure you I would rather live here than in, say, Saudi Arabia. How politically-incorrect of me.

Cuba is #177 in the Freedom Index, third from the bottom, just slightly ahead of Zimbabwe and North Korea.  To understand why, check out The Cuba Archive and then read through Yoani Sanchez’s posts at Generation Y.

It’s not going to be happy reading.

UPDATE, Sunday 5 July
Gateway Pundit has a picture of happiness.

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Filed Under: environment, Fausta's blog, idiocy Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Happy Planet Index

Comments

  1. Jim says

    July 4, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    Vietnam at #5? Hmmm…when working in Vietnam a few years back I seem to remember lots of Roman Catholics (who were sent to ‘re-education camps’ merely for being Roman Catholic) who were rather keen to leave Vietnam.

    Happy Planet Inc, thanks for the laugh.

  2. nora says

    July 4, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    My dear Fausta,
    I love you and your blog. As a proud Mexican Jewish woman who lived, briefly, in Costa Rica, I can say that the US is so far superior in almost every respect that it is ridiculous to assert such a thing
    Let’s see, how many on the list are countries filled with people who would do almost anything to come here? I realize that you and most of your readers could not buy into such nonsense. What an onslaught!

  3. James Walsh says

    July 4, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    I’m having difficulty understanding what the Economic Freedom index has to do with measuring happiness and ecological footprint. They are two different measurement scales — why are you seeking to compare and contrast them? Are you trying to say that one measurement scale is better than the other? If so, then wouldn’t it be more constructive to comment on the factors that go into each scale?

    Also, whether you choose to live wherever-it-is-that-you-live, or in Saudia Arabia, how does that have anything to do with political correctness?

    The clarity of your arguments leave a lot to be desired.

  4. GM Roper says

    July 4, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    My darlin’ woman, how dare you trounce the idiocies of the left, don’t you know that they’ll soon be sticking pins in a doll of you?

    I went to the HPI site, my goodness, the crazies really have been allowed to flourish haven’t they?

  5. Pat Patterson says

    July 4, 2009 at 9:35 pm

    All of a sudden I can’t get that damned Disneyland song out of my consciousness. It really is a small world. And I know that the comrades toiling in the rice or sugar fields of Cuba are heartened that their standard of living is some 40% less than before the Revolution but they are much happier now. And they rise heroically facing the future and begin chanting, “We’re #7, we’re #7!”

  6. Phillep Harding says

    July 4, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    So, why do I suspect the “happiest” countries all fall in the bottom 25% of the least free?

    “Happy” slaves just a singing in the cotton fields. “Yessuh, I happy. The man with the whip tell me so.”

  7. Gringo says

    July 4, 2009 at 11:10 pm

    Happy Planet. Several points.
    1) In how many of those countries would you feel safe drinking the water?
    IMHO, here are some countries in the definitely not category: Guatemala, Honduras. I got the trots from Colombian drinking water, but that was 30 years ago and I will assume the water there is now better.
    2) Re being ecologically good. In Guatemala I have seen fields covered with plastic bag detritus. I worked on an oil well in Argentina that used oil-based drilling fluid. This oil-based drilling fluid would have been safely disposed of in the US, to make sure that the oil-based fluid did not leak into the groundwater. In Argentina, the oil base drilling fluid was thrown into a pit that leached into the soil, contaminating the groundwater for eons.
    3) I find it comical that Saudi Arabia is on the list, given that its economy is based on extraction of a nonrenewable resource, and that they also mine water.
    4) The countries on the list definitely have some incredibly beautiful environments, as does the US.
    Happy: Argentina: definitely not. Round the clock complainers. Te lo juro.
    Happy Cuba: they love to get on their boats, no?

    This list is sumamente jodido.

  8. Gringo says

    July 4, 2009 at 11:16 pm

    James Walsh:

    Also, whether you choose to live wherever-it-is-that-you-live, or in Saudia Arabia, how does that have anything to do with political correctness?

    The clarity of your arguments leave a lot to be desired.

    Perhaps you can get THIS through your head: Cuba and Saudi Arabia are definitely unfree countries, yet one list claims they are very happy countries. Are you unable to see the contradiction? Or do you believe that happiness is increased by a lack of freedom?

  9. James Walsh says

    July 5, 2009 at 1:07 am

    Re: Gringo

    I would tend to agree with you that personal freedom in both Cuba and Saudi Arabia are both lacking, and to me, that is an important factor in considering how to measure happiness. However, the problem is that Fausta cites the Freedom Index, which in no way measures personal freedom. It only measures economic freedom. I would hardly call Hong Kong (China, for crying out loud) and Singapore much better from a personal freedom perspective than Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

    As I said before, the clarity of the argument leaves a lot to be desired. There is a lot in the methodology of the HPI which I think could be criticized much more constructively.

  10. Jim says

    July 5, 2009 at 5:17 am

    “I would hardly call Hong Kong (China, for crying out loud) and Singapore much better from a personal freedom perspective than Cuba and Saudi Arabia.”

    This is satire, right? I mean, no one who’s sane and grounded in reality or has actually visited Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, and Singapore could be this mind-numbingly blind?

    Wait, I answered my own question…

    For starters, Hong Kong and Singapore are light years ahead of Saudi Arabia in most measurable categories, especially personal freedom. For example, women in HK and Singapore can vote, drive unaccompanied without a man, walk in public without being force to wear a bag, have equal opportunities for education and career, equal protection under the law, just to name a few issues. In case you hadn’t noticed, Hong Kong was the only place in China where one could legally protest the Tienanmen massacre over 20 years ago without being arrested.

    Of course, perhaps I’m overlooked the part where HK and Singapore are lashing rape victims, banning other religions other than Islam, killing converts, and trying people for witchcraft?

  11. Babs says

    July 5, 2009 at 10:00 am

    So Costa Rica is a happy place. Well, they have the United States to take care of them if anything happens as they told me. They do not need their military base. How lovely? What about the poor people in the adjoining countries who “work” for them. Those people did not look happy to me. Also, I believe it is a beautiful place, but my friend from Honduras says our country is just as beautiful if not more so than Costa Rica. Can they do something about their sewer problem? Can they get by with out charging tourist to leave their country at the airport? Oh, my, and San Jose has a rainbow, and what else? Is it romantic or anything? Let us redirect to the other beautiful and poor countries in central America. Do you purchase coffee, flowers, or bananas from Costa Rica? Maybe not, I think they are shipped to German, or maybe someone else who does not like the United States. Let us investigate more.

  12. Derek Wall says

    July 5, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Costa Rica is obviously doing something right and it is nice to see an economic index that views ecology seriously rather than dismissing them.

    However there seem to be some serious problems, I would have thought that it would be difficult to find a worse place for human rights than Saudi Arabia.

    I am a little doubtful about Colombia as well http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2009/07/colombia-6143-in-happy-planet-index.html

  13. Badger says

    July 5, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    UK is 10th? Considering that they have a rate in violent crimes even higher than South Africa I wonder who creates such lists.

    But the top 15 list from Happy Planet has to be a late April’s fool joke. I’m surprised they’re not listing North Korea.

    “The HPI measures how much of the Earth’s resources nations use and how long and happy a life their citizens enjoy as a result.” The British have a word for that: bollocks

  14. Gringo says

    July 5, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    Re James Walsh’s claim that Hong Kong and Singapore are “hardly less better” than Cuba regarding freedom. Consider freedom of travel, for one thing. No comparison. Consider the freedom of obtaining access to the Internet, which obviously Mr. Walsh and I enjoy. From World Bank Development tables, last I checked, Cuba ranked around 171 st out of 210 in Internet access per capita, even lower than Haiti. By comparison,in the 1950s, Cuba ranked FIFTH IN THE WORLD in TV sets per capita.

    http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/ca/cuba/asce/cuba8/30smith.pdf

  15. William says

    July 5, 2009 at 10:52 pm

    having spent the bulk of my working career in 8 of your top 10 countries – it would seem that lack of doctors and potable water, couple with a sporadic power grid equates to ‘quality of life” –
    it’s laughable.

  16. Michael says

    July 6, 2009 at 9:01 am

    No wonder the Philippines is in the top 14.Today the Philippines has fastest-growing economy.Alot of buildings and businesses here.So for sure in 2010 that most faster ever.I love my country.

  17. Michael says

    July 6, 2009 at 9:03 am

    People here are happy and keep planting trees to help our mother earth.

  18. cheeflo says

    July 6, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    I wonder how they gathered the data? Likely the governments furnished it — I suppose if I had a gun to my head while being asked if I was happy, I would say “yes, I’m happy,” rather than what I was actually thinking.

  19. jay says

    July 6, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    but that is your OPINION just because you think that you could not be happy in Saudi Arabia does not mean that it is a leap to think that the majority of ppl are happy living there.

  20. Jim says

    July 6, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    “but that is your OPINION just because you think that you could not be happy in Saudi Arabia does not mean that it is a leap to think that the majority of ppl are happy living there.”

    Well, I suppose if I were a misogynistic, homophobic totalitarian totally opposed to free speech, gender equality, equal protection under the law, alcohol, bacon, music, tolerance for others, and dogs then Saudi Arabia would make me happy too…

    Who knew truth was relative?

  21. Nonoy says

    July 6, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    People of the world, bless you all!!
    Its nice reading this result of the survey. I believe its true. Probably, we can decipher that money and power is not the source of all the happiness. Compare the happiest places which seems to be poor counties to the freedom index list who i assume has a lot of money and power. And, its really difficult to understand the result of the survey especiallly that your gauge is your present situation and culture. And, especially if you are already contented with your current situation. Remember, the survey was based on the totality not on a specific situation. Let us go deeper and see what we can benefit and learn from the survey.

  22. Cloudbuster says

    July 7, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    “Let us go deeper and see what we can benefit and learn from the survey.”

    OK, looking deeper, we can learn that the survey is ridiculous and was devised by leftist propagandists.

  23. Saudi arabian says

    July 9, 2009 at 11:16 am

    I think there some exaggeration to put my country Saudi Arabia in 13th because people in KSA are not satisfy with Government, they let their nation die and they send humanitarian aids to other countries to show the world they’re helping people while their citizens are starving
    f*ck to king Abdullah
    f*ck to MOHE
    the freedom is being waiting for nothing

  24. Lil moe Mohammad says

    July 9, 2009 at 11:54 am

    Hey my name is mohammad and i’m from saudi arabia i was reading this thing and it dragged my attention so i just wanted to say that KSA it aint no happy country and i will never be . We got problems with the government and no freedom at all . women don’t have no rights . people are treated like crap . and if you are really rich you’ll live the happy life and not because KSA got oil and that supposed to mean that everybody is rich and happy no you are wrong think again . Not everybody are rich and most of the people there are poor and only the royal family who has the happy life ..

    Thanx

  25. Derek Wall says

    July 10, 2009 at 4:15 am

    Saudi Arabia is an excellent example of why Hugo Chavez is so popular with Venezuelan voters and so unpopular with the elite in Venezuela.

  26. estonia gay says

    July 30, 2009 at 5:25 am

    You should see how gays are treated in the baltics..!

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