GinnyS
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Homepage: http://gnhusa.org
Posts by GinnyS
Happily Back to the Future
Sep 4th
Have you noticed how many of the steps people are taking to adjust to economic hard times and to live more sustainably are going back to earlier times? A lot of these actions involve more elbow grease but less fuel oil, less money — and, more satisfaction.
Take for example a lovely segment broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition on September 2nd all about the joys of canning locally grown fruits and vegetables. As Linda Wertheimer describes the various recipes and treats, and you hear the sounds of canning in the background, it’s all quite delicious! A treat for all our senses.
In a GNH world, I imagine policies — government, community-based, and within a family — that would support the teaching of growing and preserving our own food. I know I’m trying to learn, bit by bit, but still find canning intimidating. Perhaps we should start teaching this in elementary school?
Anyway, for your listening pleasure, here’s the NPR link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129402166
We’re All in This Together
Aug 20th
Yesterday, I read this email alert from 350.org. Our well-being, our happiness includes ALL of us, worldwide, on our one precious planet. Bill McKibben’s words spoke to me. I hope they reach you, as well:
“Dear Friends,
Sometimes ‘climate change’ can seem like an abstraction. That is, until you see it in action, as we have this summer in Pakistan, in the mountains of China, in Ladakh, and in the overheated peat bogs of central Russia.
This is all part of the reality we face in our current world of 392 ppm CO2. Our main work is to try and slow down the climate crisis before it gets worse–by getting to work on climate solutions that can get us back to 350.
But working to create a safe climate future doesn’t mean we don’t need to try and help the victims of the climate crisis along the way. When our comrades and colleagues issue a call for assistance, we do everything we can to respond.
The recent floods in Pakistan have displaced 20 million people, and nearly a fifth of the country is literally underwater. The scale of the suffering is difficult to fathom–and though relief efforts are underway, reports from the ground indicate that the response has been far too small and slow to provide the level of relief needed.
That’s why we hope you’ll take a moment to send some money off to the relief agencies and local groups dealing with the recent climate disasters:
All of the countries recently devastated by the floods, mudslides, and heatwaves were hugely active in the International Day of Climate Action last October 24 (check out the photos below) and they’re all planning events for 10/10/10: the Global Work Party. It’s both tragic and inspiring to see the pictures of a fifth of Pakistan underwater–and in those same areas see amazing events registered 10/10/10.
In the face of a changing climate, we hope you’ll send some money to the victims of climate disasters–and that you’ll keep working in your community to build this movement.
Many thanks,
Bill McKibben for the 350.org Team”
Two sides of the happiness coin
Aug 13th
Two articles in The New York Times this week vividly illustrate the two sides of the Gross National Happiness coin. Call “heads,” and you can stare long and hard into oncoming environmental disaster; crumbling infrastructures coast-to-coast; and a shocking and increasing gap between the wealthy and everyone else — all symptoms of the urgent need for a new policy making paradigm. Ie, a GNH approach.
But flip the coin to “tails,” and you can revel in the many, many ways our lives can be enriched through our own personal GNH prisms: spending time in a more fulfilling way with loved ones (or even alone, in contemplation); buying locally grown foods in the wonderfully social farmers markets; or breaking our addiction to “stuff” that ends up weighing us down emotionally and financially. As we move forward in these rapidly changing times, we can actually choose happiness. Amazing.
On August 8th, The NYT showed us the dark side with a very sobering commentary by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman entitled, “America Goes Dark.” What is happening to the country now, when policies are made based on monetary gain for some versus the well-being of a few? Krugman writes of an “antigovernment campaign” that “has reached fruition” — putting at risk “services that everyone except the very rich need, services that the government will provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole. So the end result of the long campaign against government is that we’ve taken a disastrously wrong turn. America is now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere.” Here’s the link for the full column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09krugman.html
On the other hand, on August 7th, The Times published a lengthy account of ways stepping off the consumer treadmill can actually make us happier (surprise, surprise!). Entitled, “But Will It make You Happy?” the story by Stephanie Rosenbloom focuses on a young Portland, Oregon couple that did some major downsizing — including the decision to go car-free. (They have bikes.)
The article observes that “Amid week job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades …” The article goes on, “the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier.”
Rosenbloom’s story is full of gems for each of us to ponder in our own lives. I highly recommend reading it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me
“HAPPI” News From South Africa
Aug 7th
Part of what made the GNH conference in Vermont so special were our international guests, including Talita Greyling, an economics lecturer from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Talita presented a well-received paper on the well being of refugees in Johannesburg, and was an enthusiastic participant throughout the conference.
Now she sends word of an exciting new development: Talita and others are in the process of establishing HAPPI (Help Africa’s People Prosper Institute) based on GNH principles. They aspire to change South Africa. Right now, they are waiting for the final registration of the company, but so far HAPPI is getting an enthusiastic reception from the media, professors, and others. Talita believes the momentum is there in South Africa to back happiness – they just need to finalize the details.
Talita writes, “It is amazing that people from different continents can have so many dreams in common – and that these dreams unite us …
Together we will make the world a better place.”
Amen to that.
Happy in Seattle
Jul 3rd
On this Fourth of July weekend, I am so happy to note that more and more of us are taking the pursuit of happiness — for us and our planet! — quite seriously. I don’t think that’s an oxymoron, either. Why shouldn’t we be serious about happiness?
Last weekend, GNHUSA leading light Tom Barefoot was at a conference in Boston, along with the incomparable Susan Andrews from Brazil. They spoke with lots of people from all over the United States who were very excited about getting GNH efforts started up in their regions. The word is spreading. Yay!!
One area that’s seen a lot of activity is Seattle. The Seattle GNH contingent’s activities has been a special meeting with the city council to establish Seattle as the nation’s first “Gross National Happiness City.” That’s just once slice of their happiness pie. Here’s more:
Inspiring, educational TED talk
Jun 24th
This takes 17 minutes to watch, but if you click on this link, I’m pretty sure you’ll end up feeling like you just used your time wisely for 17 very good minutes. An clear, uplifting and down-to-earth talk about Gross National Happiness, from a business perspective and personal perspective:
www.ted.com/talks/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html
Let’s get practical
Jun 22nd
For many people, it’s easy to grasp the principles of Gross National Happiness on an intellectual basis but harder to visualize what that might mean in practical terms.
Here in Vermont — where jobs come from tourism and farming, where we cherish our local environment to the extent that billboards are banned, and where we are rapidly embracing the localvore movement — one program recently came to light that seems a GNH no brainer.
That program was started by Hans Estrin, a young science teacher in Putney, Vermont. Distressed about how little local food was being served in the school’s cafeteria, he took steps to change that equation. (See the full article at http://www.reformer.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?articleId=15281797&siteId=510).
Using a GNH prism, this program is a clear winner — it promotes the well being of children, farmers, the environment, and those who make their living in the tourist industry. Plus, it’s good food!
For me, the question then becomes, what policies should be enacted at all levels to support local food in our public schools? What should parents and the schools do? How about local, state and federal government entities? There is the challenge and the opportunity of GNH.
What programs do you know about, in Vermont or elsewhere, that provide a good illustration of the GNH paradigm? We’d love to know about them!
John de Graaf’s GNH Conference Report
Jun 20th
Here’s John’s blog:
- Wednesday, Jun 16th, 2010 originally in CSRwire
Vermont Hosts First U.S. Gross National Happiness Conference
What happens when 120 people get together to talk about Gross National Happiness?
By John de Graaf
Recently, I read two well-written books. Both Barbara Ehrenreich’s BRIGHT-SIDED and Chris Hedges’ EMPIRE OF ILLUSION, challenge the inherent optimism of Americans, showing how it keeps them from a critical analysis of our failings and unable to defend themselves against corporate predation. Each book devotes a chapter to a scathing attack on the new science of “happiness,” seeing it only as a self-help deception meant to persuade American workers to cheerfully and docilely accept their oppression.
I wish Ehrenreich and Hedges could have joined the 120 people who attended the first Gross National Happiness (GNH) Conference held in the United States, from June first to third in Burlington, Vermont.
Speaker after speaker suggested that happiness was to be found not in our devotion to an ever-expanding consumer society, but in understanding that the best things in life aren’t things. All agreed that building community, sharing wealth and caring for each other are far more likely to lead to satisfied lives than the individualist ethic of American hyper-capitalism.
Here are a few of the highlights of the conference, as I saw them:
The keynote speaker was Karma Tshiteem, the Commissioner of Happiness for Bhutan, where the goal of “Gross National Happiness” is enshrined in the Constitution. He offered a fascinating look at how GNH indicators influence government policy there. Major policies are subjected to “screening tools” that assess 23 indicators of happiness (eg. Work-life balance, Income distribution, Stress). When the issue of Bhutan’s joining the World Trade Organization was judged in this way it failed, though initially government leaders had been strongly in favor.
Ron Colman, who developed Canada’s Genuine Progress Indicator and is now advising the government of Bhutan, described the new system of national accounts in Bhutan — the world’s first — that subtracts costs of resource loss and other externalities from the its national income. In the U.S., most of the enormous costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe will actually be added to GDP!
Colman explained how the concept of GNH is also being used in the education of Bhutanese children, “so they will not be trapped by the lure of materialism. Young people are bombarded with western images of success.” Colman says GNH education includes critical thinking about products — where do they come from, where do they go? Children are shown a can of Coke and ask to consider where everything in it comes from, what the impact of drinking it is on their health, where the water is obtained, for example.
The show stealer was Susan Andrews, an American now living in Brazil, who runs a demonstration eco-village and education center. Andrews showed a video depicting how Brazil is using GNH surveys in cities, schools, universities and businesses. She teaches happiness skills to young students in the slums or favelas and finds the process effective in reducing violence. Her enthusiasm and dedication were inspiring and she received a standing ovation.
I talked with Susan at the airport in Burlington before flying home to Seattle. Her hopefulness about GNH was tempered by a deep sadness about the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and by a feeling that much of the happiness movement doesn’t understand how important it is to challenge corporate power and inequality if we are to create happy societies.
I agree, and see some threats to the happiness movement on the horizon. Consider two new books by Arthur Brooks, the President of the American Enterprise Institute. One is called GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS. The other is called THE BATTLE.
In these books, ideology trumps science. Brooks contends that the happiest countries are those with the least government and lowest taxes. Happiness researchers have found pretty much the opposite. Northern European countries with high tax rates actually rank at the top in happiness surveys. Denmark is number One.
Line Kikkenborg Christensen, a young Danish graduate student who attended the conference, explained why. The Danes’ strong social safety net, including excellent free health care and higher education and unemployment insurance mean they feel less need to get the highest paying jobs, regardless of whether or not the work is satisfying. “I feel secure for me and for my children, so I can follow my passion,” she declared.
Arthur Brooks wants to nip such ideas in the bud, hijacking the science of happiness for conservative goals. He uses a handful of questionable studies in the way climate change skeptics do, to undermine the preponderance of research. He claims that inequality does not matter, for example, and that social safety nets actually reduce happiness by reducing personal initiative.
The evidence, marshaled clearly, in Burlington, shows that Brooks is wrong and that happy societies are those that share wealth, reduce work-time, consume carefully and take good care of the environment. The movement for Gross National Happiness is part of a movement for a more just America. The first GNH conference in Burlington was a great start in that direction.
About John de Graaf
JOHN DE GRAAF is a documentary filmmaker and the Executive Director of Take Back Your Time. He is the co-author of AFFLUENZA: THE ALL-CONSUMING EPIDEMIC. His most recent film is WHAT’S THE ECONOMY FOR, ANYWAY? He teaches occasionally at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and lives in Seattle.
Readers: What’s your “talkback” on the science of happiness? Does happiness depend on the individual or on the social environment? Share your thoughts!
We the People, Part 2
Jun 15th
The opening keynote speaker on the first morning of the GNH conference in Vermont was Karma Tshiteem, Secretary of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Commission. Karma was asked by Susan Andrews(Founder of the Future Vision Institute in Brazil and keynote speaker on day 2 of the conference) what was needed for change away from GDP and toward GNH. His response: “The leverage for change is getting the people organized.”
The people. That’s you. And me. And our friends and their friends, on and on, rippling out to create a desperately needed movement for the well-being of this planet and all who live here.
Speaker after speaker made the same point, from Ron Coleman (Executive Director of GPI Atlantic in Canada), who stressed that the people are “very important,” to Con Hogan (former Secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Human Services), who said it will take “all of us” to push for these changes.
Yet, up till now, the voice of the people has been missing. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke gives a graduation speech urging Americans to look beyond material wealth for their happiness (see the May 9th blog on this website); former Harvard President Derek releases a new book, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being; and The New York Times publishes a ground-breaking article on “The Rise and Fall of GDP” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16GDP-t.html) — all informative, all important, and all inspiring.
But these are the experts, the elite. They can’t do this alone. It is time to add our voices. The Ambassador Training Day on June 4th was a beginning — just a drop in the bucket, of course, but all movements have to start somewhere!
What can you do? For starters, tell your friends, family and associates about this website. Share your comments — let’s get a conversation started! Join our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=145375412018) and chime in with your own posts and comments. Follow us on Twitter. There are no doubt an infinite number of actions each of us can take — what can you do?
We the people really must dive in their and define our 21st Century pursuit of happiness. Are you game?
Dragon Tales
Jun 10th
Sonam Ongmo, a Bhutanese writer living in New York City, drove to Vermont for our GNH conference last week. Here’s her insightful, amusing, and spot-on report from her blog, “Dragon Tales” (http://www.sonamongmo.com/2010/06/gross-national-happiness-not-so-fuzzy.html):
Gross National Happiness, a BS conference for Hippies and retarded Libs?
Driving up to Vermont for the Gross National Happiness (GNH/USA) conference, my friend Karen and I joked about what to expect from it. “I packed my birkenstocks but I forgot to bring white socks,” I said. She laughed and told me she really didn’t know what to expect, whether it was going to be talk only about learning from Bhutan or something more, ” but I think I’m going to love it!”
As we pulled into down-town Burlington a car with New Jersey plates that said “Zen” popped up in front of us, “Oh he’s definitely going to this conference,” she said and we both laughed again.
We probably sounded nothing different from those who were posting comments on Burlington FreePress.com in response to the article :”Burlington conference to discuss Gross National Happiness”
One said: “Another BS conference about nothing. Figure the useless whackjobs on the left have a hand in it.”
Another said: ‘Bhutan’s current king has called for “an enlightened society in which happiness and well-being of all people and sentient beings is the ultimate purpose of governance.”
Happiness and well-being are two things the .gov can’t provide to anyone.’
And yet another wrote : “This was part of the vision that inspired six Vermonters to travel to Bhutan in November 2008 to attend the fourth International Gross National Happiness Conference.”
I have a better idea. They should move there instead, and take some of the leisure class with them. I’ll donate a ticket or two as well… I guess this is the official “Kum-by-ah” conference for burned out hippies and retarded libs and progs.
Findings based on years of research, facts and figures
But sorry to say, there was a difference between their comments and ours. Not only do I really wear birkenstocks (sometimes with white socks), I am not unfamiliar to GNH either. After all I come from the country that gave birth to its concept. And Karen? She may be American but she has been to Bhutan twice and is working on a film on GNH. Yet, it seemed like we too had certain misconceptions about it; that this was going to be something fuzzy.
To those, including myself, who thought this was going to be nothing but a gathering of idealists or “burned out hippies” or “retarded libs”let me tell you this – the conference provided nothing but concrete evidence and facts based on years and years of scientific research, about how the “developed” countries, largely the west, is embarking the wrong path to development and how it is about time to reconsider that path.
After listening to speaker after speaker who asked for nothing but for governments and civil society to engage in a socially conscientious discussion about our environment and our communities; a call for reflection into what we considered “progress” and “development”, I saw nothing “retarded” about it. Instead what did seem “retarded” to me was the idea that people made no effort whatsoever to take an ounce of interest in an enlightened movement that was happening right under their noses. Karen and I had driven over 9/10 hours to Vermont and others had come from as far as California, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Singapore and South Africa. Hippies, tree-huggers, vegans, left-wing, right-wing, whatever – we GNH promoters really couldn’t care less as to what kind of person/people embrace this development philosophy. What matters is that we get people thinking. Why does everything have to be about political partisanship in this country?
Like it or not Gross National Happiness is here to stay in the U.S of A. Vermont officially launches GNH/USA
On the drive back Karen and I talked about how substantive the talks had been. I was particularly impressed that the concept of GNH had come a long way since the 70’s. At that time a 20 something year old king of a materially poor and unknown country, so tired of explaining to westerners who came to his country demanding to know what its GDP was, said that he was concerned more about GNH (Gross National Happiness) of his people rather than its GDP. Since then GNH began its journey slowly crossing borders – simply a concept and guiding philosophy at first, but increasingly becoming grounded in scientific and economic research.
At Burlington Vermont, Writers, professors, activists, academics were now proving – beyond a reasonable doubt – the flaws of GDP as an indicator in the development index. The Financial Crises, the Environmental degradation, Oil spills – it is about time to reflect upon our actions and time to realize that GDP actually considers this kind of growth is good for us.
There is a great NEED for an alternative measure (GPI – genuine progress indicator – and GNH are some). Even if GNH is not used solely as an indicator, it can be used as a guiding philosophy to a development process that can/has become bankrupt of ethical values. It is time that societies and governments stopped giving emphasis to how much is produced and consumed, and judging progress by those standards.
Karen and I said that perhaps it was in using the term “Happiness” that frightened people or made them think GNH was all loosey goosey or fuzzy wuzzy. On June 1, the Wall Street Journal even ran an article titled “Europe’s GDP envy”, mocking European countries like France and others for thinking of GNH as an alternative to the current economic measures and philosophies because their GDP’s were tanking.
Government officials and outdated Economists don’t like being associated to something so airy fairy as “happiness” (although it is what we all aspire for as individuals). What was wrong or so impossible in doing it at the collective level? Research of GNH indicators is increasingly showing that conducive environments can be created to generate individual happiness.
Maybe something like Gross National “Balance”? Karen mused. But someone at the conference hadn’t liked the term “Gross” and had requested twice in his talk that Gross be taken out of GNH for it sounded like, he said, the Grosser the economy got, the better it was supposed to become! which in essence had a ring of truth to it given the facts laid out before us. For instance GDP was not good if mothers stayed at home with kids, it went up if mothers went to work or they hired a nanny. GDP did not count volunteer services, it really didn’t take into account anything that had social benefits to a society. It only measured progress by more consumption, more production, and more waste.
But if we could live with “Gross” Domestic Product, we should be able to go with “Gross” National Happiness, one participant said. What was so gross about happiness? But whether we like the word “gross” or not, or whether you like GNH altogether or not, it is now here to stay. GNH/USA has officially been launched and taken roots in the U.S of A!!
For the person who said, “Happiness and well being may be two things that a govt. can’t provide”that may be true because Americans are so cynical about their governments, but in many other parts of the world people believe differently. As Bhutan’s Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley said: “It [a government] must try to create the right conditions, but the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.”
