Happy crappy

It turns out that Vanuatu is the happiest place on Earth, not Iceland!

In fact my beloved fatherland, for all its self-glorification, scores pretty bad on this new happiness scale, which takes into account not only perceived human happiness but also how efficiently we use Earth's resources. On that scale, we come in at nr. 54 out of 178. The good news here: There is a LOT of room for improvement.

Among the countries that are better than we at efficiently converting their natural resources into happiness and prosperity are China (!!!), Nepal, Bangladesh, Tadjikistan and Cuba. Hundreds of new, old-fashioned and extremely polluting coal power plants are being constructed every year in China. These plants produce enough soot to make cities on the West Coast of the USA worry about impending pollution. Still, China scores higher than we.

But wait, don't WE, the Icelanders, live in the most pristine and wonderful country on Earth? Aren't we saving the world from global warming by building Kárahnjúkavirkjun and damming every river, stream and creek for aluminum production and, maybe, oil refineries? Doesn't the global society see what an Enormous favour we are doing to everyone on this planet when we drown our unique sub-arctic ecosystems for an international aluminum giant??

We don't even have unemployment. We're idiots.