Internet Resources
- Can Happiness Save the Environment?To some people it might seem like happiness and environment are unrelated, but more decision makers are approaching environmental and economic issues with the goal of improving society’s well-being and happiness. In the past few years there have been notable efforts by economists and policymakers to use the metric of happiness as a tool toward better rulemaking.
- Environments for Happiness: An OverviewThis year the World Happiness Report focuses especially on the environment – social, urban, and natural.
- Is Pursuing Happiness Bad for the Environment?New research suggests that happier countries tend to consume in a more environmentally sustainable way.
- “Our environment is a factor influencing happiness. And the environment is designable”An interview with Juan Carlos Baumgartner, the architect looking to build happiness.
Journals & Reference Materials (Log in Required)
- Happiness is greater in natural environmentsLinks between wellbeing and environmental factors are of interest in health, psychology, economics, and more widely. There is some evidence, albeit limited, that green or natural environments are positive for physical and mental health and wellbeing. We present a new and unique primary research study exploring the relationship between momentary subjective wellbeing (SWB) and individuals’ immediate environment within the UK.
- Children and the Physical Environment: Credo ReferenceBronfenbrenner's bioecological theory of child development provides the framework for this chapter. We present research that examines the role of the home environment in children's cognitive and socioemotional development. The child's experience in the home is a product of the child's abilities and personality, the opportunities to engage in meaningful interactions with objects and people in the home, and the physical characteristics of the home. It is this system, identified by Bronfenbrenner as a microsystem, of interactions that guide child development. Physical environmental attributes related to child developmental outcomes are crowding, privacy, noise, and housing quality.
Perspectives
The Geography of Bliss
Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of un-unhappiness.
Street of Eternal Happiness
An unforgettable portrait of individuals who hope, struggle, and grow along a single street cutting through the heart of China's most exhilarating metropolis, from one of the most acclaimed broadcast journalists reporting on China today. Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies. There's Zhao, whose path from factory floor to shopkeeper is sidetracked by her desperate measures to ensure a better future for her sons.
Happy People: A Year in the Taiga
Visionary director Werner Herzog takes viewers on yet another unforgettable journey into remote and extreme natural landscapes in HAPPY PEOPLE. A visually stunning documentary about the people living in the heart of the Siberian Taiga.
Deep in the wilderness, far away from civilization, 300 people inhabit the small village of Bakhtia at the river Yenisei. There are only two ways to reach this outpost: by helicopter or boat. There's no telephone, running water or medical aid, The locals, whose daily routines have barely changed over the last centuries, live according to their own values and cultural traditions.
With insightful commentary written and narrated by Herzog, HAPPY PEOPLE follows one of the Siberian trappers through all four seasons of the year to tell the story of a culture virtually untouched by modernity.
Source: Kanopy