Nic Marks’ talk on the Happy Planet Index at TED this year. It’s a very helpful explanation of why society measures the wrong things, and what we could be doing instead. It puts forward a positive vision of the future, where we understand what a good life is. Well worth fifteen minutes of your time!
- Nic shares his perspective on giving the talk on the nef blog.
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Great talk and lots of excellent points. But I have to disagree with his early point that – in order to get people to embrace change – you have to offer them a lollipop rather than warn them about an upcoming catastrophe. Neither the lollipop crowd nor the doomsayer crowd have had much luck so far. I suspect we need both. People need to know plan A leads to hell, plan B to heaven!
Dave Gardner
Producing the non-profit documentary
GrowthBusters
Hooked on Growth
Yes, I agree that you need both. It seems to be generally assumed that environmentalists resort to scare mongering. There’s some truth to that, but there’s no shortage of positive visions too. I’d say it’s more of a media problem. The news loves a doomsday scenario, but they’re hardly likely to propagate happy visions of a healthier future.