Green Options » contentment http://greenoptions.com/tag/contentment Posts tagged 'contentment' Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:40:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Personal Happiness and the Environment: A Sustainability Connection http://sustainablog.org/2009/07/08/personal-happiness-and-the-environment-a-sustainability-connection/ http://sustainablog.org/2009/07/08/personal-happiness-and-the-environment-a-sustainability-connection/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:40:10 +0000 Zachary Shahan http://sustainablog.org/2009/07/08/personal-happiness-and-the-environment-a-sustainability-connection/
In previous posts, I discussed the “Sustainability Prism”, the link between personal happiness and the economy, and the link between personal happiness and equity. In this post, I am exploring one more connection in this prism — the connection between personal happiness and the environment.

A common awareness all over the world now is that a major problem causing worldwide pollution, loss of natural lands, and extinction of species is overconsumption in the United States, and the developed world, in general. What is at the root of this overconsumption? Is it cheap production, and technology ‘improvements’ allowing for mass-production? Is it television and superb advertising of products? Is it the greed of rich and comfortable people?

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]]> http://sustainablog.org/2009/07/08/personal-happiness-and-the-environment-a-sustainability-connection/feed/ Personal Happiness and the Economy: A Sustainability Link http://sustainablog.org/2009/04/17/personal-happiness-and-the-economy-a-sustainability-link/ http://sustainablog.org/2009/04/17/personal-happiness-and-the-economy-a-sustainability-link/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:14:24 +0000 Zachary Shahan http://sustainablog.org/2009/04/17/personal-happiness-and-the-economy-a-sustainability-link/ In my previous post, I brought up the sustainability prism and the link between personal happiness or peace and the other three, traditional components of sustainability theory — economy, equity, and ecology. In this article, I explore the link between personal happiness and the economy in greater depth. Of course, this is just a taste of the full connection between the two since there are enough layers here to write a book on it all, but here is a start and there is plenty of comment space below!

Economy is at the forefront of society’s consciousness these days. It is always a, if not the, major societal issue for most people. With the current economic crisis, it has stepped up even another level of importance. We all have to wonder, these days, if we will be able to return to the affluence of just one or two decades ago, or, if, on the other hand, the whole economic system of America, and the world that depends on it, will collapse as a house of sand built on a thin board of wood on the ocean’s waves.

We can look to the specific failures of banks and immoral business practices to explain all of this. But these failures, and much more, were built on much more widespread and much less questioned norms than these.

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