After meeting basic needs, incremental income adds little to well being

It can be seen, that at low levels of GNP, happiness is lacking, but once a certain level of GNP is reached, incremental income per capita adds very little to subjective well being.

 After meeting basic needs, lifestyle choices make up the majority of the difference in the GNP spectrum, and lower energy lifestyles do just about as well as high energy lifestyles

Can We Be Happy Using Less Energy? Uhhh.... YES!

Posted by nate hagens on June 21, 2007 - 7:10pm
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: happiness index, world values survey [list all tags]

Peak Oil is one of many symptoms of an ecologically full planet. Our genetically embedded drive for `more' coupled with an expanding world population of 6.5 billion mathematically suggests a finite limit for growth will eventually be reached, if it hasn't been already.
In discussions about the impacts of Peak Oil, it is sometimes implicitly assumed that we NEED to replace the energy lost from the coming liquid fuels decline with other energy sources in order to maintain our way of life and our happiness. Indeed, it seems that much of the current effort is focused on comparing/discovering the best energy alternatives with respect to EROI, environmental impact and scalability/timing. In addition, demand experts also look at efficiency, carpooling, 4 day workweek, living locally type solutions, etc. In this post, I look at Peak Oil from a broader context: the necessity and purpose of continued increases in demand for energy. What is it all for, if not to make us happy?