February 3rd, 2012
The Economics of Happiness
an interview with Helena Norberg-Hodge
Author and filmmaker Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of ISEC. A pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than thirty years. She is a widely respected analyst of the impact of the global economy on identity, community and local economies, and is a leading proponent of ‘localization,’ or decentralization, as a means of countering those impacts.
Since 1975, she has worked with the people of Ladakh, or “Little Tibet,” to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values. Trained as a linguist, she was the first Westerner in recent times to master the Ladakhi language, and co-produced the first Ladakhi-English dictionary. Her book, “Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh” has been described as “an inspirational classic,” and sold almost half a million copies. She is on the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, and is a co-founder of both the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Eco-village Network.
Helena speaks with Joanna about the pressure of globalization on traditional cultures, … the relationship between beautiful, healthy and sustainable, … local communities and economies as a sustainable alternative to global consumer culture, … the connection path of community and nature, … and her latest film as co-director: “The Economics of Happiness”…
Music: “Part 8” (from Salzau. Music on the Water) by Danielsson/Dell/Landgren
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Graham Hill, a serial Designpreneur, holds a degree as a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University in Ottawa and has also studied Product Design at Emily Carr in Vancouver. In 1995, with his cousin, he grew (and later sold) the web-developer SiteWerks to 60 people, doing work for clients such as Microsoft. In 2003 he founded both TreeHugger.com and a ceramic cup business (WeAreHappyToServeYou.com). TreeHugger later became part of Discovery’s Planet Green initiative and is where Hill currently places his efforts. Past business ventures include fashion, viral email and plant-based air filters. Hill speaks English, French, German and Spanish and loves kitesurfing, squash and snowboarding. From his New York home, Hill schemes daily about how he can help humanity avoid rapid extinction.
Ben Hewitt is a best-selling author and farmer whose book The Town That Food Saved, published by Chelsea Green publishing, chronicles a rural Vermont town’s attempts to implement a local food system. Hewitt speaks frequently on the subjects of regionalized agriculture, relocalizing economies, and reframing America’s values to promote positive change and a durable prosperity that is not dependent on extractive industry. With his wife and two sons, he operates a diversified 40-acre livestock, dairy, berry, and vegetable farm in Northern Vermont. He lives in a self-built, off-the-grid home that is powered by wind and solar energy. To help offset his renewable energy footprint, Ben drives a really big truck.
Zev Friedman grew up in Sylva, NC and received his B.S. in Human Ecology from UNCA. Zev’s specialty is forest agriculture; he now runs the Forest Cuisine Project, which helps land owners to start forest farms and to market their products. He is particularly passionate about assisting landowners in setting up mushroom farming operations and in using fungi as remediators for damaged environments. Zev also specializes in urban permaculture design and installation, including many private residences, as well as consulting on the design of the Mars Hill town hall and grounds; he is an active member and teacher in Transition Asheville, helping to plan for Asheville’s future as an abundant, self-reliant city in the age of petroleum decline.
Kari Fulton is an award winning Climate Justice advocate and new media journalist. Fulton works to amplify the voice and concerns of communities most impacted by Climate Change and Environmental Injustice. Through her work she connects local and global grassroots movements and supports youth leaders in becoming long-term environmental advocates. She is the Co-founder of ChecktheWeather.TV and the Interim-Director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative. Fulton is a native of Denver, Colorado, a proud alumna of the Howard University, and a resident of Washington, DC.
Laurie David is an environmentalist, author and a producer of the 2006 Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. She also executive produced the HBO documentary Too Hot NOT to Handle and the TBS comedy special Earth to America!. Over the past decade, Laurie has produced many projects to shed light on the issue of global climate change – including the bestselling Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You! and co-authoring The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, written for kids of all ages and published in eleven languages. Her newest book is The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time: an inspirational, practical—and, of course, green — guide to the most important hour in your family’s day, dinnertime.
Beatrice Achieng Nas is a Ugandan Womens’ rights grassroots leader, and a citizen journalist with World Pulse - a global media and communication network devoted to giving women a global voice. Beatrice is touring the USA in October 2011.
Malathy Drew is a healer, teacher and a social media innovator. Malathy was recently honored by Fast Company Magazine as the ’23 Most Influential Person in the Online World’. Her vision of ‘Cultivating Global Healing, One Soul at a Time’ has became “WE (Whispering Energy Collaboration)”: heart-centered networking.
For 25 years Mark Winne was the Executive Director of the Hartford Food System, a private non-profit agency that works on food and hunger issues in the Hartford, Connecticut area. During his tenure with HFS, Mark organized community self-help food projects that assisted the city’s lower income and elderly residents. Mark’s work with the Food System included the development of a commercial hydroponic greenhouse, Connecticut’s Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, several farmers’ markets, a 20-acre community supported agriculture farm, food and nutrition education programs, and a neighborhood supermarket.
Nora Bateson is a media producer and educator. Her work includes documentaries, multimedia productions, magazine columns, and developing curriculum for elementary and high school students. Central to all her pursuits is the idea of utilizing media and storytelling to encourage cultural understanding, social justice, and environmental awareness. Ms. Bateson has a steadfast dedication to the possibilities of human evolution, starting with encouraging young children to see the interrelatedness of the natural world with that of the “human-made” world using all media.
Camille Adair brings with her more than twenty years of experience in the healing arts, workshop facilitation, hospice and health care. She is an active member of the hospice and palliative health care community, having served as a hospice nurse, educator and professional consultant. She is a pioneer in the field of sustainable health care, integrating medicine with the intimacy of the human experience.
Dr. Jamie K. Reaser is a practitioner and teacher of ecopsychology, nature-based spirituality, and various approaches to expanding human consciousness, as well as a conservation ecologist, poet, writer, artist, and homesteader-in-progress. She has extensive training in leadership development, communications, conflict transformation, dream work, ceremonial design, wilderness rites-of-passage, and group facilitation, and has studied traditional knowledge and healing practices with community and indigenous leaders from around the world.
Antwi Akom founded the Wangari Maathai Center for Economic, Educational and Environmental Design in 2010, an organization that harnesses the expertise and imagination of leading academics, community leaders, and decision-makers to address policy and planning issues like energy, education, waste, water, advanced manufacturing, and design. The WMC’s most recent project is “Greening the Educational Industrial Complex” which is pioneering “Green STEM” curricular pathways that combine art and social media with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to create college and career pathways in environmental and clean energy fields for low-income and vulnerable youth. In 2009, Dr. Akom co-founded the Environmental Sustainability Planning Network (ESPN), a national learning network that drafts local and regional climate action plans to reduce carbon emissions, secure land tenure, improve economic opportunities, build infrastructure, and improve environmental health. The culmination of this work will be a Climate Justice Youth Bill of Rights to be unveiled on Earth day 2012.
Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute
