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News South Africa

South Africans are a grumpy bunch

The 2012 Happy Planet Index portrayed a gloomy picture of the life-outlook of South Africa, Times Live says. The index, released last week, placed South Africa 142nd of 151 countries on experience of wellbeing (happiness), life expectancy (health) and ecological footprint.

South Africa's embattled northern neighbour, Zimbabwe fairs better - being in 115th position, with Ethiopia 94th. Botswana occupies the bottom ranking.

The Happy Planet Charter has been endorsed by leading environmentalists, economists and politicians ahead of this week's UN Earth Summit. Topping the happiness index is Costa Rica, followed by Vietnam and Colombia in third place. The US (105), Russia (122), UK (41), Germany (46), Japan (45) and France (50) did not do so well either.

Nic Marks, of the New Economics Foundation, the creator of the index, said: "The index measures what really matters - long and happy lives now and the potential for good lives in the future." Foundation senior researcher Saamah Abdalla said that countries such as Costa Rica outrank the UK - and other bigger countries - because their inhabitants "live long and happy lives using a fraction of the planet's resources."

According to Times Live, South Africa scored 52.8 on life expectancy, 4.7 on experience of wellbeing, 2.6 on ecological footprint and its index score is 28.2.

Read the full article on .
for more info on Happy Planet Index, go to www.happyplanetindex.org.

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