Over The Counter Culture

Snippets from some astounding happiness, obesity and widowhood research. via Chris Dillow on Stumbling & Mumbling (with more findings, details on what was controlled for, and his thoughts as to whether this is true, and what it shows)

Marina-Selini Katsaiti finds that “obesity has a negative and statistically significant effect on individual well being”. She estimates that, in Germany, a three-point rise in BMI (from, say 24 to 27 – equivalent to gaining around 20 pounds for someone who’s 5’8”) reduces happiness on average by so much that it would require a 67% pay rise to compensate. In Australia it would require a doubling of income to offset the adverse effect of such a weight gain.
Now, contrast this to a new paper (pdf) by Andrew Clark and Yannis Georgellis. They show that, in the UK, men and women who have been widowed are happier in the 3-4 years after their loss than they were the year before it. Yes, their well-being slumps in the 12 months after bereavement, but it recovers thereafter.

Now, remember of course that winning the lottery will statistically do very little, if anything, to make you a happier person in the long run

How very peculiar!

The mere presence of salads on a McDonalds menu makes people more likely to consume the unhealthier food, according to a new paper published last month. Here’s the abstract:

This research examines how consumers’ food choices differ when healthy items are included in a choice set compared with when they are not available. Results demonstrate that individuals are, ironically, more likely to make indulgent food choices when a healthy item is available compared to when it is not available. The influence of the healthy item on indulgent choice is stronger for those with higher levels of self?control. Support is found for a goal?activation?based explanation for these findings, whereby the mere presence of the healthy food option vicariously fulfills nutrition?related goals and provides consumers with a license to indulge

One thing to consider, though – true or not, there’s a rumour floating around that the salads are unhealthier due to the oily dressing. Shouldn’t this have been controlled for in the study?

Original paper; Initial coverage (Matt Yglesias); More

How I wish that instead of dull sermons from the chaplain or stern slobbers from the headmaster, assembly at school had been a TED video (or better yet, a live speaker of that caliber).

What a way to start the day.

Here’s a particularly interesting one I just watched, prompting further reading and me seeking to reconnect with an entrepreneur in the electric car industry:

Shai Agassi discusses the economics of mass electric car adoption in a scheme involving removable electric batteries and universal charge points that completely rethinks the economics of running a car. You get paid if you have to change your battery more than x times a year.

I hate talking about global warming – its boring, cliche, and largely depressing, because any careful thinking about it invariably leads to the conclusion that the only true solution, if climate change models based on CO2 are correct, is a mass human extinction event, or exodus (to other planets); your child is a much greater environmental nightmare than your Hummer H2 is.

If our primary objective as a species is a global reduction in happiness and development inequalities, allowing global population growth to continue apace is totally counterproductive. And that’s a sad thought, and one that may motivate a global terrorism movement far worse than Al Qaeda.

But take a look at this graph (source: McKinsey). It estimates the cost and effectiveness of the various proposed things society can do to bring emissions down. On the left, the negative y axis values show that we save a lot of money and abate CO2 emissions, with certain strategies like insulating our houses and offices. To the right, expensive strategies. It’s clear from the graph that the real gains to be made (measured as progress along the x axis) are in this economically costly zone.

The worst part: even with all known strategies pursued, we still hit the dangerously (*according to current climate models) high levels of 450ppm by 2030.

I’d like to be able to play with the graph and generate data based on different population and oil price forecasts. Their assumptions aren’t clearly stated, disappointingly. This link offers a modest amount of skepticism regarding this graph, and highlights some further insights it gives us, alongside some auxiliary information about the bang-for-buck of different climate change prevention schemes.