EW welcomes its first official EW Research Fellow, Michael Abrams studying Quality of Life indexes.
Michael is setting the pace for the EW Research Fellows title and collaboration platform creating a real world context for academics while deepening the impact of our programs through the application of such leading-edge social research.
Michael is a mathematics professor with a twist. His focus includes looking at the currently flawed “statistics of success” and reconsidering what kind of statistics would be used to gauge success in a sustainable world. His work centers on the diverse inquiries made to measure a society’s ‘quality of life’ (QOL), as a means of transcending the conventional approach of gaging social development by total economic output (GDP).
Michael first came into contact with EW at the International Symposium on the Digitial Earth (ISDE5) in June 5-10 in Berkeley. In his own words:
During the first day there was a session in which all conference participants were encouraged to write three outcomes that they wanted to create during the week. The first outcome I wrote about was to try to locate an organization like Empowerment Works!, an organization that would be interested in my research into Quality of LIfe indices. It was only on second-to-last day of the conference that I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Melanie during one of the “breakout sessions”. And only after we had talked a bit, and I had the chance to look at the Empowerment Works! website did I gradually realize I had found what I was looking for at ISDE5.
The Conference was extraordinary for including a bevy of notable presenters: Edgar Mitchell, Doug Engelbart, Elisabet Sahtouris, James Howard Kunstler, and Peter Russell. During the last day Melanie (EW Executive Director) and I ate lunch together at a table that included, among others, Doug Engelbart– the inventor of the computer mouse, and one of the most important technologists of the century.
Michael is currently a Course Developer and Adjunct Professor at Excelsior College, a virtual university and will start a MA in Individualized Studies program at Goddard College (Environmental Studies Concentration) in Fall 2007.
Ultimately, he intends to use his work as the basis of a textbook for a college-level course that would introduce students to the subject of ‘QOL and Its Measurement’. The Earth Charter reminds us that, “We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more.” Developing ways to practically implement such visions using statistics as tools for empowerment will be the focus of his work at Goddard College .
Bhutan for example has come up with the Gross National Happiness index as an more indigenous and environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional economic gross national product. He says that “Modern economies are built on a fundamental fallacy–the fallacy that a society’s economic growth translates into better lives for its people.”
Michael has a Master’s in Mathematical Sciences from Johns Hopkins, which he attended on a University Fellowship, and a Bachelor’s, cum laude, from Hunter College. Other awards include being a finalist in the National Merit Scholarship competition, and a participant in Argonne National Laboratory’s Undergraduate Research Program.To give us a little bit of background on his work and its relevance to EW, he offers the research below.
He believes that no one expounded on this more eloquently than Robert F. Kennedy, in a speech in 1968:
Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product … if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. “Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
Quality of Life: A Brief Webliography
Articles:
- “Reversal of Fortune” - “Our continued devotion to growth above all is, on balance, making our lives worse, both collectively and individually. Growth no longer makes most people wealthier, but instead generates inequality and insecurity. Growth is bumping up against physical limits so profound—like climate change and peak oil—that trying to keep expanding the economy may be not just impossible but also dangerous. And perhaps most surprisingly, growth no longer makes us happier.”
- “If the GDP is Up, Why is America Down?” - Gives a basic explanation of the limitations of using the GDP as a measure of progress, and of the basis for the Genuine Progress Indicator.
Websites:
- Genuine Progress Indicator - “A GPI is an attempt to measure whether or not a country’s growth, increased production of goods, and expanding services have actually resulted in the improvement of the welfare (or well-being) of the people in the country.” (Wikipedia)
- Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indices - “The Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators are a contribution to the worldwide effort to develop comprehensive statistics of national well-being that go beyond traditional macroeconomic indicators. A systems approach is used to illustrate the dynamic state of our social, economic and environmental quality of life.
- Happy Planet Index - “The Happy Planet Index is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered. It is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with human well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people live long and happy lives.”
On a clear and warm summer evening in 
