3234. Americans Are Among the Most Stressed People in the World, Poll Finds

 By Niraj Chokshi, The New York Times, April 25, 2019

Americans are among the most stressed people in the world, according to a new survey. And that’s just the start of it.

Last year, Americans reported feeling stress, anger and worry at the highest levels in a decade, according to the survey, part of an annual Gallup poll of more than 150,000 people around the world, released on Thursday.

“What really stood out for the U.S. is the increase in the negative experiences,” said Julie Ray, Gallup’s managing editor for world news. “This was kind of a surprise to us when we saw the numbers head in this direction.”

For the annual poll, started in 2005, Gallup asks individuals about whether they have experienced a handful of positive or negative feelings the day before being interviewed. The data on Americans is based on responses from more than 1,000 adults.

In the United States, about 55 percent of adults said they had experienced stress during “a lot of the day” prior, compared with just 35 percent globally. Statistically, that put the country on par with Greece, which had led the rankings on stress since 2012.

About 45 percent of the Americans surveyed said they had felt “a lot” of worry the day before, compared with a global average of 39 percent. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who reported feeling “a lot” of anger the day before being interviewed was the same as the global average: 22 percent.

When Gallup investigated the responses more closely, it found that being under 50, earning a low income and having a dim view of President Trump’s job performance were correlated with negative experiences among adults in the United States.

But there still isn’t enough data to say for sure whether any of those factors were behind the feelings of stress, worry and anger.

The findings were not all bleak for the United States. Despite having widespread negative experiences, Americans also generally reported more positive experiences, on average, than the rest of the world did.

Globally, just 49 percent of those interviewed said they had learned or had done something interesting the day before. In the United States, however, 64 percent of adults said the same.

The two sets of questions, about negative and positive experiences, are unconnected, according to Ms. Ray. An individual can, for example, feel both stressed and well-rested for much of a given day.

“If you think about how you felt yesterday, you didn’t just feel one way the entire day,” she said.

Negative experiences were assessed by asking about physical pain, worry, sadness, stress and anger. Positive experiences were measured by asking whether individuals felt well-rested, felt treated with respect, smiled or laughed, learned or did something interesting and felt enjoyment.

The margin of error in the poll ranged from 2.1 to 5.3 percentage points, depending on the country. The results for the United States, where interviews were conducted from Aug. 13 to Sept. 30, had a margin of error of four percentage points.

Negative experiences remained at record highs
Worldwide, negative experiences were just as widespread last year as in 2017, which was the darkest year for humanity in more than a decade, according to Gallup. While stress declined globally, anger increased. Worry and sadness reached new heights, and feelings of physical pain were unchanged.

For the first time, Chad topped the list as the country with the highest response of negative experiences in the world.

“The country’s overall score at least partly reflects the violence, displacement and the collapse of basic services in parts of Chad that have affected thousands of families,” Gallup said in the report.

Additional countries that led the world in negative experiences included other African nations, like Niger and Sierra Leone, and some in the Middle East, such as Iraq and Iran.

Nations in Latin America once again led the list of countries where positive experiences were highest, despite the fact that some of the countries that topped the list, like El Salvador and Honduras, are home to some of the world’s highest murder rates.

1829. Book Announcement: Big World Small Planet: Abundance within Planetary Boundaries

By Stockholm Resilience Centre, April 28, 2015

As a sequel to their 2012 book, "The Human Quest: Prospering Within Planetary Boundaries", Centre Director Johan Rockström and National Geographic fotographer and senior fellow Mattias Klum have launched "Big World Small Planet: Abundance within Planetary Boundaries".

The book, which was launched at the Swedish embassy in London in April 2015, describes a world full of possibilities even though "humanity has in just two generations overwhelmed Earth’s capacity to continue supporting our world in a stable way".

"We have gone from being a small world on a big planet to a big world on a small planet. Now Earth is responding with environmental shocks to the global economy. This is a great turning point. Our home is changing, and our future depends on what we do next," they write.

A new positive narrative

Talking about what to do next, the book argues that the world needs a new narrative about the links between human development and the environment. This is a story of new opportunities for humanity to thrive on the planet by using ingenuity, core values, and humanism to become wise stewards of nature and the entire planet.

"The dominant narrative until now has been about infinite material growth on a finite planet, assuming that Earth and nature have an endless capacity to take abuse without punching back. That narrative held up as long as we inhabited a relatively small world on a relatively big planet. But that is no longer the case," write Rockström and Klum.

Predicament, prosperity and possibilities
The book is divided into three parts. The first summarizes the urgent predicament of massive human impacts on the planet whereas the second part makes the case for a new way of thinking about prosperity, justice and happiness on a sustainable planet.

In the third part Rockström and Klum go into practical solutions to the biggest challenges facing humanity, such as feeding nine billion people and powering tomorrow’s economies in sustainable ways.

Combining stunning photography and recent insights from sustainability science they argue that the tools to do what’s required already exist. Using humanity’s intelligence, creativity, and technological know-how can reverse the negative trends.

It is possible to feed nine billion people without destroying our forests and deliver power to our economies without burning fossil fuels, they conclude.

The book’s positive tone is based on a firm belief that humanity has an incredible ability to overcome even the most daunting of challenges. 

Once people understand the risks of continuing along the current path, they will search for creative and profitable alternatives, write Rockström and Klum.

"That is how innovation works. The planetary boundaries will help. By defining thresholds and a maximum allowable use of resources, ecosystems, and the climate, we can trigger a new wave of sustainable technological inventions thanks to an abundance of ideas and solutions for human prosperity and planetary stability."

Brain and heart
Recognizing that human actions are now threatening to trigger tipping points that could knock the planet out of its stable state, Rockström and Klum urge for bold political action during 2015. This is the most important year in decades for crucial environmental decisions, they write. The UN will adopt new Sustainable Development Goals and world leaders will meet in Paris later in the year to hopefully forge a new globally binding climate deal.

The authors suggest a new development paradigm: "Abundance within planetary boundaries". 

It is not about growth without limits. Not limits to growth, but development within limits. This, however, requires a deep mind-shift and new ways to communicate scientific insights. Such a mind-shift for genuine change cannot, however, be reached through numbers alone, they argue. It has to come from both the heart and the brain.

"As a photographer and a scientist, respectively, Mattias and I travelled in different worlds. I always thought it was a scientist’s job to appeal to the rationality of others. But it was becoming painfully clear to me how naive it was to assume that, just because the facts were on the table, people would not make the right decisions," says Johan Rockström.