You'll have to excuse me. I love to brag about my country. And when Costa Rica gets recognized in surveys and studies around the world, it helps to boost my pride.

This is actually not new news. But it's worth repeating. The report, The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don't have to cost the earth, published Saturday 4 July 2009, by nef (the new economics foundation) presents the results of the second global compilation of the Happy Planet Index (HPI). The new Index is based on improved data for 143 countries around the world, representing 99 per cent of the world's population. The report, with a foreword by the ecological economist, Herman Daly, shows that globally, we are still far from achieving good lives within the Earth's finite resource limits. And, although there are signs of hope, overall we are still heading in the wrong direction.

Interestingly, Latin America tops the Index with Costa Rica the 'greenest and happiest' country. Nine of the ten highest-scoring nations are Latin American. The full article can be read here on this page.