Of happiness and a sustainable feast

So a week from tomorrow will be <aaaak> Friday the thirteenth. But in the Jewish/Hebrew calendar, today is the 13th of the month of Nisan in the year 5772. As it is written: י״ג בְּנִיסָן תשע״ב Be sure to read from right to left! … there’s Biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew aka Ivrit … but both are written/read from right to left. And – thank goodness – to date, there’s no post-modern Hebrew.

To the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing in the Torah or the Tanach which would suggest that CO₂ is ever going to be a problem for the inhabitants of our planet.

On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing in either which would suggest that a body such as the United Nations (UN) would be instrumental in contributing to and/or inventing so many problems that our world is doomed unless we follow and swallow their prescriptions.

And speaking of the UN’s prescriptions … you might want to take a look at Terence Corcoran’s:

Get ready for the Rio Happiness Summit

At the United Nations on Monday, they took a major step toward a global strategy to enhance your happiness status, and the happiness of everybody else in the world. It’s the new role for governments across the planet. If the UN has its way, the state’s major objective will be to boost your sense of well-being and improve how you feel about your life.
[...]
[...] under the auspices of the Kingdom of the United Nations, the high priests of economic interventionism and wealth redistribution moved one step closer to turning Gross National Happiness into a global paradigm.

They issued a report — the World Happiness Report. They staged a conference — Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm. And they fashioned a declaration — Realizing a World of Sustainable Well-being and Happiness.

The declaration is in turn intended to become part of “a long-term reference framework” for the coming Rio +20 Earth Summit, a grand replay in June this year of Maurice Strong’s 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

At Rio +20, the UN activists hope to change the direction of world economic policy-making. Production goals and measures based on dollars and yen are out. Happiness measures are in — even though the concepts, happiness and “subjective well-being,” remain vacuous bits of quasi-religious sophistry.

[...]

Invoking poverty, inequality and climate disaster hasn’t worked in a world that wants growth, more energy and bigger refrigerators. The ’92 Rio Summit caused a lot of economic policy mayhem, but it is a fading source of authority. The carbon scare is out of steam, and environmental extremism has less influence.

The only emerging alternative is a new intellectual manoeuvre that may appeal to the average voter more than, say, inequality. Instead, the new message will be: Vote for massive government intervention to improve your happiness.

[...]

To no surprise, with [UN resolution] 65/309 as a mandate, the Monday meeting in New York produced a radical declaration calling for the overthrow of the “current economic paradigm” to take into account finite global resource limits and the emerging science of well-being and happiness.

What that means, aside from the same old nitty-gritty policies such as more government job creation, is nothing less than a “redesign of the world economy” and the overthrow of existing economic ideas to be replaced by the pursuit of happiness as defined by the United Nations, not [by] individuals.

It looks like Rio +20 will be a dangerous place to be this coming June.

Don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly impressed with the UN’s determination of what constitutes “happiness”. You might say that I’m more of a traditionalist when it comes to happiness – not to mention <gasp> scientific endeavours.

But speaking of tradition … tomorrow night, those of my tribe will begin celebrating a very sustainable feast: Passover.

 

Chag sameach Pesach to those who celebrate, and Happy Easter or Happy Stat Holiday to those who don’t.