At times the world seems so screwed up that it makes one wonder if we really are living in what some religiously inclined folks refer to as the “end times.” It makes you wonder if there is any place left on Earth where a person can find contentment and happiness.

Thanks to the joint efforts of the British think-tank the New Economics Foundation and the environmentalist group Friends of the Earth, you need wonder no more. The two groups joined forces to determine which of the 178 countries they surveyed represented the happiest place on Earth, and they call the result of their survey the Happy Planet Index ( www.happyplanetindex.org/index.htm).

Their conclusion? Paradise has been found, and its name is Vanuatu.

If you’re like me, you wonder where the heck this Vanuatu is, and why you’ve never heard of it if it’s so darn great. The “where” question is easy – it’s a very small island nation in the South Pacific. But to understand why the survey awarded this obscure little country such a lofty title you need to know more about the criteria they used.

The folks behind this survey came up with a formula that balanced personal well-being (including overall satisfaction with life and life expectancy) with the impact of a person’s activities on their environment. Vanuatu came out on top because they report a generally high degree of personal satisfaction, live to nearly 70 on average, and do very little damage to their environment.

As you might have guessed, the United States didn’t fare too well in the survey. We had pretty good scores in the life expectancy and personal satisfaction categories, but we sunk like a stone when our environmental impact was figured in. We checked in at number 150 on the list, well behind countries like Cuba (6), China (31), Palestine (45) and Lebanon (83).

It may seem a bit ridiculous to see us ranked so low on a survey that measures happiness when there are so many people from higher-ranked countries beating down our doors to get in on the American dream. And I realize that many Americans will write this whole business off as another publicity stunt by environmental whackos who want to make us feel guilty about how we live.

But it might be worthwhile if we stopped to consider whether our overarching obsession with technology and material possessions is really the quickest road to happiness.

There is something to be said for the simple pleasures, for communing with nature, for living in harmony with your environment rather than constantly seeking to reshape it for your comfort and amusement.

When the book that many Americans believe to be the Word of God describes an earthly paradise, it describes a place where man lived a very natural life. There were no i-Pods, plasma TVs or Hummers in the Garden of Eden. Just a man and a woman and the world God made for them.

Somehow I think Vanuatu might be a bit closer to replicating that scenario than Los Angeles or New York City.

Maybe God knew what He was doing. Sometimes I’m pretty sure we don’t.