Night in November: the global economy is tanking; the winter sky shoots ice pellets capable of sheering flesh from bone. Inside a Halifax coffee shop Ron Colman is hunkered over a mug of echinacea tea, battling a bug that threatens to derail a four-and-a-half-month journey in Bhutan, India and Scotland, sounding irrefutably-and, under the circumstances, irrationally-happy.

We're on the fringes of a Halifax university campus, but no one seems to recognize the compact, Aussie-born, former Saint Mary's University prof in the turtleneck and chinos. In the burgeoning field of the economics of happiness, though, Colman, 61, is something of a social-science rock star: his view, defying the traditional position that economic "growth" is the be-all and end-all when measuring a society's progress, is helping change the world. It's also associating Atlantic Canada with a brand of prosperity that belies its reputation as an economic backwater.

"Ten or 12 years ago what we were doing was very much on the fringe," he says over piped-in folk music. "Now people are actually paying attention."

Count Colman among a growing group of people who contend that simply looking at the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the tally of every good or service exchanged for money, and hence the health of the economy, doesn't reflect how well a place is doing.

"That's grossly misleading," he declares. "It does nothing to differentiate between activities that are good for society and those that are bad for society. It does nothing to factor in the depletion of our natural resources."

One of the most obvious examples: healthcare spending. When it climbs in this region, or anywhere for that matter, the economy technically benefits, even though-notwithstanding spending on prevention-people are less healthy, or happy.

On the other hand in Colman's alternative universe, things that create no monetary churn but do wonders for people's quality of life, contribute to social capital. So do looking out for your environment, your community and your neighbours.

That helps explain a few things: for example the 2006 poll by Quebec polling company L'Observateur indicating that Atlantic Canadians were, generally speaking, Canada's most contented citizens. Or the Stats Canada survey a year later revealing that the residents of the richest cities (Calgary, Toronto, Victoria and Ottawa) were among the least happy with their lives, while the relatively "poorer" cities of Atlantic Canada, including Saint John, NB, took four of the top six spots. Or the research last year by Bristol Group, an Atlantic-based communications and marketing company, demonstrating that a startling 88 per cent of people in this region are satisfied with their lives.

None of this surprises Colman one bit. His thinking about well-being solidified after moving to Nova Scotia from Colorado in 1990. Now his adopted province is the petri dish for testing his over-arching measure of sustainability and quality of life, called the Genuine Progress Index (GPI).

Last October, after 12 years of study, he and his colleagues at GPI Atlantic released the first comprehensive appraisal of the 20 components that make up the province's GPI. It makes for intriguing reading. Most of us already knew the grim stuff: the worrisome cancer, asthma, heart disease and diabetes rates; the dearth of prospects for steady, well-paid work; the frightening depletion of our oceans, forests and farmland.

But Colman's work counsels against despair. "Nova Scotia has the potential to be a model for jurisdictions throughout the world," he says. And then - his flu bug momentarily forgotten  -he proceeds to explain why.

Keith Meerman almost starved to death as a youngster back in Holland. Maybe that's why, since moving to Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley at 19, he's been so eager to give back. Throughout the last half century he's worked hard-farming; selling Fuller brushes, feed and chocolates door-to-door; operating a general store; doing maintenance work on apartment buildings. But he's also been busy being a good Samaritan, whether as a member of the Wolfville Lions Club, saving lives with the volunteer fire department or as a pillar of the local Baptist church, which, among other things, raises funds through recycling drives for the people of Cuba.

"The Bible says love your neighbour," says Meerman, at 73 his voice still carrying a hint of a Dutch accent. "A person cannot do enough to show that love."

Money, on the other hand, matters a lot less to Meerman-he had $45 in his savings account when he personally delivered his church's fundraising proceeds to Cuba last winter. Like so many Atlantic Canadians he's living proof of something that it took loads of academic research to quantify: once a person has enough dough to subsist-a surprisingly low $10,000 annually according to some estimates-there's no direct correlation between money and happiness.

Around here a sense of delight is more likely to come from giving back to the community than buying the newest high-definition TV. Colman has the numbers to prove it: nation-wide, volunteerism is plummeting; closeknit Atlantic Canada, however, generally bucks the trend. Folks from Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia-where volunteerism is the highest in the country-are putting in more hours per capita coaching kids' hockey, running food drives and working at soup kitchens.

By GPI's calculation, volunteers contributed the equivalent of $1.8-billion to Nova Scotia's economy in 2005. Yet not a single dollar of that appeared in the province's $33-billion 2007 GDP. Neither did the $10.4-billion worth of unpaid housework and childcare that Nova Scotians also did that year. "In both cases," says Colman, "we're ignoring something that makes a huge contribution to our well-being."

On the other hand, putting in more hours on the job-which boosts GDP-does not always contribute to our well-being. "The workplace is a very important part of people's lives, and is often a source of well-being and satisfaction quite apart from its role in producing income," says John Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia, researcher with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research-and ultimately an internationally regarded expert on social capital and well-being. However, spending more time at work is usually at the expense of spending time with family and friends. "Making a connection is the key," says Helliwell. "The deeper your roots in a community, the happier you tend to be."

It's hard to feel lonely in a place where you can run into your old peewee hockey line-mate on the street, where the waitress at the Tim Hortons knows you take your coffee double-double, and your child's teacher also taught you the multiplication tables in Grade 6.

People also tend to be safer in areas where they've put down roots. GPI calculates that in 2007, Nova Scotia's violent crime rate was 15 per cent higher than the national average, but a couple of muggings in Halifax can be enough to throw the stats out of whack. Overall, Atlantic Canadians view themselves as the safest folks in the land according to GPI's research.

Being part of a community helps people in other ways too: in his book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, Bill McKibben cites research showing that whenever a person who is not a member of a group joins a club or society they halve the risk that they will die in the next year-and that people over age 80 with "poor social networks" have a 60 per cent higher than average chance of being afflicted by dementia.

Happiness, after all, is contagious. The authors of a recent study in the British Medical Journal concluded that joy isn't just an individual experience; it depends on the happiness of the people to whom individuals are directly and indirectly connected. (According to the study, a friend who becomes happy and lives within a mile increases your likelihood of happiness by 25 per cent.) Connect the numbers and it's obvious that the ease with which links are forged in Atlantic Canada-where towns are small and generally cohesive and families often live in a place for generations-has a direct correlation to the high level of contentment throughout the region.

So does scale. Being surrounded by too many people leads to less, not more, connection to others, experts say. All of which makes it possible to draw a direct line between Atlantic Canada's status as the least-urbanized part of the country and having the country's happiest people… which brings the story back to the man in the coffee shop, with his self-imposed mission of changing the way the world looks at itself.

"Only when you measure something and show people that it matters can you influence public policy," Colman says. The GPI's impact is starting to be felt at home via Nova Scotia Economic Development's annual Opportunities for Sustainable Prosperity progress report, and through Colman's presentations to scads of civil servants throughout the region. Outside the country, where he regularly appears at conferences and is interviewed by the international press, he may be even more influential. He is working with Bhutan, the first country in the world to adopt well-being as its avowed and central national goal, to help develop well-being indicators.

Whenever he stands at a lectern to talk to some foreign dignitary, Colman does his bit towards changing the perception of his home province. "When you look at all our indicators Nova Scotia's performance has been a mixed bag," he says. "We have weaknesses, which we can work on. But we have strengths, too, which other places can learn from."

The conversation has drawn to a close; Colman zips up his coat and moves through a room with a warm buzz of conversation and connection, redolent of all that's enviable in the region. At the door, he pauses as if to memorize the scene. Then he heads out into the cold, in search of the next convert.

To market, to market

"Just the fact that some part of the economy is growing and bringing in money doesn't tell you it's a good thing," says Ron Colman.

"Look at the collapse of the cod fishery. It wasn't predicted because only the fish you take out of the water and take to market have value in GDP.

"The fish you leave in the water don't figure into GDP, which is a gross rather than net equation. A net approach factors in the costs-in this case the depletion of the fish stocks-whereas gross is just the income, or the catch." As long as money is churning, GDP calls it a good-news story.

Stuff the GDP Ignores

The Good News

• In 2005 volunteers in Nova Scotia contributed the equivalent of $1.8-billion worth of services.
• Unpaid housework and childcare was worth $10.4-billion in 2005.
• Nova Scotia has the highest waste diversion and residential recycling rates in the country.
  

The Bad News

• Due to overwork, Nova Scotians are losing $1.25-billion worth of free time each year compared to what they had 10 years ago.
• Because crime injects money into the economy through spending on prisons, lawyers, police, parole officers, security guards, burglar alarms, hospital costs and more, it's usually counted as a positive economic driver in GDP statistics. But crime in Nova Scotia actually costs the province $700-million (conservative estimate) to $1.45-billion (total comprehensive estimate) a year.
• Air pollution from industry, road transport and coal-fired power plants caused more than $500-million worth of health and environmental damage in Nova Scotia in 2005.
  

Does money grow on trees?

In 1958, forests more than 80 years old dominated 25 per cent of Nova Scotia's total forested area. In 2003, they constituted 1½ per cent.

What are the ramifications of fewer old trees?

"Loss of habitat for birds and animals, more soil erosion; and less carbon storage, climate regulation, and watershed protection," says Ron Colman. "The old trees are also more economically valuable-wide diameter, clear lumber fetches higher prices. So old trees contribute more, in the long run, to GDP and to GPI, which measures conditions that contribute to well-being, including a healthy environment.

"GDP is not the whole story," says Colman, "and it can send very misleading signals to policy makers."