About this episode

Elizabeth Dunn discusses the relationship between spending, happiness, and climate action.

Elizabeth Dunn is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and director of their Happiness Lab. She’s also the co-author of two books, Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species and Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. Greg and Elizabeth discuss how her work links common errors in forecasting happiness with misunderstandings about carbon impact. Elizabeth argues that experiences generally bring more lasting joy than material goods do because of comparison and hedonic adaptation. However, savoring and creating scarcity can renew enjoyment. She shares experiments showing people become happier when spending money on others, with studies where participants were given cash and a TED-backed $10,000 project where other-focused spending and charitable donations produced the greatest happiness. On climate, Elizabeth says guilt and fear exhaust people, and a better plan would be “more math, less moralizing,” focusing on high-impact actions like commuting choices, housing size and location relative to work, and travel decisions (nonstop flights, carry-on). She also debunks myths about straws and individual AI use, highlights contagious…

People in this episode

Host: Greg LaBlanc

Guest: Elizabeth Dunn

Topics covered

• happiness
• spending
• climate action
• psychology
• charitable donations
• joyful decisions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of British Columbia

Books & works: Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species, Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending

Places: Canada, TED

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