Your body temperature is
an indicator of your health (graphic). If your temperature
is high you know something is not quite right. It may not
be serious but it ‘indicates’ that you should
act to find the cause.
With enough good indicators we can
see how well our society is travelling, and in which
direction. We can see what’s improving, as well
as what’s getting worse.
This will help us all plan for a healthier future. Indicators
of what?
For the health of our bodies we need
several indicators: temperature, weight, blood pressure,
for instance. Likewise we need several indicators to give
us some idea of the health of the environment, and several
more for the health of our community, more again for our
economy and more for our own well-being. |
The media and government
often use the growth of the economy as an indicator of
our economic health.
(Graph of Peter Costello looking smug, or a newspaper
headline)
This is often assumed to be the same as the health of
our society. Well we think GDP can’t tell us anything
much (link to song – waveform not text) except
the amount of money that’s exchanged in Australia.
There are other things that are just as important – pleasure
and happiness in our lives, where we live and what we
do; comfort, health, sociable atmosphere, active community,
amenities, environment, ..... they are all part of what
makes us what we are. So how do we improve these things,
as well as economic prosperity?
The first step is knowing where we are and what we have,
and where we’d like to be. So it would be useful
to have some indicators of the things that are important
to our community (link to Cardinia Indicators). |
