Thanks to all of you who took the Gross National Happiness survey, a project of The Happiness Initiative. (And if you haven’t taken it yet, you still can!) It’s designed to measure your overall satisfaction with life as well as your sense of well-being across a number of specific categories. Do you feel good about your physical health? The educational and cultural opportunities in your community? Your work life? Your time balance? The environment where you live?

We’ve now gotten the results back for Grist readers and compared them to responses from a random sample of U.S. residents. The bottom line: You guys are a mostly happy bunch, but still a little more bummed out than the average American.

On overall life satisfaction, Grist readers scored an average 69 out of a possible 100 points, compared to 77 for average Americans. And on every specific metric but one, Grist readers lagged by 3 to 14 points.

The biggest gap, not surprisingly, was on satisfaction with the state of the environment. We can only assume that you’re better informed about environmental problems than most people, thanks to Grist, which is a good thing! But all that knowledge is bringing you down, man, which is a bad thing. Sorry. May we recommend you read some of our inspiring stories about kick-ass activists and cool green gadgets and the fast-growing renewable energy sector?

At least Grist readers are feeling slightly more comfortable about their financial status than average Americans. (Would this be a good time to hit you up for a donation?)

Hey, folks: Yeah, we’ve got some big environmental challenges, and our lives are too busy, and our governments are not up to snuff, and all that. But there’s still plenty to feel good about, and plenty you can do to cultivate and spread happiness. So crack open a beer and watch this video of an outrageously cute baby echidna. You’ll feel better afterward, we promise.

This year, Earth Day annexed a whole weekend for reflection, fun, and simple acts of change. What are you doing to celebrate? Grist wants to know: Show us in words, photos, videos, tweets, Vines, comments, and smoke signals.

Share your pictures and the stories behind them on Facebook, in the comments below, or on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #tellgrist.

You’ve seen our illustrated history of the Keystone XL pipeline. Now, you can enjoy it with snazzy sound effects:

This video was produced as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Be here on Thursday, April 18, at 6:30 p.m. ET (3:30 PT), to watch a live debate and discussion:

Keystone XL: The science, stakes, and strategy behind the tar-sands pipeline fight

Hosted by Climate Desk
Moderated by Chris Mooney
Guests: David Roberts of Grist, May Boeve of 350.org, Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Michael Grunwald of Time

One week ago, residents of rural Mayflower, Ark., found a river of reeking, black oil flowing through their backyards and streets. ExxonMobil, the company that owns the ruptured pipeline, evacuated the neighborhood and quickly instated something like martial law, evicting wildlife rescue workers, threatening reporters with arrest, and even winning a temporary no-fly zone over the spill. Here’s what the company is hiding, care of the EPA’s on-site coordinator web page — which was locked down shortly after we retrieved these photos. (UPDATE: The page is unlocked again. Feel free to peruse the whole collection.)

More fun oil spill reading:

• Arkansas town in lockdown after oil spill nightmare
• Good news, Arkansas: Tar-sands oil isn’t oil-oil
• ExxonMobil spills chemicals in Louisiana while cleaning spilled oil in Arkansas

Christie Aschwanden is a prolific magazine writer and author of, among other things, Beautiful Chickens, a coffee-table book packed with glam shots of champion poultry breeds. She is also the daughter of a pilot and a recovering jet setter.

As part of Grist’s March theme, “Get Small: Micro solutions to macro problems,” Ashwanden wrote about her yearlong experiment in living local. In an effort to reduce her climate footprint, she swore off air travel for 12 months and vowed to stay within a 100-mile radius of her home on a farm in western Colorado.

First World problems, for sure, but some of what she discovered was a little mind-boggling — the ability of a single plane trip to negate all of our other good green deeds, for example. Perhaps the most surprising discovery of all, however, was just how happy and content she could be living small.

“Shrinking my boundaries didn’t feel constricting — it felt liberating,” she writes. “Without travel, my life became calmer and far less stressful. After hundreds of days living in place, I felt truly grounded. It was the best year of my life, and when it was over, I had no desire to leave.”

Join Aschwanden this Thursday, March 28, at 1 p.m. Eastern (10 a.m. Pacific) for a live chat moderated by Grist Senior Editor Greg Hanscom. We’ll talk about the science of air travel and the climate, Ashwanden’s “100-mile habitat” experiment, and ways to find more joy in your local environs.

Thinking small? Join the conversation!

Humans might adapt to climate change through some mixture of mitigation, adaptation, and suffering (like relocating Coney Island several miles into interior Brooklyn, or saying goodbye to chocolate). But the animal kingdom? Many species are already coping with rising temperatures by physically getting smaller [$ub req].

The reasons are complex and vary between species, but the CliffsNotes version is this: Animals (especially cold-blooded ones) often develop faster metabolisms in warmer temperatures, so they burn calories more quickly and reach maturity at smaller sizes. Additionally, smaller animals could have a distinct advantage when competing for dwindling food supplies; like Anne Hathaway, they simply need less to survive. There’s also Bergmann’s rule, which basically amounts to “colder environments support species of larger morphological size BECAUSE I SAID SO.”

As part of this month’s Get Small theme, we’re profiling minimizing mammals, reducing reptiles, itty-bitty insects, and belittled birds the best way we know how: with a bunch of pretty-ass pictures.

Been wondering what’s up with Theda Skocpol’s climate-bill report you’ve been hearing about? Here’s the deal: Skocpol, a Harvard professor of government and sociology, was commissioned by the Rockefeller Family Fund to write a report analyzing what went wrong during the unsuccessful 2009-10 push to pass climate legislation. The resulting 145-page opus — “Naming the Problem: What It Will Take to Counter Extremism and Engage Americans in the Fight Against Global Warming” [PDF] — has kicked up a lot of controversy, and you can read all about it here at Grist:

• A summary of the report by Philip Bump: Why the environmental movement couldn’t get cap-and-trade passed

• A three-part response from Grist’s David Roberts:
1) What Theda Skocpol gets right about the cap-and-trade fight
2) The road forward from cap-and-trade
3) If you want to pass climate legislation, fix U.S. politics

• A response 350.org activist and author (and Grist board member) Bill McKibben: Beyond baby steps: Analyzing the cap-and-trade flop

• A response from author and Environmental Defense Fund VP Eric Pooley: Why the climate bill failed: It’s not that simple

• A response from Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm: The problem wasn’t the green groups: What Skocpol gets wrong about the climate bill fight

• A response from activist and author Mark Hertsgaard: Missing the point of the cap-and-trade defeat

• A response from climate organizer Mike Tidwell: Harvard professor has it right: U.S. climate push requires intense grassroots support around ‘cap-and-dividend’ bill

• And, finally, a follow-up piece from Skocpol herself: Learning from the cap-and-trade debate

(Skocpol also weighed in with comments under some of the above posts.)

Haven’t gotten enough yet? Stay tuned — there might be still more …