GDP and Social Welfare

The question that whether GDP is a good measure of social welfare comes to me when I was watching a macroeconomic course (given by Nilss Olekalns) video at Coursera.

Actually, answering this question or finding a good measure/index of social welfare is rather important to China. China has been experiencing a rocket GDP increase speed these years; however, in terms of social welfare, for simplicity, happniess, the situation is not that good -- here I don't have a reference on this statement but from my experience (what happens to my surrounding and what I have seen) I believe this is true. For example, with high speed GDP growth, pollution, loss of nature resources and the sacrifice of people's ease of living (e.g. high payment for living, education and medical service) come as well.  

So that's why the Chinese government, instead keep blindly looking for rapid GDP increase, are trying to find a sustainable way to development and put more focus on "Green" GDP. Although I don't know what this "Green" GDP is, I would like to see what actions are taken in order to improve the social welfare, which is badly needed to keep the society stable. 

Here is a resource I found about this GDP and Social Welfare topic written by a professor at UNC: GDP and Social Welfare.

*this chart is based on data reported by http://databank.worldbank.org