Does this apply to ‘things’ such as life, air, water?

Definitely. Value of life is estimated and changes all the time across cultures, in wars, life insurances, technological tradeoffs like cars that kill people but we accept the cost…

There’s no universal, intrinsic value to life. It’s us that give it value.

Thanks. I agree with you, although question the usefulness of going into what I perceive as a more metaphysical direction. In this sense it is trivial that nothing has intrinsic value. But putting on my more pragmatist hat, I would say that there is a sense in which basic survival is very much universal and unquestionable value. "I don't want to die", "I want to be happy", are pretty much safe assumptions to make across cultures and history (yeah, people commit suicide, hence it is not universal, but still a pretty safe bet and worth to consider 'universal' for all practical purposes).

Try to define happiness in a universal pragmatic way.

Even basic survival varies acc ross culture and contexts. People die in the millions all the time for their countries, ideas, religions, offspring…