The long arm of conservation laws

We all love to win-win. Trade is a typical win-win. Westerners import and install solar panels to save the environment. Chinese export solar panels to make money. But few are informed and wish to be informed that producing solar panels is extremely pollutive. Solar panels might be good to local environment. But they are not good to the global environment.

But don’t we love to help others? Every year, rich countries send so much money to the poor countries. We are happy. And foreigners get benefits. This is surely a win-win. Foreign aid is often described as “sending money from the poor people in the rich countries to the rich people in the poor countries”. The typical recipients of the foreign aid are much richer than the typical taxpayers of the sending countries. So foreign aid is essentially to rob the poor to help the rich. Is it a real win-win?

Doesn’t rising tide lift all boats? However, rising tide at this side of the earth means lowering tide at the other side of the earth. The total amount of water on the earth is conserved.

Aren’t human societies growing rapidly over time? We must have done something wonderful. That is true. Humans are doing wonderful in the last tens of thousand years. At the same time, many species have gone extinct. When we take over bigger part of the stage, other players have to leave. That is the iron law of conservation.