The butterfly effect: Smug rich people who triggered climate change will reap the whirlwind

There is both a grim reminder and delicious irony in the name Titli (butterfly) given to the latest cyclone to strike the east coast of India. In chaos theory, the term butterfly effect is used to illustrate the idea that small events have widespread consequences. Coined by MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz – who did not expect his work to be distilled into a catchphrase and transported into popular culture – it describes the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state can result in large differences in a later state: metaphorically, a hurricane being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier.

Inasmuch as Lorenz’s work had been oversimplified, there is wind beneath the wings of the theory that small, discrete infractions by mankind is adding up to cause monumental havoc across the planet. Whether it is Cyclone Titli blowing her way in from the Bay of Bengal or Hurricane Michael hurtling his way in from the Atlantic, their cataclysmic finales on land are not happening in isolation. From the reckless use of paper to the rampant wastage of water, everyday living is littered with mindless and gratuitous excesses that will eventually blow humankind away. The storm has gone beyond the teacup.

Yet, climate change denialists and global warming rejectionists – President Trump and his Republican Party foremost among them – sail on smugly, throwing caution to the wind. Presented with a dire climate change report last week authored by 91 scientists from 40 countries, the US president, who once called climate change a canard engineered by the Chinese to make the US non-competitive, sneered: “It was given to me, and I want to look at who drew it.” He may have chosen to see the illustrations in the study – rather than the writing on the wall. Another time, he had joked, “It’s freezing. Speaking of global warming, we need some global warming!”

Eventually though, the joke will be on him. From pledging to speed up burning of coal to freezing fuel efficiency standards, Trump and his minions are taunting the wind. They will reap the whirlwind. The poor of the world are resilient; the rich aren’t. That goes for countries too. “Lie low before Mother Nature,” warns a story in the Panchatantra. “The hurricane does not uproot grasses, which are pliant and bow low before it on every side. It is only the lofty trees that it attacks.”