cliché is usually taken to refer to the long line of causes resulting in a chaotic disaster, as in the old nursery rhyme,
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all
For the want of a horseshoe nail.
Linear causality is so embedded in our culture that it impedes our understanding of, or even perception of, the randomness of events in our world. Many people believe that, if you win the lottery, it was not a random event, but caused by the fact that you are a good person and deserve to win. God or Fate decreed that you should win. However, the butterfly effect is not an example of linear causation. It is an example of the mathematics of chaos.14
The development of science was based on Newtonian mathematics that describes a world that follows clear rules. It is predictable and ultimately controllable. This is the vision of the world used by those scientists and engineers who claim that the best way to deal with climate change is to devise methods of controlling the climate. Climate engineering, like the economists’ command and control economy, is one of the favourite delusions of the twenty-first century. While Newtonian mathematics works very well in a vast number of situations, there are many situations where it does not. For instance, if two objects are in orbit, it is possible to use Newtonian mathematics to predict the pos ition of these objects at any one point in time, but, if a third object is added, Newtonian mathematics cannot predict the position of the objects. In 1889 the great French mathematician Jules Henri Poincaré could not solve this problem, but he showed that, if there is any difference, however small, between the two orbits, one body will eventually fly off. Prediction is impossible.
The advent of computers led many people to believe that all the problems in the world were soluble. All that needed to be done was to build a bigger computer. It is ironic that what revealed the flaw in this thinking was a computer.
In 1961 Ed Lorenz, a meteorologist, using a simple model of the weather, was running some simulations of weather patterns on his computer. He wanted to run the simulation twice, so he copied what he thought were the same numbers into his computer. He had not realized that, while his computer stored numbers up to six decimal places, such as 0.473208, his printer to save space shortened the numbers to three decimal places, 0.473. This was a tiny discrepancy between the two sets of numbers, less than 0.1 per cent, but this small discrepancy changed the result. At first Lorenz thought that his computer was at fault, but he came to realize that, to forecast the weather perfectly, he would need not only a perfect model of the weather but perfect knowledge of wind, temperature, humidity and other conditions around the world at one moment in time. Perfect knowledge is never possible. No matter how accurate a measuring instrument may be, there is still a margin of error. It seems very unlikely that climate engineering will be able to control the weather and therefore climate change.
In a similar way, a command and control economy, where a government guided by economists could ensure continuous growth in a country’s economy and so determine that a boom could not be followed by a bust, would require the careful measurement and control of those factors that drive the market, including fear and greed. The great economist J.K. Galbraith recorded in some detail the inability of the majority of the players in the market to learn from experience, but even he could not plumb the depths of economists’ failure to understand human nature. What they needed to learn was, in Paul Krugman’s words, ‘The seeming success of an economy, the admiration of the markets and media for its managers, was no guarantee that the economy was immune to sudden financial crisis.’15
It had always been assumed that the effect of a small error in a large system would disappear. Lorenz published his findings in 1963, and in the following year another paper showed how making small changes in the parameters in a model of the weather could produce vastly different results, transforming regular events into a seemingly random, chaotic pattern. In 1972 Lorenz gave a paper at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He called it ‘Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wing Set Off a Tornado in Texas?’ Chaos, it seemed, was not a rare, random event but was there in the systems in which we live. It seems that the more complex a system is, and particularly where a number of systems are linked together, the more likely it is that, contained in the systems, is a sensitivity to initial events that leads to later events that cannot be predicted. The economic systems that led to the last run of boom years contained within them a sensitivity to events during the boom years and before, with the consequence that the fear, greed and stupidity of a hedge fund manager in New York led to a hard-working couple in Glasgow losing their jobs and their home.
Mathematicians working in chaos theory have developed the concept of tipping point where a system is being pushed in a certain direction, and reaches a point where it suddenly tips over into another state from which there is no return. Climatologists studying climate change see our climate being pushed by the warming of the planet to a tipping point from which it will be impossible for our climate to return to the state that supports human life as it does now. Climatologists are not agreed about how close this tipping point is, but they are agreed that the tipping point is inevitable unless drastic measures to prevent it are taken immediately to reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Some scientists receive support from the energy industry to deny the imminence or even existence of the danger, and some people see the current turmoil in the world as evidence of the working out of God’s plan, as set out in the Book of Revelation, to bring the world, and time, to an end, before which only the true believers will be taken into heaven, while everyone else perishes.
James Lovelock, who in the 1970s devised the Gaia hypo thesis which describes how the Earth regulates itself, sees the tipping point of climate change being too close for any reductions in the emissions to prevent it. He describes himself as an ‘optimistic pessimist’. Most of us will not survive the heating of the planet, but some of us will. He said, ‘I don’t think humans react fast enough to handle what’s coming up. [However] for the first time in its 3.5 billion years of existence, the planet has an intelligent, communicating species that can consider the whole system and even do things about it. They are not yet bright enough, they have still to evolve quite a way, but they could become a very positive contributor to planetary welfare.’16
I think that we do have the ability to overcome our vanity, and our reluctance to put aside selfish, short-term advantages in order to see long-term benefits that all can share, to abandon our delusions of being saved by some great power. However, it is an ability that we rarely use because to do so requires the courage to face uncertainty. To ameliorate climate change we need to see the whole system of the Earth in all its ambiguity. It is not as if our brains cannot deal with ambiguity. All the time our Bayesian brain is creating alternative hypotheses about our situation in the world. Semir Zeki, Professor of Neurobiology at University College, London, says that the brain has evolved in such a way that it can acquire information from ambiguous situations. We do not need certainty to make sense of the world. However, when we deny the existence of alternative interpretations and claim that the one interpretation we hold is a unique and absolute truth, we are refusing to use the ability with which we were born. We deliber ately make ourselves stupid.
Chapter Three Do You Know What I Mean?
Parents like to think that they give their children clear, unambiguous instructions. They are puzzled as to why their children seem not to understand them. ‘Be home by 10 p.m.’ does not have a suffix of ‘or whenever it suits you’. It comes as a surprise to many parents to discover that children, like adults, do not hear what is said to them. What their brain registers is not what the parent says but what the brain interprets of what the parent says. This is the disability under which we all labour. All we can know is our interpretation