We are not cascading into a chaotic world; our world is chaotic. Life is organizing. Knowledge is all about simplifying to find meaning and order in the chaos. It is misleading to simplify chaos to the break of billiards balls. This exacerbates the problem due to our inability to make predictions with any accuracy. Errors are to blame, a slight wind, tiny crease in the billiard table, or dent in the ball.
It is impossible to predict the weather with great accuracy or predict how water will warm in a coffee cup. As you say, there are just too many moving parts interacting with each other. Yes, chaos is found in your cup of coffee. Here warmer water molecules are rising and cooler molecules sinking in a chaotic manner. You’ll never know what part of the coffee is what temperature until it is all at room temperature.
Climate is more complex than weather, a larger system with weather systems and ocean systems nested within. People look for errors causing the chaos. We are quick to lay blame based on linear thinking, and then shame specific actors.
The global climate started going out of balance, atmospheric CO2 emissions matching CO2 capture, about 8,000 years ago when humans introduced agriculture.
We first used a hoe and then the plow. Grasses are the best at capturing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Grasses pump out of their roots liquid carbon. With hoe and plow we chopped up grasses and all vegetation. Turned it exposing soil to oxygenate and gas out into the air. Soil was washed away and water retaining capacity to the land lost. Conditions for plants worsened and photosynthesis decreased.
With desertification global carbon capture fell while atmospheric CO2 levels began to rise. Global CO2 levels increased more steeply with industrialization that not only belched out massive amounts of carbon dioxide, it also further accelerated the loss of vegetation for impervious surfaces such as railroad lines. Landscapes were carpeted with black soot.
We can modify our behaviors and remediate carbon footprints, reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon capture. Climate change is not the consequence of the butterfly effect. However, many public flaps over climate change can result in a better life for us all.
