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August 7, 2008

Confused Americans for Truth - Do Butterflies Cause Global Warming?

by Ferdinand T Cat

While it may not be strictly true that a butterfly beating its wings in Paris will change the weather in New York, it's worth noting that the phrase "butterfly effect" became popular because of actual experiments with computer weather models. Mathematician Edward Lorenz inadvertently changed an input value by less than one-tenth of one percent, and the result was dramatically different weather.

The sheer complexity of the Earth's atmosphere makes it completely impossible to understand the ultimate result of human activity, but that doesn't stop us from getting news stories like this one in Newsweek, which argues that China's high level of air pollution, by blocking sunlight, may be helping to prevent global warming.

China presents a serious problem for people who think the world will come to an end because the United States never signed on to the Kyoto Accords. Despite draconian efforts to control emissions and a well-established weather control program, the air over Beijing is embarrassingly bad. By finding a bright side to this disaster, Newsweek is performing an important public service: the United States is still the bad guy, but thank goodness the Chinese are helping out by dumping smoke into the atmosphere.

The truth is, all this stuff is hogwash. There are thousands of interconnected air mass systems all over the globe, and it's ridiculous to think that a hand-waving argument about smoke reflecting light tells us anything. The real inconvenient truth about the climate is that we don't understand it, we can't control it, and we should start preparing for the reality outside our window instead of pretending we know what's going on.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat


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