“Climate change” and the “butterfly effect” in an eighteenth century monograph

• Published in: Foundations of chemistry 2018-10, Vol.20 (3), p.265-268
• Main Authors: Malinen, KelleyAnne, Matta, Chérif F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry/Food Science; Climate change; Climatic changes; Education; History; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science; Physical Chemistry; Wildfires
• ISSN: 1386-4238; 1572-8463
• DOI: 10.1007/s10698-018-9305-z

Long before the phrases “climate change” and “butterfly effect” were incorporated into the mainstream literature, these phrases appeared in an appropriate context almost verbatim in the first Chapter of a book entitled “The Emigrant” published in the mid-nineteenth century (in 1846 ) by Sir Francis Bond Head (1793–1875). Head was Upper Canada’s sixth Lieutenant Governor under King George IV and Queen Victoria. Head claimed that forest wildfires were “ changing the climate ” of North America as manifested in a warming effect “ on the thermometer ”. In that author’s account, these fires were provoked by First Nations to create fly-free zones meant to attract game that they could then hunt more readily. Head used language such as “ swarms of little flies, strange as it may sound, are, and for many years have been, most materially altering the climate… ” which is remarkably reminiscent of E. N. Lorenz’s (1917–2008) “butterfly effect” of the theory of chaotic dynamical systems. The historical context and the rationales that may have led Head to use this contemporary environmental language in a proper context are briefly discussed.