As I closed the final pages of “A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory,” I looked out my kitchen window to see lightning.
It had been a 75-degree day in March, but the temperature was quickly dropping to the 40s and 30s, the perfect conditions to create lightning, as Dr. Jagadish Shukla teaches us in “Billion.” Shukla describes how big droplets of water mostly accumulate negative charges while the smaller ones go positive. The two sizes of droplets’ friction creates lightning.
It was often thought, through chaos theory and the butterfly effect, that a butterfly’s wings flapping in India could cause an earthquake in Brazil. Shukla proved this wrong by doing an experiment where he tested what effect a billion butterflies’ wings would have on the weather. The answer was none.
Described as the man behind modern weather prediction, Shukla is a climate, weather and seasonal prediction scientist who grew up in the small village of Mirdha, India. His early studies were in India, and he eventually went on to MIT and Princeton. He is currently a professor of climate dynamics at George Mason University and a member of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning team.
Shukla takes us through his long, sometimes tumultuous, personal and professional journey: from Mirdha to projects that predict monsoons in India based on the temperature of the Arabian Sea. From being a climate change skeptic to becoming an activist who took the fossil fuel industry to task.
He eventually becomes quite optimistic in the face of climate change. He believes in the work to reduce carbon emissions and in students who give him hope for the future.
At the end of each chapter, Shukla gives a minihistory or science lesson. These lessons cover a range of topics — everything from why and how a billion butterflies’ wings flapping do not affect the weather to highlighting the women who have been forgotten in science to silencing scientists with Freedom of Information Act requests.
Shukla’s personal life was just as engaging as the science: his father suddenly dying in the holiest city in India, his arranged marriage that ended as he fell in love with an American woman. He seamlessly and expertly combines memoir and his research as it was breaking through technological and societal barriers. His ultimate and admirable goal was to advance seasonal predictions for the betterment of society and, through both obstacles and successes, Shukla remained a positive beacon of hope for humanity.
