In the 1993 movie “Jurassic Park,” Dr. Ian Malcolm, a fictional math genius specializing in chaos theory, explains the “butterfly effect,” which holds that tiny actions can lead to big outcomes. “A butterfly flaps its wings in Peking,” Malcolm posits, “and you get rain in Central Park instead of sunshine.”
What about when a federal agency flaps its wings? Should bureaucrats be required to think through the extended effects of decisions like funding a highway intersection or approving an offshore wind farm?
