Never Ever Gonna Hack the Weather

[bnewman]

I'll admit, this song happened because I heard Taylor Swift's original on the radio and couldn't get the catchy chorus out of my head.

In my version, it's inspired loosely by the account, in James Gleick's book Chaos, of Edward Lorenz's discovery of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in nonlinear systems, and the realization that this effectively rules out technological weather control. Lorenz was famously soft-spoken, but for this song I've retained Taylor Swift's signature snark.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift

 

listen to this song

( G D Em CD )

 

/ C G D Em / / / /

 

Remember when you said we'd make it rain

You said all we need is a big electronic brain

To work out exactly where and when to spread some dust

Way up at the edge of space — but

 

I guess you aren't listening when I say

There's no way to know exactly what you've changed

Listen, our models only track for like a day

You say: Up the precision; I tell you: It's pointless

 

Ooooh...

You say we'll get the numbers right, but

Ooooh...

Look guys, I'm telling you, I'm telling you

 

We are never, ever, ever gonna hack the weather

We are never, ever, ever gonna hack the weather

You go run the numbers, tweak the numbers and you'll see

Why we are never, ever, ever, ever... gonna hack the weather

 

The atmosphere is just a PDE

Sure, it's non-linear, but how hard can it be?

You say: You can work it out numerically — we tried

Ran the same numbers twice and it looked like they lied

 

Well, I guess the numbers weren't quite the same

I might have dropped the sixth or seventh decimal place

You say: All you needed was better precision

I say: Sensitive dependence on initial conditions

 

Ooooh...

 

We are never, ever, ever gonna hack the weather...

 

Now we're messing with the climate every day

That doesn't contradict the thing I'm trying to say

It not that we don't have the tech to make the weather change

But the net effect will never be to make it less strange

 

So, we're warmer, but no closer to the goal

It's a long way from prediction to control

And prediction always tends to go to pieces

In the long term all we know is that the chaos increases

 

Ooooh...

 

We are never, ever, ever gonna hack the weather...