Definition: The butterfly effect is an idea that is more commonly used in chaos theory. it shows that a small change can make much bigger changes happen; that one small incident can have a big impact in the future. The idea started from weather prediction. Now the term is used for many things; some are scientific, and some are not. (Wikipedia)
Source: https://eaarthfeelspodcast.com/episode-37-how-is-climate-change-asking-us-to-change