Originally published at: Lessons In Chemistry - AVweb
Making the world stupid, one flight at a time.
At lastâunity in delusion.
Both fringes, different vibes, same sky.
Itâs the only conspiracy where a red hat from the far-right and a hemp hoodie from the far-left can share a lawn chair, gaze up at Delta Flight 236, and shout in perfect, paranoid harmony:
âTheyâre spraying us again!â
âI agreed that our conspiracy to make suspicious dim bulbs get even dimmer from our chemicals in the sky scheme had failed.â
I wouldnât be too hard on yourself.
There were without a doubt many deadheads at Grateful Dead outdoor concerts who were very appreciative of the free drugs from the sky - so it wasnât a total failure of effort.
Nothing beats that deeply provocative all-knowing smile of a person who believes in chemtrails. They are basically in physical pain, longing to be asked what they know about the subject.
It really burns them until someone fakes some sort of interest in their opinion on the matter and may holy Odin come to help us, once they let go, its a waterfall or garbled up incoherent liquid fecal matter with the viscosity of a 0W oil.
I had one a year or so ago. Total bafflement.
Pilots should always have a picture available to provide the evidence. Then just tell them that âtheyâ are trying to keep it a secret.
The thing is, there is just a glimmer of reason behind con trails.
Very little research has been done on the exhaust gas, water vapour mix in con trails, just getting samples is hard.
Much of the research that is there used exhaust gases from jets on the ground and â shock horror â they are full of particles, unburnt aromatics of various sorts, and lots of nitrogen dioxides and carbon mono and dioxides.
And then during the pandemic, when all flights were grounded, it took three days for the con-trail clouds to disappear over us â we live under one of the main East West jet routes in Europe â my record is counting 35 contrails being left at once one sunset.
It was strange having natural clouds.
As for thunderstorms, have you lot never gone spraying silver salts in them to make them drop rain and not hail?
Again near us there used to be an old boy with a trailer fitted with rockets who would fire them into the cloud for the local Cognac grape growers.
Eventually the airforce said he could not do that any more, so now they use âchimneysâ, hot gas tubes into which the silver is sprayed.
Works very well too, have had just one very localised hail storm over vines, last year, on a day when the guy meant to light the chimneys was at the beach.
The lesson here, I think (and yes, I do try to think) is that we need to elect more intelligent people to political office. Elections are a popularity contest and such contests often lead to choosing charismatic, well, idiots.
I taught chemistry for 25 years and wonât claim to be an expert. Yes, there are probably a few moles of unoxidized, oxidized, and whatever compounds in those darn contrails. Where is the evidence that such products of combustion are harmful to anyone or anything? Show me a peer-reviewed study in a reputable journal and Iâll take a look. Otherwise, itâs just guessing, rumor, conspiracy theories, and blogs⌠the curse of the internet.
I think contrails are rather majestic and Iâm going to watch Strategic Air Command again this evening just to enjoy the beauty of those contrails behind the Convair B-36.
Well for what itâs worth, about 40 years ago, the town voted to ban âFade Outsâ at our local airport. Well, I can say, with confidence, with ban on the books, that there have been no Fade Outs to date. But then again, weâve never received, from the town supervisor, what is a Fade Out.
An AVSIG acquaintance had time flying cloud seeding in the Calgary<>Red Deer AB hail corridor.
Release something into air below clouds, which somehow reduces size of hailstones.
(They are increased in size by up and down trips.)
Insurance companies paid for the effort.
But YYC was hit bad by hail a few years ago.
Thanks a lot, Kevin. Itâll take me ten minutes to wipe all the coffee from my laptop that you made me spit. But worth it; hilarious!
A perennial nut case in Victoria BC claimed that leaves on some trees going bronze was caused by the US gummint spraying chemicals.
Reality is that a variety of trees does not lose its dead leaves until spring (unless heavy rain kocks them off).
Shopping centre may or may not have known exactly what it was planting. A PnR lot in the region had oak trees planted, but they were a mix of âpin oakâ and a cultivar.
Pin oaks - no e - lose their lower branches with age, more clearance for vehicles I guess. (The name comes from using the stub of lower branches for fasteners in wooden boats of old.)
Donât see any evidence that this conspiracy theory is a fever dream of the far left. Vaccinations are the best example of where the anti-science nut brains of the far right meet the ones on the far left.
Humans have the need to believe in something âŚwhy spoil it 
Great article Kevin, humor makes the idiocy of some of the human beings in our population slightly more bearable. However, I feel I must note that the Chemtrail crowd isnât completely incorrect. Contrails do have chemicals in them and most scientists believe that commercial aviation plays a part in effecting our planetâs climate. Contrails contain H2O, and CO2 both of which are known greenhouse gases. They also contain NOx, Sulphur compounds, particulates, and other trace metals that can affect the atmosphere. There is significant evidence to show that contrails can lead to cirrus cloud formation. It has been estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) that world wide, commercial aviation contributes 3.5 to 5% to anthropogenic radiative forcing which is a measure of how much solar energy is captured by the Earth compared to how much is radiated back into space. In other words, the gases and particulates produced as a result of burning hydrocarbon fuels and the contrails and clouds produced by high flying commercial aircraft can cause more of the energy from the sun to be retained by the Earth. No doubt this comment will bring out a few idiots in our crowd who base their opinions on beliefs unrelated to science and facts as well.
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Love the write up Kevin, it was terrific and many many many of the responses were just hilarious. you just gotta scratch your head on some of the ideas that people have.
Nothing like a little humor in the morning. I was at first stunned bu the whole Chemtrail thing. Then I found out a number of the technicians in the lab I supervised in a major Aerospace firm were firm believers in this concept. They were also very religious conservative evangelicals. I decided that to argue and sense into this was not worth my time. One person asked me what I though, I said âI believe that a person can be and usually is a rational calm reflective thinking being, but that people can be seen as a flock of scared sheepâ. Asked for clarification. I said if you think a government was trying to poison or drug a large number of people, why would they be so stupid as to use one of the most inefficient ways possible. ? If you were trying to drug a large number of people seeing that say here in SOCal most of our water is imported , why would you pick such an expensive ineffiecnt way to distribute a chemical. ? I said look up the way the atmosphere works. if you spray something at 35000 feet where does it go?
Since Avweb is political now, which party is trying to ban the release of carbon dioxide? (CO2 is plant food)
The vapor trails were gone for a few days after September 11, 2001 when the airlines were grounded The surface temps went up nationwide.
At least my theory as an 8yo had some logic. I was convinced that all clouds were formed by contrails grouping together. I never stopped to wonder where clouds came from before planes started flying!
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