This reminds me of the time when I was a kid and me and several of my family members went racing out into the front yard to watch the plane that was doing all kinds of aerial acrobatics over our neighbors’s field dropping whatever chemical or fertilizer was in their tanks that day so we were all basically coated in it by the time they were done and we went back inside. Except I wasn’t a kid when it happened, I was a fully informed adult who should have known better and then a few days later we found out it was some kind of potentially dangerous fungicide. But on the plus side I now have 3 penises.
I got back in touch with a friend of mine who who graduated in the same class as me with a B.S. in Physics. When they learned that I’m an atmospheric scientist, their first question was “What’s the deal with Chem trails?”
Point being, conspiracy theories also infect the educated sometimes.
I have no idea how it works and I studied chemical engineering. I guess I would have to study physical engineering
You don’t know how it works because you didn’t study tin foil hat engineering.
The only planes actually dropping chemicals are just doing farm work.
So true. I have a classmate who is an anti-vaxxer, even though we did biology.
Meanwhile space x makes a flare and has falling debris , MAGA: gotta buy a cybertruck and drive it into ocean to show support
I literally put it together in highschool when someone mentioned it to me after learning about how clouds form from nuclei.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA’s Langley Research Center, has said that logic does not dissuade most chemtrail proponents: “If you try to pin these people down and refute things, it’s, ‘Well, you’re just part of the conspiracy’”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray
From the page:
Between 1949 and 1969, open-air tests of biological agents were conducted 239 times.
239 open-air tests of biological agents in a 20 year period. Remind me again why people have no reason to be paranoid? This wasn’t that long ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
These aren’t conspiracy theories.
Is there something real behind these people’s paranoia and suspicion? Do our government, military, and our corporations inspire trust?
That or you’re just “asleep” and need to “wake up”.
But these are the same people saying things are too “Woke”
So which is it?
🤣
Wake up, but don’t be woke, obviously.
So be half asleep
Understanding is cemented in one’s original source of information about the world. Shaping a pre-existing understand requires not just accuracy but volume, because you’re not competing against faulty logic. You’re competing against accumulated memories.
If someone is deep into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, what is shaping their opinion is the consistent repetition of orthodoxy over time. Similarly, if someone is highly educated in a particular scientific field, their opinion is shaped by the persistent need to reaffirm fundamental truths in order to succeed and progress. We are not computers. We are not creatures of pure logic. We are the accumulation of our prior experiences and exposures.
You should not be surprised if an individual - when confronted with a narrow band of contrary information - does not immediately jettison all their prior information. Because ask yourself - would you? I mean, if a single guy showed up with a stack of papers insisting he’s proved without a shadow of a doubt that chemtrails are real and the entire professional weather reporting community is lying to you, is there anything they could show you that you wouldn’t greet with skepticism proportional to your exposure to professional weather science?
Because, if the answer is “No”, then why would you expect someone immersed in hundreds of hours of conspiracy theory podcasts and think pieces and social media conversations to behave any differently?
On the other hand, we have seen exhaust being very efficient in distributing chemicals with adverse health effects across the planet. Leaded gasoline was a huge oopsie that still has adverse health effects today.
Does it still cause harm? Or are people “just” still harmed by the exposure back then?
General aviation still uses leaded gas almost exclusively. It’s really hard to qualify replacements though the FAA, and airports don’t want to carry multiple fuel types.
I think it has gotten a lot better in the past 10 years, but there are still a lot of places where there is too much lead in the environment. It doesn’t degrade at all, so unless it’s dealt with it just stays there. Given we’ve only gotten rid of leaded gasoline less then 3 decades ago, the effects are still very much there.
Trump will bring it back, just wait
My personal theory is that we’ve got Trump (partially) because of the lead… So that would make it go full circle.
I’ve read that most of the lead from leaded gasoline is still in the environment, where it does cause harm. It it’s in the soil, and that can get into people through a variety of means.
I don’t know if it’s universal but here every kid is tested for lead. When we did that, our pediatrician warned not to grow vegetables within 10’ of the house.
For any house in the us built before mid 1970s you most likely had lead exterior paint Which would contaminate the soil. However they weren’t concerned about it still being concentrated enough to harm people directly, only if you ate contaminated vegetables
The lead will never go away, but it does disperse, mix in, get covered over time
“It’s chemicals!”
“It’s spider webs of chemicals!”
“It’s microchips!”
“It’s sun blocking special metallic smoke!”
“It’s cancer seeds!”
- My Mom, an expert on chemtrails
“It’s chemicals!”
Technically correct, I guess.
H2O
The most scary of chemicals
Dihydrogen Monoxide kills thousands of people every year. It should be banned! /s
I know people who believe all the BS about the chemtrails, and I have started telling them that yes, those are chemtrails.
And, like a good person I tell that it is Dihydrogen Monoxide.
Then we go from there.
Well, and “it causes cancer” is as well. But not like… It’s raining down cancer on you. More like jet fuel contains known carcinogens.
It’s more the direct effects. According to my mom, the chemtrails should have…I don’t know, but done whatever it was supposed to be doing by now. A 30+ year timeline for something causing cancer? So less bad than smoking? That’s the metric?
At least some nutters have the decency to say that it’s mind controlling chemicals, not the “you’ll be dead soon” kind.
Kind of like the covid vaccine. I should have been dead in
368 monthsa year2 years3 years4 yearsI’ll be dead in 5 years!Do they say what purpisebtheyee being mind controlled? How about the impracticality of mind controlling millions of random people with no special access or skills, and you’re not even there to tell them what to do?
Can’t we at least inject some logic into the chemtrails conspiracy, like it’s a mild sedative to keep you from worry what they’re doing and to keep you from standing up for your rights?
All those second amendment types talk about how they would repel an unjust government, but they never actually do. It must be the chrmtrsils making them docile
The best kind of correct.
What kind of cancer will those seeds grow into?
Yes
Do they also grow into lobsters, or do they believe in crab superiority.
I sea what you did there.
The fourth one of those is unfortunately an almost plausible theory. Plenty of people are seriously advocating for studies into Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) in order to mitigate climate change so that the almighty free market would have more time to fix the problem without any need for systemic change.
But that wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye :D
Funnily enough, contrails like all other clouds composed of ice crystals actually warm the planet up by letting shortwave radiation from the sun through while reflecting longwave (infrared), effectively trapping heat. Thcker and lower clouds are more effective at reflecting shortwave radiation.
Yes, but the conspiracy theory version is that it’s a scam to further the scam that is climate change. It doesn’t make any sense.
Oh no, not the chemicals!
And in a country with dogshit standards for HS science. And math. And reading. And history.
More like “High school science failed them” right?
When I read /r/teachers and all the trouble they’re having teaching the next generation, this is the sort of thing I imagine is coming. A couple of years ago, GenZ was saying, in essence, “We just need to wait for all the ‘boomers’ to die off, then everything will be better.” No. No, that will just make things worse. GenX leftists are the only ones holding the line, and Millennial teachers are about to give up and walk away, seriously. It’s pretty fuckin’ bad, and it’s clear it’s going to get worse, looking at how many kids are coming up through the school system who can barely read and write and have practically zero attention span or motivation.
Hi there, gen Z person here. Things are bad but remember that, as always, you only see and hear about the vocal minority. No matter how poor American education standards are, it is irrefutable that Trumpism could not exist without idiots from all generations. The education paradigms we are emerging from cannot possibly be worse than those which produced tens of millions of conservatives and hundreds of millions of nonvoters. This is specifically because of those gen X leftists and millennial teachers you mentioned. We aren’t competing as generations–failures of the past become the lessons of the present because older generations also have smart people. So how do you know gen Z won’t do even better? Everything else aside, growing up under fascism creates widespread discontent. I’d say from personal knowledge that for every one gen Z kid that believes in the system are five who at least recognize it’s broken.
Now, I won’t pretend to be particularly optimistic either; things are bad. However, I also want to believe that we can and will do better. And maybe I’ll be wrong, but at least I haven’t given up hope.
More like elementary school. We learned about water vapor in 3rd grade.
Here’s a new clearer statement to express my thoughts on the matter.
Contrails are visible and normal and fine. I probably don’t fully understand the science behind them, but I realize what we are seeing is water vapor.
Chemtrails are also real though. They are invisible to the naked eye and are directly contributing to global warming as well as some health concerns that are hard to quantify. They are not some conspiracy to control or disable the masses. The exhaust of cars and especially planes leave a trail of harmful chemicals behind them. The reason for this is because we care more about convenience and money than we do about the ecosystem we live in.
I personally believe pointing out that dichotomy is more useful than laughing at people who are misinformed.
Contrails are assholes. They are too thin to reflect sunlight, but they soak up and trap heat. They form a blanket and contribute a ton to global warming.
Chemtrails are broadly believed to be nefarious chemicals that alter everything from weather (to facilitate global warming, not to prevent it) to human/animal hormones. While exhaust is no doubt harmful, when conspiracy theorists speak of chemtrails, they are speaking of shady government operatives intentionally loading the planes with experimental chemicals that are meant to be rained down onto the masses.
Can you blame them when the US government has directly experimented on the American populace in past?
e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray
From the page:
Between 1949 and 1969, open-air tests of biological agents were conducted 239 times.
239 open-air tests of biological agents in a 20 year period. Many, many people are still alive from that time period. It’s not that long ago.
Or more broadly, just look at this page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
Do those pages inspire trust in the government and military? Would you know if you were being experimented on and gaslit?
Corporations engage in similar unethical behavior, like putting ingredients that are known to be toxic or harmful to human health in products we consume or put on our bodies.
Instead of blaming or name-calling people who are paranoid or suspicious, we need a society with a greater focus on human rights — with more regulation and oversight. A society that inspires trust, with the facts, ethics, and independent review to back it up.
that’s not a workable strategy because when you redefine terms like that you sound just like a conspiracy theorist. exhaust gases are not “chemtrails”, they’re exhaust gases. they’re dangerous and everywhere, but they’re not a secret government conspiracy.
we don’t need a “new way” to talk about things with people who refuse to understand.
If you loosely define chemtrails as “a trail of chemicals” then almost everything has chemtrails. Fuckkin ants have chemtrails, it’s how they communicate and navigate.
Chemtrail conspiracists literally think that airplanes are full of 55 gallon drums of chemicals with the express purpose to harm or feminize the populace to prevent people from opposing the government.
prevent people from opposing the government
…so it’s working then
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Nah, plane exhaust is real and killing the planet. Just because the contrails are science and not doing mind control doesn’t mean they’re not still bad.
Well, it’s not jet exhaust you’re seeing, though. It’s water vapor in air that’s been compressed in a jet engine and then quickly decompressed out of the back, which causes the air to cool thus condensing the water vapor into droplets similar to those in a cloud.
And those clouds, being too thin to reflect sunlight but able to trap heat, form a kind of blanket around earth, greatly contributing to global warming.
If I understand it correctly, you could magic away the exhaust and have perfectly clean contrails, and they would still warm the planet.
Yep, you’re spot on
Oh so you think you can science your way out of this?
I think it might be more about temperature differences than pressure differences. That is to say hot exhaust cools rapidly and any water vapor condenses. Some aircraft leave no contrails, depending on atmospheric conditions.
Here is a chart to predict contrails on a high-bypass jet engine
And here are aircraft leaving contrails without any jet engines
And some more leaving no contrails at all
The temperature difference is caused by the pressure difference. Airplanes have always caused pressure differentials. Jet engines just cause more pressure than wings and propellers do.
It has next to nothing to do with pressure, let alone temperature drop due to expansion. There are 2 things:
- When each one quantity of cold and warm air mix, the temperature of the mixture is almost exactly the midpoint (average), as the heat capacity is almost a constant.
- Vapor pressure of the water is a function of temperature and scales FAR more than linear.
So now when the hot, humid (burned hydrocarbon) air of the exhaust mixes with cold air the temperature drops a bit, but the vapor pressure drops massively. When conditions are right, the vapor pressure is now below the amount of vapor pressure that is actually present -> condensation.
vapor pressure over temperature data, note how it changes more than 2 orders of magnitude over only 100 K.
Just found this from NASA.
Another effect is micro-particles from the jet exhaust that form a lot of nucleation sites, this allows the vapor in the air to condense into tiny droplets more easily.
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Just because the contrails are science
I understand that part, doesn’t stop them from containing the plane exhaust which is directly contributing to global warming
Well, it’s not jet exhaust you’re seeing, though.
I did acknowledge that, by the way. Jet fumes certainly contribute to global warming. I wasn’t intending to imply they don’t. Simply that it’s not jet fumes you’re seeing in contrails.
I will convolute this conversation further by stating that contrails (like all other clouds consisting of ice crystals) warm up the planet by letting shortwave radiation from the Sun through while being more reflective in longer infrared wavelenghts, thus trapping outgoing longwave radiation. Contrails themselves are also warming the planet up. It’s a small contribution in the grand scheme, but far from a trivial one.
It’s a small contribution in the grand scheme, but far from a trivial one.
Pretty sure it’s extremely trivial compared to the exhaust gasses.Edit: I’m wrong!This could’ve been a quick web search on your part, but here you go:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1068
Nevertheless, net radiative forcing due to contrail cirrus remains the largest single radiative-forcing component associated with aviation.
Huh. I’m one of today’s lucky 10000, so thanks! Sorry for the mistake.
Incorrect. The condensation you are seeing in the air is a product of combustion. If no water was added to the air, then compressing it and decompressing it would not create a cloud or vapor trail.
Edit: Fine. It’s mostly incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail
Yes, the lower pressure can create a very temporary contrail, and in rare situations where the engine exhaust also cools down below freezing before it reaches ambient pressure, ice crystals can form and create a longer more visible contrails. Realistically, what you are seeing in a contrail is water vapor from combustion. Seriously, H2O and water are the largest products of combustion, and it’s like 99% of what you are seeing behind aircraft.
The longetivity of a contrail is determined by the atmospheric conditions. In sufficiently dry air no contrail is formed as the water introduced by the combustion isn’t enough to raise the frost point to the ambient temperature. More humidity means that the contrail may form and even persist for a while without sublimating away (Cirrus homogenitus). If the air is even more humid, the contrail may even start to grow and change shape (turning into Cirrus homomutatus). This last case is what I suspect gets the foil hats most riled up about “chemtrails”.
https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/explanatory-remarks-and-special-clouds-cirrus.html
