Sigh. The Texas February Snow Wasn't Some Strange Plot By Bill Gates

If you put a lighter flame against a snow ball, soot will get
on the snowball. It doesn't mean it isn't snow. Jeez! 

As always, the conspiracy theorists are at it again.  A lot of people live in some strange alternate "reality" where everything is a physically impossible plot by villains to, to, I don't know. The purpose of these weird theories is never clear.  

I'm bringing this up because there's wackos out there who are sure the snow that fell in Texas last month wasn't really snow. It was supposedly something else, deposited for unclear reasons. 

This comes up every time it snows or ice storms hit places that usually escape such winter weather. 

And yes, I'm going to mercilessly mock the conspiracists. There's no getting through to them, ranters are going to rant. 

This time Reuters saw fit to run a fact check on this.  I don't know what good this will do - it won't convince the conspiracy wackos. But, it's fun to roll our eyes at these suckers that are truly born every minute. 

The favorite trick among the conspiracy minded is to hold a cigarette lighter's flame to a snowball to "prove" it's not really snow. This one has been around since at least 2014.

If you do the cigarette lighter trick with snow, it won't be immediately apparent it's melting, and the flame will leave a sooty smudge on the snow.  

So, for the record, according to Reuters:

"(Astronomer Phil) Plait explained that the snow does melt, but it doesn't appear to drip because the remaining snow, which is porous, absorbs the water."

Additionally, under a flame, snow can sublimate, which is a fancy word meaning it goes straight from ice to water vapor without melting into plain water first. 

And that soot on the snowball?  "Plait further explained the chemical process behind the dark mark: It's  not that snowball is scorching or burning, but it's soot adhering to the snowball."

Of course any dummy in Texas would have observed that once it warmed up, you could see the snow melt outdoors and the melt water running down countless storm drains in the Lone Star State. But that would make too much sense. 

By the way, Bill Gates always seems to be the bad guy in these scenarios.  And that just makes the silly more depressing.  If he's such a super-brained villain who wants to control us somehow, wouldn't he do it with something other than fake snow?

As Popular Mechanics tells us:

"Bill Gates is many things - billionaire, philanthropist, synthetic beef advocate - but conspiracy theorists think he and the Chinese government might both benefit from a world where people are blanketed by pretend snow. You'd just think if someone could seed clouds and control the weather, they'd use real snow instead of some kind of slush that has metal in it."

Of course, there are those that thought that Gates, or Joe Biden or somebody controlled the weather to make Texas and surrounding areas freeze.

Even if Gates or Biden could do that - which they can't - why didn't they keep the freeze going to really punish their so called enemies. A week after the cold wave the weather was warm and gorgeous. By the way, as I've explained before, the Arctic freeze was caused by the jet stream, and things up in the Arctic doing weird things. 

To the extent that humans caused it, the only way you could say that is the fact greenhouse gas-induced climate change might have had a role in the rough weather. The operative word here being "might"

It's unclear exactly what Gates or Biden or George Soros or whoever hoped to gain by dumping fake snow or bad weather on Texas, at least in the conspiracy minds.  It goes all over the place.  Biden was pissed that a few Texas were talking about seceding. 5G is always a big one.  The life saving Covid vaccines are really a plot by Gates to inject us with nanoparticles to control our minds, for what I have no idea. 

As if Bill Gates really cares what random Texan thinks. 

The massive power failures that cut electricity to more than 4 million Texans also seems to be fodder for conspiracy. Those power failures were largely caused by the agency that manages Texas electricity - ERCOT - did not plan for the effects of wintry weather on the state's grid. 

Alex Jones, always one to give us some weird fantasy, said Biden blocked the U.S. Department of Energy from increasing power during the storm.

Turns out the Energy Department did the exact opposite:  As the Independent reported. Acting U.S. Energy Secretary David Huizenga, quickly approve a request from ERCOT to temporarily exceed emissions limits to gain more capacity. 

The "fake" snow in Texas has long since melted, I guess proving it wasn't so fake after all. I do forecast, though, a 100% chance of more conspiracy theories from the gullible the next time the weather gets weird. Count on it. 

There really is a sucker born every minute.