Normal Jet Contrails Send A Florida Congressman Into A Chemtrail Conspiracy Tizzy

The alleged chemtrails Rep. Greg Steube said were
over Florida "sky's" over the weekend. These 
are standard issue jet contrails, but I guess
weird conspiracy theories are moree fun. 

 I'm in an abusive mood today, so I'm going to pick on somebody you don't know, but it'll be worth it.

We're talking about Rep. Greg Steube (R-Florida), an esteemed member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. 

We're going after Steube because over the weekend he took a short video of a beautiful blue sky streaked with a few jet contrails.

To most of us, those contrail streaks are bits of frozen water from the exhaust of passing jets. They are just long, streaky clouds. To Steube, the white streaks in the sky were the dreaded chemtrails. (insert ominous music notes here).

Steube, posted on X  three times on Saturday, with photos and a video of the sky.  Steube wrote the following on one of the post; "Was a clear sky this a.m., now this. Didn't Florida ban spraying chemicals in our sky's (sic). We need to ban it nationwide. There is no way that water vapor would stay that long in the sky." 

Um, then how do other clouds stay in the sky for hours or even days?

Most of the contrails in Streube's photos seemed to be heading in the same direction, suggesting an established flight path. So it shouldn't have been surprising to see contrails. The video included a jet leaving behind a fresh contrail, which I guess to Steube was "proof" of the chemtrail attack. 

To illustrate how ridiculous the post was, a community note was added to it, noting chemtrails are just a conspiracy theory, and what Steube saw in the sky was standard issue contrails.  

Chemtrails don't exist, no matter how often some people insist otherwise  A few people who see the enemy everywhere think jet contrails are a secret government plot to spray chemicals into the air for some nefarious purpose. Mind control? Population control? Who knows?

The debunked conspiracy theory dates back to at least the 1990s. But with an ever-widening social media audience, people are still cranking out the idea that harmless ice crystals are out to kill us. 

Most of those posting about chemtrails probably know they don't exist, but spreading weird, scary false stories is great for clicks and views, I suppose. 

Speaking of scary it's more than a little frightening that a U.S. Congressman believes in chemtrails.

As Raw Story tells us:

"Given the important role Steube plays as a sitting member of the influential House committee, that frequently receives highly classified briefings on national security threats, helps shape intelligence laws and policy and oversees intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI, his apparent reference to a decades-long debunked conspiracy theory alarmed some onlookers." 

Note in Steuben's X post that reference to Florida banning spray chemicals in, as Steube, put it, the "sky's."

Florida, and some other mostly Republican states, have passed laws banning or restricting geoengineering and weather modification. The impetus behind these laws is, surprise! chemtrails.

Around the time Florida passed its law, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier talked breathlessly of Florida being under attack from "toxic particulates being sprayed into our atmosphere."

The toxic particles beings sprayed into the atmosphere are thse chemtrail screamers. You'd think an allegedly educated politician would know better.

But apparently not.  

 

Weather Conspiracy Theories Weirdly Gain Traction Over Reality

The tin foil hat crowd is working overtime, with so many
weather conspiracies that GOP politicians to pass
unnecessary law, and put people in unnecessary danger. 

 The weather wackos are out there. And gaining in numbers and power.

They're actually passing ridiculous laws, distracting from the big issues of the day that really need to be addressed.  

These are the people who look at all the storms, floods, wind and other weirdness out there we've had this year, and conclude some nefarious groups are controlling the weather. 

Even perfectly normal weather becomes fodder for these wackadoodle theories.  

Marjorie Taylor Greene in her usual full conspiracy mode said and has been "researching weather modification" (oh boy) and, "We must end the dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification and geoengineering."

Never mind that the limited attempts at things like cloud seeding and such and haven't produced any deaths or damage. Mostly because there's no weather modification going on, aside from local, small cloud seeding operations that produce sprinkles of rain.  

Still, Marjorie is  pressing on, introducing a bill that "prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature climate or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense."

She's got buddies in this endeavor. "Weather manipulation is real, but in the hands of our enemies or or some overlord, I think it can be a very detrimental thing. I'm big on God and just letting him work his magic and not people trying to play God," said GOP Tim Burchett, who cosponsored Greene's House bill that would ban supposed weather control.

Our friends Marjorie and Tim are  getting mocked for all this, as she always. does. Florida Democrat Care Moskowitz said on social media, "I'm introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release or dispersion of stupidity into Congress."

Yeah, good luck with that.  

CLOUD SEEDING AND TEXAS

Meanwhile retired general Mike Flynn, a former national security advisor in the first Trump administration - and also a right wing batshit conspiracy dude - n reposted another nutcase, who, in all caps of course, screamed "I NEED SOMEONE TO LOOK INTO WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS. WHEN WAS THE LAST CLOUD SEEDING?"

The answer is a few days before the storm. 

Like almost all conspiracy theories, a microscopic nugget of truth begins the story for instance, in the days  before the big Texas flood, there was some cloud seeding aircraft up there, trying to produce a little rain for some places that were actually drought stricken before the flood. 

That produced isolated, small amounts of rain, as cloud seeding never creates much precipitation. Cloud seeding is arguably useful to provide some parched crops a little moisture, but it sure as hell doesn't make it pour, 

As meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explained on X, cloud seeding doesn't "create" moisture to land as rain drops. 

It just helps droplets in clouds bump into each other to form bigger drops that fall. You can't get much moisture from just a collection of clouds. 

In the Texas floods, a gigantic surge of moisture pumped very wet air and dense clouds into central Texas. That air and those clouds needed no help in producing those tragic downpours. 

Cappucci, in full snark mode, also said, "Claiming that enormous regional floods are tied to cloud seeding is like claiming an overweight individual jumping into the Pacific Ocean could cause a tsunami. Such crazy conspiracies exhibit a fundamental lack of any semblance of understanding of scale."

MORE LAWS, CONSPIRACIES

But, despite that dose of reality, it's full speed ahead with the conspiracies. 

Florida just passed through a new law that says public use airports starting in October must submit monthly reports on geoengineering and weather modification activities or lose funding. 

I'm not sure how that's going to work, because nobody at the airports or on planes who use those airports is modifying the weather, at least intentionally, but not matter. 

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier  is really into this, though, because - sigh - he appears to be one of those sad people who think contrails from jets flying overhead is trying to poison the populace for some nefarious reason. Reasons that they really have a hard time explaining, never mind providing any evidence.

Here's Uthmeier's breathless, melodramatic statement on the issue: "From farmlands to our waterways, to the very air we breath - Floridians' health is under attack from toxic particulates being sprayed into our atmosphere, polluting our water, contaminating agriculture, and destroying human health."

Uthmeier included photos of cloud streaks in his post, which were those  jet contrails. Which is water vapor caused by condensation from the exhaust from aircraft.  

Uthmeier of course also invoked Texas and cloud seeding which we've already gone over, and there's no evidence (of course!) there's no toxins from our imaginary weather modification projects in Florida. 

First of all, nobody in Florida has applied for or received a weather modification license since it became a requirement back in 1957, according to PoliFact/Poynter. In 1957 citrus growers in three Florida counties tried cloud seeding for their orchards. But apparently, it didn't work great so they gave up. 

Poynter reached out to Florida environmental officials and Uthmeier to find out whether there were any reports of unlicensed weather modification efforts but didn't hear back. 

It's not just Florida. Missouri lawmakers are considering a proposal to ban all weather modification, including cloud seeding, saying in part that humans should not "play God" with the weather. 

Then there's the fringe group that is threatening to attack and destroy Doppler weather installations around the United States. 

The group, Veterans on Patrol, somehow think that Doppler radar is some sort of "weather weapon" but don't explain how a device that just measures precipitation intensity and direction is some sort of weapon. 

Earlier this month, a man was arrested for destroying the power supply to the weather radar at television  station KWTV in Oklahoma city. 

The dude who was arrested, Anthony Tyler Mitchell, 39, is not known to be a member of Veterans on Patrol, but the crime was inspired by them, officials said. 

But, according to NBC News, the head of that group. Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer (can we add a few more names?) welcomed the Oklahoma attack. 

"When we destroy and eliminate over 15 in a state of Oklahoma, your radar maps are going to change big time, and the weather in just going to be completely different over Oklahoma and the surrounding area," he told NBC. 

Or, in reality, the weather in Oklahoma won't change, except if he succeeds, residents of the state won't know if one of the area's many tornadoes, flash floods and other weather hazards are heading their way. I guess this dude figures Oklahomans love surprises, even if they are supremely unpleasant and deadly. 

He claimed the Texas flood was an effort by the military to murder children (by catching them in a flash flood, I guess), but he offered no motive for this alleged murderous scheme. 

I'm sure Mitchell, our radar vandal, is enjoying the charges of felony malicious injury to property, burglary and damage to critical infrastructure. 

We're all laughing at the stupidity of these whack jobs, except for one thing: It's dangerous. Wired reported the head of the Texas cloud seeding company Rainmaker has received 100 death threats since the Texas flood. 

And the fact that right wind influencers, MAGA politicians and other so-called leaders keep pushing the conspiracy theories means we'll keep seeing ill-considered, waste of time laws,.

MY "CONSPIRACY THEORY"

To appease their followers, the current administration will cater to these influences as yet another convenient distraction from what really matters, and what they are really doing. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, always the good Trump minion, said he would investigate the so-called weather control that "caused" the Texas floods. 

"Americans have questions about geoengineering and contrails, They expect honesty and transparency from the government when seeking answers, For years, people who asked questions in good faith were dismissed, even vilified by the media and and their own government. That ends today," Zeldin sanctimonious declared recently. 

So, they'll find some innocent scapegoat to prosecute, like that cloud seeding company that might have caused a few sprinkles of rain a few days before  and 120 miles away from the Texas flood scene.

There always were and always will be gullible people who get taken in by the wildest stories. And there will be always grifter who take advantage of these gullible people, 

Which is what's going on,

Humans are modifying the weather in one big way: Climate change. As everyone in the real world knows, all that fossil fuel we've been burning for the past century or two has modified the climate and thus the weather. 

Heat waves are hotter, rainstorms are wetter and powerful storms are more powerful. 

As the Washington Post puts it, "....extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent because of human-caused climate change. Some long-term deniers of that well-established process have been more likely to blame chemtrails or cloud seeding than to reconsider the climate-altering effects of fossil fuel emissions."

My conspiracy theory - and I actually thing it makes a bit of sense - is that the fossil fuel industry will do anything to protect their business. 

Distract the public with bogus "theories" and they can keep pumping those greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Which worsens the climate, and creates more extreme weather. Rinse and repeat. 

There's more than enough gullible people to keep this scam going.  

Well-Intentioned Caution Has QAnon Wing Of The GOP Fighting Fictitious "Chemtrails"

 Here, we go again.

Protecting the public or chemtrail lunacy? 
Sometimes shady lawmakers going after geo-engineering.
Not sure if public safety is the motive, or whether
catering to conspiracy-minded 
constituents is behind this.  

Some well intentioned caution is making the conspiracy theorists go into a tizzy again. This time it's back to the old "chemtrail" theme. 

GOP lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and probably a few other places have latched on to the the idea of banning the release of chemicals from aircraft to modify the weather. 

It's a little tough to figure out if those proposing this type of legislation have honest public safety goals, or if they've signed on to this chemtrail stupidity.  

To review, chem trails aren't a thing, despite the intense blowback I'm going to receive on social media when the wing nuts read this post. 

Like most wacky conspiracies, this one starts with a whiff of actual fact. As Raw Story explains:

"The false belief that condensation trails left by high flying aircraft are actually trails of chemicals released by the government for nefarious reasons has become conflated with techniques being explored to reduce the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere."

Specifically, some scientists are beginning to looking into a field of research known as geo engineering. 

Says the Washington Post: 

"Scientists have suggested that spraying sulfur particles into the atmosphere could help reflect sunlight, cooling the planet, though the technology remains controversial and untested, as researchers worry about potential unintended consequences."

There are reasonable calls to more closely regulate climate modification schemes through federal laws and/or rule making. Which makes sense 

To be clear, nobody is taking planes up in the air to spray boatloads of sulfur Mostly because not enough is known about this idea to try it. 

However, some believers think this sulfur spraying is ongoing and widespread, despite the lack of evidence that it is happening. Of course people will believe anything. 

The legislation or proposed legislation in Tennessee and Pennsylvania expressly deal with weather and  climate, and not the wackadoodle claims of extreme chemtrail conspiracy theorists.

For instance, the Tennessee bill prohibits the release of chemicals "with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather or the intensity of sunlight."

At first glance, that sounds reasonable enough. Since we don't know whether we'd see unpleasant side effects from geo engineering to combat climate change, maybe we should hold off on any large scale atmospheric experiments. 

If you read between the lines of interviews with Tennessee lawmakers pushing the legislation, it seems like they're trying to have it both ways: Show intelligent concern over geo engineering, while giving a tacit nod to constituents who are into the chemtrail conspiracy theories. 

In Pennsylvania, State Sen Doug. Mastriano, who was the GOP gubernatorial candidate there he wants legislation because of a supposed proliferation of weather modification patents "owned by a combination of Federal Government Agencies, Non-Government Organized and large multinational corporations."

But apparently there's more to Mastriano's motivation than just that, 

Pennsylvania Capital-Star notes Mastriano has gone beyond just scientific concerns and has embraced the chemtrail conspiracy.

"In a November Facebook post with a photo of condensation trails in the sky above Chambersburg, Mastriano wrote, 'I have legislation to stop this.... Normal contrails dissolve/evaporate within 30-90 seconds.'"

Au contraire!, contrail man.  The water vapor in condensation trails often freeze, and depending on wind conditions, can linger in the sky for many  minutes or even hours. 

Some of the wackier types are conflating this climate geoengineering idea with this conspiracy theory over chemtrails.

As WaPo explains:

"The risk experts say, is that discussion of such unfounded claims may get in the way of real public discussion about solar geo engineering research. At the moment, chemtrails accusations interact and meld with concerns over legitimate academic research, creating more confusion and blocking further scientific research."

The chemtrail conspiracy crowd seems like it might be behind the scenes with the proposals in Pennsylvania and Tennessee and maybe elsewhere. Sort of a back door way of trying to "legitimize" their odd beliefs.

I'm all for being careful not to harm people when science is being done. Let's just not succumb to the conspiracy theorists among us.