chemtrails
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- Paige Winfield Cunningham @ The Washington Sun: RFK Jr. Headlines Anti-Vaccine Group’s Conference, Discusses Chemtrails
The health secretary told Children’s Health Defense that it has a “strong and steadfast friend at the White House” in President Donald Trump.
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USNWR
Unsubstantiated 'Chemtrail' Conspiracy Theories Lead to Legislation Proposed in US Statehouses
State legislatures are passing bills to ban weather modification and geoengineering based on decades-old “chemtrails” conspiracy theories, moving the fringe theory from online into actual public policy
June 8, 2025,
](https://www.usnews.com/)
Unsubstantiated 'Chemtrail' Conspiracy Theories Lead to Legislation Proposed in US Statehouses
Jeff Chiu
FILE - A plane flies over Oakland Alameda Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., April 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As Louisiana Rep. Kimberly Landry Coates stood before her colleagues in the state’s Legislature she warned that the bill she was presenting might “seem strange” or even crazy.
Some lawmakers laughed with disbelief and others listened intently, as Coates described situations that are often noted in discussions of “chemtrails” — a decades-old conspiracy theory that posits the white lines left behind by aircraft in the sky are releasing chemicals for any number of reasons, some of them nefarious. As she urged lawmakers to ban the unsubstantiated practice, she told skeptics to “start looking up” at the sky.
“I’m really worried about what is going on above us and what is happening, and we as Louisiana citizens did not give anyone the right to do this above us,” the Republican said.
Louisiana is the latest state taking inspiration from a wide-ranging conspiratorial narrative, mixing it with facts, to create legislation. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a similar measure into law last year and one in Florida has passed both the House and the Senate. More than a dozen other states, from New York to Arizona, have introduced their own legislation.
Such bills being crafted is indicative of how misinformation is moving beyond the online world and into public policy. Elevating unsubstantiated theories or outright falsehoods into the legislative arena not only erodes democratic processes, according to experts, it provides credibility where there is none and takes away resources from actual issues that need to be addressed.
“Every bill like this is kind of symbolic, or is introduced to appease a very vocal group, but it can still cause real harm by signaling that these conspiracies deserve this level of legal attention,” said Donnell Probst, interim executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education.
Louisiana's bill, which is awaiting Republican Gov. Jeff Landry's signature, prohibits anyone from “intentionally" injecting, releasing, applying or dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere with the purpose of affecting the “temperature, weather, climate, or intensity of sunlight.” It also requires the Department of Environmental Quality to collect reports from anyone who believes they have observed such activities.
While some lawmakers have targeted real weather modification techniques that are not widespread or still in their infancy, others have pointed to dubious evidence to support legislation.
Discussion about weather control and banning “chemtrails” has been hoisted into the spotlight by high-profile political officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Recently, Marla Maples, the ex-wife of President Donald Trump, spoke in support of Florida's legislation. She said she was motivated to “start digging” after seeing a rise in Alzheimer’s.
Asked jokingly by a Democratic state senator if she knew anyone in the federal government who could help on the issue, Maples smiled and said, “I sure do.”
Chemtrails vs. contrails
Chemtrail conspiracy theories, which have been widely debunked and include a myriad of claims, are not new. The publication of a 1996 Air Force report on the possible future benefits of weather modification is often cited as an early driver of the narrative.
Some say that evidence of the claims is happening right before the publics' eyes, alleging that the white streaks stretching behind aircrafts reveal chemicals being spread in the air, for everything from climate manipulation to mind control.
Ken Leppert, an associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Louisiana Monroe, said the streaks are actually primarily composed of water and that there is “no malicious intent behind” the thin clouds. He says the streaks are formed as exhaust is emitted from aircrafts, when the humidity is high and air temperature is low, and that ship engines produce the same phenomenon.
A fact sheet about contrails, published by multiple government agencies including NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency, explains that the streaks left behind by planes do not pose health risks to humans. However, the trails, which have been produced since the earliest days of jet aviation, do impact the cloudiness of Earth’s atmosphere and can therefore affect atmospheric temperature and climate.
Scientists have overwhelmingly agreed that data or evidence cited as proof of chemtrails “could be explained through other factors, including well-understood physics and chemistry associated with aircraft contrails and atmospheric aerosols,” according to a 2016 survey published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. In the survey of 77 chemists and geochemists, 76 said they were not aware of evidence proving the existence of a secret large-scale atmospheric program.
“It’s pure myth and conspiracy,” Leppert said.
Cloud seeding
While many of the arguments lawmakers have used to support the chemtrails narrative are not based in fact, others misrepresent actual scientific endeavors, such as cloud seeding; a process by which an artificial material — usually silver iodide — is used to induce precipitation or to clear fog.
“It’s maybe really weak control of the weather, but it’s not like we’re going to move this cloud here, move this hurricane here, or anything like that,” Leppert said.
Parker Cardwell, an employee of a California-based cloud seeding company called Rainmaker, testified before lawmakers in Louisiana and asked that an amendment be made to the legislation to avoid impacts to the industry.
The practice is an imprecise undertaking with mixed results that isn’t widely used, especially in Louisiana, which has significant natural rainfall. According to Louisiana's Department of Agriculture and Forestry, a cloud seeding permit or license has never been issued in the state.
Geoengineering
While presenting Louisiana's bill last week, Coates said her research found charts and graphics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on spraying the air with heavy metals to reflect sunlight back into space to cool the Earth.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy, with support from NOAA, to develop an initial governance framework and research plan related to solar radiation modification, or SRM. A resulting report, which Coates holds up in the House session, focuses on possible future actions and does not reflect decisions that had already been made.
SRM “refers to deliberate, large-scale actions intended to decrease global average surface temperatures by increasing the reflection of sunlight away from the Earth,” according to NOAA. It is a type of geoengineering. Research into the viability of many methods and potential unintended consequences is ongoing, but none have actually been deployed.
Taking focus
In recent years, misinformation and conspiratorial narratives have become more common during the debates and committee testimonies that are a part of Louisiana's lawmaking process.
And while legislators say Louisiana's new bill doesn't really have teeth, opponents say it still takes away time and focus from important work and more pressing topics.
State Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Democrat who opposed Louisiana’s bill, pointed to other issues ailing the state, which has some of the highest incarceration, poverty, crime, and maternal mortality rates.
“I just feel like we owe the people of Louisiana much more than to be talking about things that I don't see and that aren't real,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this story.
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STATE REP
. The bill, led by State Rep. Kimberly Landry Coates, requires the Department of Environmental
GUK
Political leaders love an empty statement or proclamation, but when Louisiana’s state house of representatives moved against “chemtrails” last week, they were literally seeking to combat something that does not exist.
It was an act of political symbolism that delved deep into the sort of anti-government conspiracy theories that have flourished under Donald Trump and are taking rooting in some US legislative chambers across the US.
Known to less conspiratorially minded as aircraft contrails, or the white vaporous lines streaming out of an airplane’s engines at altitude, chemtrails are a longstanding conspiracy theory.
Believers in chemtrails hold that the aircraft vapor trails that criss-cross skies across the globe every day are deliberately laden with toxins that are using commercial aircraft to spray them on people below, perhaps to enslave them to big pharma, or exert mind control, or sterilize people or even control the weather for nefarious motives.
Despite the outlandishness of the belief and the complete absence of evidence, a 2016 study showed that the idea is held to be “completely true” by 10% of Americans and “somewhat true” by a further 20%-30% of Americans.
At least eight states, including Florida and Tennessee, have now introduced chemtrail-coded legislation to prohibit “geo-engineering” or “weather modification”. Louisiana’s bill, which must pass through the senate before reaching Governor Jeff Landry’s desk, orders the department of environmental quality to record reported chemtrail sightings and pass complaints on to the Louisiana air national guard.
While there are no penalties for violations, the bill calls for further investigation and documentation. Opponents fear it could be used to force airlines to re-route flights, challenge the location of airports and bring legal action against carriers.
The US Environmental Protection Agency states that the plumes of aircraft exhaust vapor are a natural result of flight and pose no risk to weather patterns, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has publicly denied undertaking or planning any weather modification experiments.
But the theories abound, including that last year’s Hurricane Helene stalled over and devastated parts of western North Carolina as a result of government weather interference that was designed to force North Carolinians off their land and then exploit it for rare earth mineral mining. Federal emergency managers set up a webpage to dispel false information.
But government weather programs have existed in the past.
For two decades, from 1962 to 1983, Project Stormfury conducted experiments to release a silver iodide compound into “the belt of maximum winds” to reduce the strongest winds. And cloud-seeding occurs in western states to induce rain or snow fall.
“It’s increasingly clear that humanity isn’t merely subjected to whatever weather a cloud portends – we also create and influence it through our everyday actions,” says Nevada’s Desert Research Institute. “Scientists now regularly harness their moisture and pull it to Earth, bringing water to parched communities and landscapes around the world.”
Nor has the government always been entirely straightforward in its use of aerial-dispersed chemicals. The US military dropped 19m gallons of herbicide, including the cancer-linked Agent Orange, during the Korean and Vietnam wars, leading to potential long-term health problems related to exposure and spina bifida in children of veterans.
Efforts to stop geo-engineering are gaining support in the administration where conspiracy-minded politicians now hold office or wield powerful influence.
“We are going to stop this crime,” the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, posted on X in August. Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a post before Hurricane Milton struck in October: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” Even Donald Trump has spread the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden is dead and has been replaced by a robotic clone.
A recently published book, The Ghosts of Iron Mountain, traces at least some responsibility for current conspiratorial thinking to 1960s radicals, including the 1967 anti-war satire Report from Iron Mountain by Leonard Lewin, written at the suggestion of future Nation editor Victor Navasky, which posed as a leaked government study about the necessity of continuous war for social stability.
In The Ghosts of Iron Mountain, author Phil Tinline traces how a leftwing hoax was adopted by the right, absorbing much of the former’s anxieties about a military-industrial complex and elite control and repurposing it around “the deep state” with its attendant spin-offs in QAnon and militia thinking.
This mischief-making, Tinline writes, acts as a “warning about the consequences that await if you don’t keep an eye on the line between your deep story and how power works, and what the facts support”.
Timothy Tangherlini, a professor at the Berkeley School of Information who studies the circulation of folklore, says the chemtrails conspiracy theory has a potent history because, like all folktales, it begins with a kernel of history truth – programs like Agent Orange – and speaks to potent contemporary fears.
“There are certain things that were sprayed by airplanes that did have a massive impact on the environment and on people’s health,” he says, pointing out that Vietnam veterans had fallen sick and the US was revealed as having exposed them to cancer-causing agents and then covering it up.
“Fast-forward 50 years, there’s a deep suspicion of the government and things that fly,” he said.
Fear of things in the sky was evident in the hysteria late last year in the panic over drones that appeared over New Jersey, close to a nuclear power station and a military arsenal, which prompted a federal investigation that has yet to release its findings.
Tangherlini called the cross-fertilization of theories, whether around chemtrails, vaccination hesitancy or any number of other fringe beliefs that have made their way into the American mainstream via the internet and social media, “the wall of crazy”.
“Jets flying though the air and contrails of condensed water should not in any way be linked to disease, viruses, mind control, but you look at some of the extractions we get from our mining social media, and if it wasn’t real you’d think your code wasn’t working or in hysterics.”
But narratively, Tangherlini pointed out: “It’s a very interesting thing to do – you can create this totalizing threat everywhere you look. What is the strategy for dealing with it? Call the FAA. No, the FAA is in on it. What can we do to protect our health? Well, the doctors and big pharma are in on it. So there is a siege mentality.”
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LOUISIANA LAW CANCER ALLEY
DUCK 2 26
Shreveport Times
Chemtrail ban in Louisiana. House passes SB46, buying into conspiracy
Jun 3, 2025The Louisiana House of Representatives have passed legislation to ban 'chemtrails,' a conspiracy theory about condensation from planes.
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2025 › jun › 08 › chemtrails-us-states-legislation
Eight US states seek to outlaw chemtrails - The Guardian
Jun 8, 2025States introduce chemtrail-coded legislation as conspiracy theories take root in some US chambers Political leaders love an empty statement or proclamation, but when Louisiana's state house of ...
ABC 10News San Diego
FACT OR FICTION: Lawmakers pass bill to ban "chemtrails?"
Jun 9, 2025A story you may have seen claims Louisiana passed a bill banning "chemtrails," which are white lines left behind by aircrafts.
The Advocate
Why Louisiana is collecting reports of 'chemtrails' | State Politics ...
Dec 30, 2025The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has collected more than 400 such reports of 'chemtrails' since just this summer, when the Republican-led Legislature passed a bill requiring ...
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com › louisiana-pill-ban-chemtrails-2079764
Louisiana Passes Bill to Ban 'Chemtrails' - Newsweek
Jun 2, 2025A bill that would ban "chemtrails" has passed in the Louisiana state House of Representatives, clearing the way for it to go to the state Senate. Republican state Representative Kimberly Landy ...
wbrz.com
https://www.wbrz.com › news › ldeq-received-hundreds-of-chemtrail-reports-since-summer-report-shows
LDEQ received hundreds of 'chemtrail' reports since summer, report shows
Dec 29, 2025Louisianians have sent in more than 400 reports of supposed chemtrails to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality since the summer, when the state legislature passed a law requiring the ...
Newstarget.com
Louisiana state lawmakers advance bill banning CHEMTRAILS
Jun 4, 2025A bill (SB 46) banning intentional atmospheric chemical releases for weather modification ("chemtrails") passed the Louisiana House (58-33) and returns to the Senate for final approval after amendments. Supporters like State Sen. Fesi and State Rep. Coates argue the bill protects public health from undisclosed aerial spraying, citing alleged federal geoengineering efforts involving ...
legis.la.gov
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AN 6 25
Former GOP gubernatorial nominee and state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin) has introduced legislation seeking to ban conceptual geoengineering techniques he falsely links to the “chemtrail” conspiracy theory.
In a pitch for his bill, Mastriano associated the theoretical techniques aimed at combatting climate change have been falsely associated with the baseless conspiracy theory that some condensation trails, or contrails, left by high-flying aircraft are being used to introduce toxic substances into the atmosphere.
The “Clean Air Preservation Act” would outlaw “solar radiation modification or sunlight reflection methods” in Pennsylvania and impose strict penalties on violators. Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R-Washington) is a cosponsor of the bill.
Joshua Horton, project manager at the Harvard Solar Geoengineering Research Program, told the Capital-Star that research behind solar geoengineering aims to identify ways to mitigate climate change by reflecting sunlight back into space. Solar geoengineering methods are largely conceptual and there is little evidence to suggest these methods would harm the environment or public health.
“To be clear, there is no geoengineering going on. There’s no solar radiation modification going on,” Horton said. “So to the extent that this bill is premised on the belief that it’s happening, it’s just factually incorrect.”
In a memo in December seeking support for the bill, Mastriano said the “release of unknown, experimental, and potentially hazardous substances into the atmosphere without the consent of the people of Pennsylvania is a clear violation of Article 1, Section 27 of the PA Constitution.” He has previously proposed similar legislation.
Mastriano’s memo also cited a 2023 White House report on potential future solar geoengineering research, falsely claiming it proves the federal government “may conduct solar radiation modification or geoengineering experiments involving the release of air contaminants into the atmosphere, and those activities may occur within the Commonwealth.”
That report “focused on potential research and its governance, not authorizing any deployment or specific activities,” according to Michael Thompson, managing director at the nonprofit Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Engineering. “The report explicitly aimed to guide how research could be approached and managed, emphasizing transparency and risk assessment, and to reduce the risk that research is perceived as a step towards inevitable deployment.”
Thompson’s organization seeks to promote “just and inclusive deliberation” on the research and possible future employment of solar geoengineering. He told the Capital-Star that controversy surrounding the theoretical practice is “amplified when state-level discussions wrongly link scientific inquiry into solar geoengineering with debunked ‘chemtrail’ hoaxes.”
“For solar geoengineering, public concern is understandable,” Thompson said. “People rightly want to know what is being researched and would be alarmed by pollutants being added to the skies for nefarious reasons, but that’s just not happening.”
A spokesperson for Mastriano did not respond to requests for comment.
On May 31, Mastriano held a virtual roundtable to rally support for the bill, which is awaiting consideration in the Senate Agriculture & Rural Affairs committee.
Jolie Diane, who runs a website called Zero Geoengineering, called in from California to give a presentation riddled with falsehoods on “weather modification policy and the governance of geoengineering experimentation.”
Diane has a history of lobbying state legislatures to ban solar geoengineering. She does not hold any scientific credentials, despite Mastriano calling her a “leading expert in weather modification.”
During the roundtable, which garnered thousands of views across social media platforms, Mastriano rallied against theoretical methods such as stratospheric aerosol injection.
Horton explained that stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, is a conceptual solar geoengineering method that would involve aircraft introducing aerosols into the upper atmosphere to “reflect a small fraction of incoming sunlight back to space.”
“It’s pretty simple technology, but it doesn’t exist yet. It’s been explored almost exclusively through computer models,” he said. “The research tends to show it would produce net benefits globally.”
Mastriano also spoke against cloud seeding, a common practice employed for decades to increase rainfall that would be banned under the bill. A 1967 state law already requires anyone who wants to try cloud seeding to apply for a license from the state Department of Agriculture.
No one has ever applied for this license, nor has the state’s agriculture department ever investigated unauthorized cloud seeding, press secretary Shannon Powers said in an email.
While cloud seeding is not practiced in Pennsylvania, “there are … cloud seeding weather modification activities that have been ongoing for 75 years, and involve putting silver iodide in clouds to enhance rainfall,” Horton said. “A lot of small counties all over the west, and places beyond the U.S., pay for services for pilots to go up there and spray this stuff.”
Mastriano and Diane both alluded to the debunked “chemtrail” conspiracy theory, which alleges that nefarious actors are spraying toxic substances into the atmosphere via contrails created by high-flying aircraft. He claimed that normal contrails should dissipate within minutes, falsely suggesting that if contrails are visible for longer, it’s an indication they are infused with toxic substances.
According to the National Weather Service, contrails form as hot, moist air from an aircraft’s engine mixes with freezing outside air. That moisture condenses and forms a contrail, which can be visible for hours depending on factors like humidity and wind.
“These clouds are not part of a global conspiracy,” Thompson said. “Lawmakers know better than this and should do minimal homework before bringing bills to their legislative bodies.”
Mastriano has a history of sharing “chemtrail” misinformation. In a November 2022 Facebook post, he shared a photo of contrails with the caption, “I have legislation to stop this … Normal contrails dissolve / evaporate within 30-90 seconds.”
“When these bills appear, given there is no active nefarious geoengineering taking place
… one has to assume they are brought forward primarily for political reasons, rather than a misunderstanding of the facts,” Thompson said.
“We worry that these kinds of politically motivated legislative efforts, by fostering confusion and fear, make such nuanced and forward-looking consideration far less possible.”
Similar legislation restricting solar geoengineering has been proposed in more than two dozen states. Tennessee lawmakers passed a law banning the practice last year.
“We are concerned generally that legislation aimed at governing or banning non-existent activities, such as non-existent chemtrails, disempowers and distracts rather than enabling citizens to engage with decisions being made now that will impact them in the future,” Thompson said.
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.
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an 5 25
CNN reports a violent militia-style group is targeting Doppler weather radar towers, believing them to be dangerous weather control devices.
Emails from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s security office reveal the group Veterans on Patrol, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as an anti-government militia organization, views the National Weather Service network of Doppler radars as “weather weapons.”
“This group is advocating for anyone and everyone to join them in conducting penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses which can be used to ultimately destroy the sites,” the email stated, using an acronym for the weather radar network.
READ MORE: Trump ally reportedly set to arrest journalists who revealed his secret pact with gangs
“The group referred to the NEXRAD system towers as ‘weather weapons,’ and claimed there were no laws preventing American citizens from destroying the ‘weapons,’” the email states.
The email, sent to the general National Weather Service workforce on May 1, was unclear about what the group believes the radars are capable of doing. The emblematic ball towers of NWS’ NEXRAD, or “next generation radar,” network have been in place since the 1990s and detect precipitation in the atmosphere.
Tower sensors can also pinpoint the presence of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms and prepare the way for life-saving storm warnings and intervention. The Federal Aviation Administration and the US Air Force system also use the system for anticipate weather.
“We obviously deal with some fringe folks every now and then (chemtrails mostly), but specific threats to target facilities is pretty rare,” one anonymous NWS staff member told CNN. “Given the general temperature of the country right now, this is stuff is especially concerning.”
READ MORE:Trump just issued a threat to all of us
Among other actions, NOAA’s security office advised NWS implement a buddy system when working at remote sites and to be alert for suspicious activity.
Read the full CNN report here.
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an 4 25
TALLAHASSSEE — If you’re one of the 900 new people who move to Florida every day, you may not know this crucial secret of Florida government. I’m a Florida native, so let me clue you in. Lean in close and I’ll whisper it in your ear. Are you ready?
The Florida Legislature contains more cuckoos than a Swiss clock factory.
Now that you’re aware of this fact, how are you holding up? How’s your blood pressure? Can you handle the truth?
You want some evidence? Just last year, a legislator claimed his new anti-bear bill was necessary because there were bears on crack invading people’s houses. This was, of course, a complete fantasy. Yet his colleagues didn’t question his sanity or call the paramedics. They just passed the bill. It’s the law now!
This year there’s one that’s even kookier. I am referring to the so-called “chemtrails” bill.
In case you’re unfamiliar with that debunked conspiracy theory, the folks who believe in “chemtrails” are convinced the government (or maybe it’s the Illuminati) is dispatching planes to fly over us unsuspecting Americans and spray chemicals on us.
Why? The chemtrails can change the weather, say the diehards. Or maybe they can control people’s minds. Or maybe they’re just going to poison everybody they don’t like. Who knows? After all, it’s a secret, like the 1947 UFO crash landing in New Mexico.
Anyway, there’s a bill in the Legislature to track and attack chemtrails. Instead of being laughed out of the Capitol building, as it deserves, the bill was just passed by the full Senate, because that’s what our state’s elected leaders are like right now. I wish I could tell you
played while they voted.
“The measure (SB 56), sponsored by Miami Republican Ileana Garcia, would prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any means of a chemical, chemical compound, substance, or apparatus into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting the climate,” my colleague Mitch Perry reported in the Phoenix last week. “Any person or corporation who conducts such geoengineering or weather modification activity would be subject to a third-degree felony charge, with fines up to $100,000.”
The bill would require the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to set up a hotline so anyone concerned about streaks in the sky can call and report them. I’m sure the DEP will jump right on those reports, just the way the agency has jumped on reports of rampant water pollution that fuels toxic algae blooms, kills seagrass, and leaves manatees to starve.
I tried calling Sen. Garcia to ask her some questions about her bill. While I waited to talk to her, I was struck by a subversive thought:
What if the chemtrails bill becomes law and we folks who still live in the real world use it to flip the script? What if we employ its provisions to go after the people who really ARE changing the weather — with their greenhouse gas emissions?
A healthy skepticism
The most shocking thing about this chemtrails bill is not that it was filed — filed, I should add, by a senator who won her seat by just 32 votes, thanks to an illegal ghost candidate scheme backed by Florida Power & Light.
Nor is the most shocking thing that it passed one house of our Legislature by a vote of 28-9 and now is headed for the other.
No, what’s shocking is that it was endorsed by Senate President Ben Albritton and Gov. Ron DeSantis, two allegedly well-educated people. At this rate, they’ll next endorse a taxpayer-funded expedition to explore how we ended up living inside a Hollow Earth.
Actually, DeSantis’ endorsement isn’t that much of a surprise. He’s happy to appease the Tinfoil Hat Brigade if it gets him a mention on Fox News or its imitators.
Remember, DeSantis is the guy who appointed as his surgeon general the world’s biggest vaccine skeptic and now lets him run around the state trying to convince everyone to stop preventing children’s tooth decay. I sometimes wonder if he and RFK Jr. share a brain worm.
But Albritton’s comments threw me. He’s a longtime citrus man who’s familiar with the need for accurate weather forecasts. Yet he actually called this lunacy “a great piece of legislation” that would address “real concerns from our constituents.”
If some of those constituents also think their elected politicians are all lizard people, presumably he’d be fine with legislation requiring a reptilian DNA test before administering the oath of office.
“I have heard the conspiracy theories out there,” Albritton said about Garcia’s bill, “but the fact is we should not be shutting down legitimate concerns. Healthy skepticism is important. There’s a lot we don’t know in this field of science and people are rightfully concerned.”
Because I grew up in Florida, I have a healthy skepticism toward anything Florida politicians say. Albritton’s statement suggests that I’m right to be skeptical because there’s a lot that’s wrong with his comments.
We actually know quite a lot about the weather modification attempts. We know they don’t work and have mostly been discontinued.
Florida law currently requires anyone who wants to modify the weather to get a permit first. A Senate bill analysis of SB 56 points out, “There have been no applications for weather modification licenses in the past 10 years.”
Four years ago, eight Western states tried cloud seeding to produce rains to end a lengthy drought. However, Scientific American reported, “there is little evidence to show that the process is increasing precipitation.”
Yet “weather modification” is what our Legislature chooses to tackle instead of lowering property insurance rates, boosting educational test scores, or any one of a dozen more important issues. Maybe they’re under some bizarre mind control method that requires them to be ineffective at good governing.
Legitimate concerns
Albritton’s statement about people being “rightfully concerned” about chemtrails sounds like he’s endorsing the bogus claims that spread last year that the government steered two hurricanes to clobber specific communities ahead of the election.
Those rumors were, of course, lies spread by the unscrupulous to fool the gullible. They became so pervasive that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to put out a press release denying it.
“NOAA does not modify the weather, nor does it fund, participate in or oversee cloud seeding or any other weather modification activities,” it said.
Given how Elon Musk is rapidly dismantling the agency now, I doubt they can control the thermostat in their office buildings, much less the weather.
I wish Albritton were as supportive of the “legitimate concerns” many of us Floridians feel about climate change.
We’re on the front lines of it, with our rising sea levels, more intense hurricanes, higher storm surges, and increased temperatures even at night. It’s hurting everything from our seafood industry to our sea turtle nesting. Heck, it’s even hurting Albritton’s own industry, agriculture.
Hard-headed property insurance companies recognize the dangers and disruptions of climate change. Why can’t our state officials?
“If lawmakers want to protect Floridians by addressing substances affecting the temperature, weather, and climate, they should hold power companies and the oil and gas industry accountable,” said longtime Florida climate activist Susan Glickman of the CLEO Institute, a non-profit dedicated to climate education and advocacy. “The pollution they release is warming the climate in increasingly extreme and deadly ways.”
But last year the Legislature voted to delete most references to climate change from state law under the well-known scientific theory of “If We Don’t Talk About It, Surely It Will Go Away.” Given how we were all beaten up by intense hurricanes and big storm surges last year, I don’t think it went away.
Fortunately, I see a way to take this “chemtrails” bill and turn it into a “let’s fight climate change” bill. Let me explain.
Contrail confusion
I have a confession to make: Every time I read someone’s rants about chemtrails, I always crack up. That’s because I always picture
which is the silliest and most inefficient murder method ever attempted.
Was the pilot supposed to crash into Cary and kill himself too? Cut Cary’s head off with the propeller, which would make the plane stop flying? Or maybe force him to cough up a lung because of all the pesticide he was inhaling? None of these options seem practical.
Similarly, the whole chemtrails theory falls apart on practical questions. How often and how much do you need to spray those chemicals in the sky to affect everyone? There are 23 million people in Florida alone. That’s a lot of folks to spritz with your mind-control concoction.
Seems to me you’d need WAAAAAY more chemical spraying than what we’re seeing if you plan to coat every single one of us with the goop. You’d need to dump it out in quantities like the helicopter pilots dropping[pix]
Nope, what we’re seeing up in the sky are simple contrails — droplets of water vapor clinging to particles of soot that were emitted by an airplane’s engine.
So imagine my surprise when Rafe Pomerance of Rethink Energy Florida told me, “Water vapor is a greenhouse gas.”
“Say what now?” I replied, displaying my usual incisive intellect.
“You warm up the earth, and one of the effects is an increase of water vapor in the atmosphere,” he explained. Then the vapor traps heat in our atmosphere just like carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases do. The heat that created the vapor gets amplified by the vapor.
When I expressed that old healthy skepticism, he referred me to a scientist named Adam Boies of Stanford University. He’s an expert on contrails. He confirmed that chemtrails are bogus and also confirmed what Pomerance told me.
Some of the contrails disappear in minutes after the plane that created them leaves the area, Boies said. But some, say about 20%, linger longer. Those are the dangerous ones that can trap heat in the atmosphere.
Airplane engine manufacturers are worried about this so they are working on engine designs that will stop producing contrails, he said.
“The airlines are so concerned about this that they’re willing to try new fuels or rerouting flight patterns to try to avoid them,” Boies told me.
Thus, for once, the Legislature might do the right thing for the wrong reason — asking people to report something that actually is a cause of climate change. That’s why I think we should embrace this silly chemtrails bill and join DeSantis and Albritton in pushing it forward.
Then, once the bill passes, I say we all start contacting that DEP hotline to report, say, Florida Power & Light and its fellow utilities for burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. They’re building a lot of solar farms now, but they ought to replace their older plants too.
The same goes for all the municipal incinerators across the state, too, and the Big Sugar companies burning their fields and sending billows of thick smoke into the communities south of Lake Okeechobee. I say we report every one of these folks messing up our state.
“Hello, DEP,” we can say, “there’s a chemical plant in Pensacola that’s altering the weather with its nitrous oxide emissions. The clouds of pollutants are going up in the atmosphere and trapping heat here! You should do something about that, pronto.”
Or how about, “Hello, is this the DEP? I want to report someone for altering the weather. It’s the Florida DOT. They’re building a lot of roads for heavily polluting cars and trucks and doing nothing for mass transit. No electric vehicle charging stations, either. Can you get after them for that?”
By the way, I never did reach the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Garcia. It’s too bad. I was ready to congratulate her for doing more to combat climate change than either DeSantis or his predecessor, Rick Scott. Of course, to hear me speak, she’d first have to unwrap all that tinfoil from around her head.
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Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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rumble 3 24
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an 1 25
Chemtrail conspiracy theorists sway Republicans to support ban on geoengineering
===
an 3 24 note phobes
more eyebrow-raising details are emerging about Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee in North Carolina's K-12 school superintendent race.
According to a recent report by Media Matters for America (MMFA), Morrow has touted her past work for the political action committee (PAC) Liberty First Grassroots, which is a far-right advocacy group that's embraced numerous conspiracy theories. Some of the group's most spurious claims are that school shootings are "false flag" attacks staged by the US government, that the US government secretly played a role in the orchestration of the 9/11 terror attacks, that wealthy celebrities drink the blood of children and that former President Barack Obama is a grandson of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler through his mother.
The PAC — whom Morrow used to work for as a spokesperson — has given Morrow a "100%" endorsement, calling her "the light on the hill."
READ MORE:GOP nominee for NC public schools chief endorsed 'pay per view' execution of Obama: report
MMFA also found documented examples of Liberty First Grassroots PAC endorsing other fringe conspiracy theories like QAnon, Pizzagate (in which a Washington, DC pizzeria was accused of running a child sex trafficking ring out of its nonexistent basement), that Obama was "a political science project by psychopaths" with a "Hitler blood line" and even the belief that public schools are part of a "plan set up by the Illuminati to mold the brains of our children." The group has also endorsed the chemtrails/contrails conspiracy theory, as well as the conspiracy that Obama is secretly a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"[Morrow] has been involved with LFG for years and has served as the group’s spokesperson. A 2021 LFG statement described her as 'a long time Conservative Activist Team member' and someone who has been 'quoted by the media many times,'" MMFA's Payton Armstrong and Eric Hananoki wrote. "Morrow has credited LFG with being an integral part of her political journey, telling an interviewer that she first connected with the group surrounding the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, who became a Supreme Court justice in 2017."
In one social media post from 2019, Liberty First Grassroots wrote that LGBTQ marriage was part of the "New World Order" conspiracy, whose adherents believe that "a shadowy elite force is trying to implement a totalitarian world government."
"This is where we are headed... if we let the Left continue," the group wrote on Facebook, sharing an image of a book whose author predicted that the state would raise children instead of parents and that practitioners of all religions would be imprisoned.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
The chemtrail conspiracy theory posits the erroneous[1] belief that long-lasting condensation trails are "chemtrails" consisting of chemical or biological agents left in the sky by high-flying aircraft, sprayed for nefarious purposes undisclosed to the general public.[2] Believers in this conspiracy theory say that while normal contrails dissipate relatively quickly, contrails that linger must contain additional substances.[3][4] Those who subscribe to the theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be solar radiation management,[3] weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, or biological or chemical warfare, and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.[2][5]^
The claim has been dismissed by the scientific community. There is no evidence that purported chemtrails differ from normal water-based contrails routinely left by high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions.[6] Although proponents have tried to prove that chemical spraying occurs, their analyses have been flawed or based on misconceptions.[7][8] Because of the persistence of the conspiracy theory and questions about government involvement, scientists and government agencies around the world have repeatedly explained that the supposed chemtrails are in fact normal contrails.[3][9][10]^
The term chemtrail is a portmanteau of the words chemical and trail, just as contrail is a portmanteau of condensation and trail.[11]
History
Chemtrail conspiracy theories began to circulate after theUnited States Air Force (USAF) published a 1996 report about weather modification.[10] Following the report, in the late 1990s the USAF was accused of "spraying the U.S. population with mysterious substances" from aircraft "generating unusual contrail patterns."[6][12] The theories were posted on Internet forums by people including Richard Finke and William Thomas, and were among many conspiracy theories popularized by late-night radio host Art Bell, starting in 1999.[13][8] As the chemtrail conspiracy theory spread, federal officials were flooded with angry calls and letters.[10][3]^
A multi-agency response attempting to dispel the rumors was published in 2000 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).[14][15] Many chemtrail believers interpreted agency fact sheets as further evidence of the existence of a government cover-up.[3] The EPA refreshed its posting in 2015.[16]^
In the early 2000s the USAF released an undated fact sheet that stated the conspiracy theories were a hoax fueled in part by citations to a 1996 strategy paper drafted within their Air University titled Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025.[17][18] The paper was presented in response to a military directive to outline a future strategic weather modification system for the purpose of maintaining the United States' military dominance in the year 2025, and identified as "fictional representations of future situations/scenarios."[18] The USAF further clarified in 2005 that the paper "does not reflect current military policy, practice, or capability," and that it is "not conducting any weather modification experiments or programs and has no plans to do so in the future."[6][19] Additionally, the USAF states that the "'Chemtrail' hoax has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications."[6]^
The conspiracy theories are seldom covered by the mainstream media, and when they are, they are usually cast as an example of anti-government paranoia.[4] For example, in 2013, when it was made public that the CIA, NASA, and NOAA intended to provide funds to the National Academy of Sciences to conduct research into methods to counteract global warming with geoengineering, an article in the International Business Times anticipated that "the idea of any government agency looking at ways to control, or manipulate, the weather will be met with scrutiny and fears of a malign conspiracies" [sic], and mentioned chemtrail conspiracy theories as an example.[20]^
Description
Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory find support for their theories in their interpretations of sky phenomena, videos posted to the internet, and reports about government programs; they also have certain beliefs about the goals of the alleged conspiracy and the effects of its alleged efforts and generally take certain actions based on those beliefs.
Interpretation of evidence
Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by their long duration, asserting that the chemtrails are those trails left by aircraft that persist for as much as a half day or transform into cirrus-like clouds.[4] The proponents claim that after 1995 contrails had a different chemical composition and lasted a lot longer on the sky; proponents fail to acknowledge evidence of long-lasting contrails shown in World War II–era photographs.[8]^
Proponents characterize contrails as streams that persist for hours and that, with their criss-cross, grid-like or parallel stripe patterns, eventually blend to form large clouds. Proponents view the presence of visible color spectra in the streams, unusual concentrations of sky tracks in a single area, or lingering tracks left by unmarked or military airplanes flying at atypical altitudes or locations as markers of chemtrails.[3][5][21][22][23]^
Photographs of barrels installed in the passenger space of an aircraft for flight test purposes have been claimed to show aerosol dispersion systems. The real purpose of the barrels is to simulate the weight of passengers or cargo. The barrels are filled with water, and the water can be pumped from barrel to barrel in order to test different centers of gravity while the aircraft is in flight.[24]^
Former CIA employee and whistleblowerEdward Snowden, interviewed on "The Joe Rogan Experience", stated that he had searched through all the secret information of the US government for evidence about (aliens and) chemtrails. According to a CNN report[25] about the webcast[26] he said: "In case you were wondering: ... Chemtrails are not a thing," and: "I had ridiculous access to the networks of the NSA, the CIA, the military, all these groups. I couldn't find anything"
Jim Marrs has cited a 2007 Louisiana television station report as evidence for chemtrails. In the report the air underneath a crosshatch of supposed chemtrails was measured and apparently found to contain unsafe levels of barium: at 6.8 parts per million, three times the US nationally recommended limit. A subsequent analysis of the footage showed, however, that the equipment had been misused, and the reading exaggerated by a factor of 100—the true level of barium measured was both usual and safe.[7]^
In May 2014 a video that went viral showed a commercial passenger airplane landing on a foggy night, which was described as emitting chemtrails.[27] Discovery News pointed out that passengers sitting behind the wings would clearly see anything being sprayed, which would defeat any intent to be secretive, and that the purported chemical emission was normal air disruption caused by the wings, visible due to the fog.[27] In October 2014, Englishman Chris Bovey filmed a video of a plane jettisoning fuel on a flight from Buenos Aires to London, which had to dump fuel to lighten its load for an emergency landing in São Paulo. The clip went viral on Facebook, with over three million views and more than 52,000 shares, cited as evidence of chemtrails. He later disclosed that the video post was done as a prank, and consequently, he was subjected to some vitriolic abuse and threats from several conspiracy believers.[28][29]^
In some accounts, the chemicals are described as barium and aluminum salts, polymer fibers, thorium, or silicon carbide.[30]^
Chemtrail believers interpret the existence of cloud seeding programs and research into climate engineering as evidence for the conspiracy.[31]^
Beliefs
Various versions of the chemtrail conspiracy theory have been propagated via the Internet and radio programs.[3] There are websites dedicated to the conspiracy theory, and it is particularly favored by far right groups because it fits well with deep suspicion of government.[4]^
A 2014 review of 20 chemtrail websites found that believers appeal to science in some of their arguments, but do not believe what academic or government-employed scientists say;[30] scientists and federal agencies have consistently denied that chemtrails exist, explaining the sky tracks are simply persistent contrails.[3][12][32] The review also found that believers generally hold that chemtrails are evidence of a global conspiracy; they allege various goals which include profit (for example, manipulating futures prices, or making people sick to benefit drug companies), population control, or weapons testing (use of weather as a weapon, or testing bioweapons).[30][32][2] One of these ideas is that clouds are being seeded with electrically conductive materials as part of a massive electromagnetic superweapons program based around the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP).[33][34] Believers say chemtrails are toxic; the 2014 review found that they generally hold that every person is under attack and often express fear, anxiety, sadness, and anger about this.[30] A 2011 study of people from the US, Canada, and the UK found that 2.6% of the sample believed entirely in the conspiracy theory, and 14% believed it partially.[35][30] An analysis of responses given to the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study showed that 9% of the 36,000 respondents believed it was "completely true" that "...the government has a secret program that uses airplanes to put harmful chemicals into the air..." while a further 19% believed this was "somewhat true".[36]^
Actions
Chemtrail conspiracy theorists often describe their experience as being akin to a religious conversion experience. When they "wake up" and become "aware" of chemtrails, the experience motivates them to advocacy of various forms.[30] For example, they often attend events and conferences on geoengineering, and have sent threats to academics working in the geoengineering field.[30]^
In 2001 in response to requests from constituents, US Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced (but did not author) H.R. 2977 (107th), the Space Preservation Act of 2001 that would have permanently prohibited the basing of weapons in space, listing chemtrails as one of a number of "exotic weapons" that would be banned.[37][38][39] Proponents have interpreted this explicit reference to chemtrails as official government acknowledgment of their existence.[21][40] Skeptics note that the bill in question also mentions "extraterrestrial weapons" and "environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons."[41] The bill received an unfavorable evaluation from the United States Department of Defense and died in committee,[42] with no mention of chemtrails appearing in the text of any of the three subsequent failed attempts by Kucinich to enact a Space Preservation Act.
In 2003, in a response to a petition by concerned Canadian citizens regarding "chemicals used in aerial sprayings are adversely affecting the health of Canadians," the Government House Leader responded by stating, "There is no substantiated evidence, scientific or otherwise, to support the allegation that there is high altitude spraying conducted in Canadian airspace. The term 'chemtrails' is a popularised expression, and there is no scientific evidence to support their existence."[43][44][45][46] The house leader went on to say that "it is our belief that the petitioners are seeing regular airplane condensation trails, or contrails."[43]^
In the United Kingdom, in 2005 Elliot Morley, a Minister of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs[47] was asked "what research [the] Department has undertaken into the polluting effects of chemtrails for aircraft," and responded that "the Department is not researching into chemtrails from aircraft as they are not scientifically recognised phenomena," and that work was being conducted to understand "how contrails are formed and what effects they have on the atmosphere."[12][48]^
Some chemtrail believers adopt the notions of Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) who devised a "cloudbuster" device from pipework. Reich claimed this device would influence weather and remove harmful energy from the atmosphere. Some chemtrail believers have built cloudbusters filled with crystals and metal filings, which are pointed at the sky in an attempt to clear it of chemtrails.[49]^
Chemtrail believers sometimes gather samples and have them tested, rather than rely on reports from government or academic laboratories, but their experiments are usually flawed; for example collecting samples in jars with metal lids contaminates the sample and is not done in scientific testing.[30][50]^
Contrails
Main article: Contrail
Contrails frompropeller-driven aircraft engine exhaust, early 1940s
Contrails, or condensation trails, are "streaks of condensed water vapor created in the air by an airplane or rocket at high altitudes."[6] Fossil fuel combustion (as in piston and jet engines) produces carbon dioxide and water vapor. At high altitudes the air is very cold. Hot humid air from the engine exhaust mixes with the colder surrounding air, causing the water vapor to condense into droplets or ice crystals that form visible clouds. The rate at which contrails dissipate is entirely dependent on weather conditions. If the atmosphere is near saturation, the contrail may exist for some time. Conversely, if the atmosphere is dry, the contrail will dissipate quickly.[6]^
....
Experts on atmospheric phenomena say that the characteristics attributed to chemtrails are simply features of contrails responding to diverse conditions in terms of sunlight, temperature, horizontal and vertical wind shear, and humidity levels present at the aircraft's altitude.[3][6][5][21] In the US, the gridlike nature of the National Airspace System's flight lanes tends to cause crosshatched contrails, and in general it is hard to discern from the ground whether overlapping contrails are at similar altitudes or not.[6] The jointly published fact sheet produced by NASA, the EPA, the FAA, and NOAA in 2000 in response to alarms over chemtrails details the science of contrail formation, and outlines both the known and potential impacts contrails have on temperature and climate.[19] The USAF produced a fact sheet that described these contrail phenomena as observed and analyzed since at least 1953. It also rebutted chemtrail theories more directly by identifying the theories as a hoax and disproving the existence of chemtrails.[6][3]^
Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, 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'," he said.[3]^
Analysis of the use of commercial aircraft tracks for climate engineering has shown them to be generally unsuitable.[53]^
Astronomer Bob Berman has characterized the chemtrail conspiracy theory as a classic example of failure to apply Occam's razor, writing in 2009 that instead of adopting the long-established "simple solution" that the trails consist of frozen water vapour, "the conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their own children."[54]^
A 2016 survey of 77 atmospheric scientists concluded that "76 out of 77 (98.7%) of scientists that took part in this study said there was no evidence of a [secret large-scale atmospheric program (SLAP)], and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, such as typical contrail formation and poor data sampling instructions presented on SLAP websites."[55][56]^
See also
- California drought manipulation conspiracy theory
- Cloud iridescence
- Fuel dumping
- Herbicidal warfare
- List of conspiracy theories
- Mass hysteria
- Solar radiation management
- Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering
- Stratospheric sulfate aerosols (geoengineering)
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5/20
aha: qanon origin "fever swamp" then boosted by alex jones
escalator pipeline by 2 biggest FANGs
aha: youtube to facebook pipeline/escalator to everyone's news feed [2 biggest FANGs, synergy? amplifier?]
plandemic
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/heres-how-plandemic-went-viral/
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/may/08/fact-checking-plandemic-documentary-full-false-con/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/23/facebook-posts/no-democrats-arent-pushing-microchips-fight-corona/
For Erin Gallagher, the conspiratorial documentary “Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19” came to her attention like it did for myself — a question from her mom about the veracity of the 26-minute video full of coronavirus misinformation.
After hearing about it from more friends and family, Gallagher decided to investigate how the video went viral so quickly.
Gallagher, an independent social media researcher who has been featured in NBC News and Wired, analyzed 37,000 posts containing the word “plandemic” and 24,000 posts with the name “Judy Mikovits,” the former National Cancer Institute scientist whose work has been discredited, yet is the key expert in “Plandemic.”
Using graphs showing the Facebook groups where “Plandemic” was posted, along with the type of link users were sharing, she found a pipeline of how this video went viral: from YouTube to Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members and names like “Chemtrails Global Skywatch,” “OFFICIAL Q / QANON” and “Drain the Swamp.” YouTube links were the most commonly-shared access points for “Plandemic,” regardless of how quickly YouTube removed them.
“Everyone uses multiple platforms to varying degrees now so nothing is ever limited to just one or two,” Gallagher told me this weekend. “But in this case, YouTube hosted the video, and I suspect many mirrors of it once it started getting pulled down, and these large, highly-active Facebook groups were key to spreading it like wildfire and pushing it into all of our families’ Facebook feeds.”
In the “plandemic” keyword data, which was collected between April 8, and May 8, YouTube links posted on Facebook had nearly 200,000 likes and more than 150,000 each of shares and comments.
I reached out to YouTube and Facebook for comment but haven’t heard back. I will send an updated note with tomorrow’s newsletter if either company responds.
“‘Plandemic’ creators encouraged viewers to download the video from the documentary’s website and post it across video platforms,” said Alex Kaplan, senior researcher at the left-leaning Media Matters for America. “And you could see the impact: dozens of reuploads of the video on YouTube — even after they tried to remove the original — and shares of it on other platforms.”
[video 6 min ]
This isn’t the first YouTube-to-Facebook conspiracy video Kaplan has studied. He found some of the most-viewed YouTube videos touting the debunked claim that Bill Gates is pushing a coronavirus vaccine to microchip the public receiving thousands of engagements on Facebook. And a video calling COVID-19 a “false flag” drew 6 million views on YouTube and more than 1 million engagements on Facebook before it was removed. Both videos went viral over the last two months.
“Be really careful about sharing content coming from places you haven’t heard of before just because it gives you some kind of emotion,” Kaplan said. “Take the time to do some research on the person(s) behind it or the claims made in it, and see if someone, like a fact-checker, has debunked it, before sharing.”
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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-approved-conspiracy-kook-says-military-sprays-chemicals-in-the-sky-to-sow-societal-chaos/
Lionel Lebron, a YouTube conspiracy theorist who posed for a photo with President Trump in the Oval Office last year, claims that the federal government and military are manipulating the climate over the United States to sow chaos and disorder in society.
:{:{}:
}:
:{Dan Wigington of Geoengineering Watch joined Lebron on his YouTube podcast }
:{ to discuss the government’s alleged routine of spraying chemicals into the sky in order to influence the climate in ways that shape world events and sow chaos into the American population.}::{ The duo specified that they wouldn’t call the chemicals sprayed in air “chemtrails” because the word }::{“chemtrail”}::{ is too often associated with conspiracy theories. Rather, the duo opted to say that their theories are about “geoengineering.”}:
“Semantics are important and I don’t want to be an anti-semantic,” Lebron joked.
The science community has debated the ethics of using chemical agents to curb the effects of climate change, but the ideas are often considered to be far-fetched and too risky to attempt on a large scale. However, Lebron and Wigington pile conspiracy theories onto that scientific debate—theories about military forces using geoengineering to “topple nations” in “weather warfare,” and to destabilize society.
Wigington said that government agencies use chemicals sprayed in the sky to keep portions of the United States cooler than the rest of the planet so that it “confuses and divides the population as to the true state of the climate while the planet descends into total meltdown.”
“Not only is climate modification used for weather warfare, to topple nations without those nations ever knowing they were at war—nations in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere that are forced to allow U.S. occupation. It’s used as a weapon of war, but also it’s used to confuse, divide, and thus pacify populations,” Wigington said.
Lebron agreed.
“Just like free radicals are so dangerous because they’re always trying to cleave and grab something, the worst thing that the military industrial complex, cabal, whoever you want to call these people—the asset-stripping jackals—the worst thing they could have happen is stability, calmness, power, strength, a sense of solemnity, purpose, cooperation. They don’t want that,” Lebron said. “Anything that makes them skeptical, that makes them run to the streets, run to the religions, run to their science—just run.”
Wigington went on to claim that weather forecasters are able to read scripts predicting the path of hurricanes because the government is using microwave beams and Raytheon military products to steer the aquatic cyclones.
Lebron is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who posed for a photo in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump last year.The Daily Beast reported that Lebron claimed to have taken the picture with Trump after he received a “special guided tour of the White House,” and that an Oval Office photo op with the president is something that would typically require a senior administration official’s blessing. Earlier this week, Lebron filmed an interview with actress Roseanne Barr, who is a QAnon believer.
==
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Dale Mensing, a congressional candidate who’s backed by the California Republican Party, wrote that the chemtrails conspiracy theory "is one of the three primary issues” of his campaign and used a video from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as evidence.
Mensing is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman in the general election for California’s 2nd District for the third time. Mensing has the endorsement of the California Republican Party; additionally, he states on his website that he has endorsements from “the Del Norte County Republican Central Committee, the Marin County Republican Central committee, the Sonoma County Republican Central Committee and the Mendocino County Republican Central Committee.” (Those county campaign committees mention and/or link to Mensing’s website on their respective websites.)
Republican committees in California have backed Mensing even though he's stated that one of the “primary issues” of his campaign is chemtrails, referring to a conspiracy theory that’s been pushed by media personalities including Alex Jones.
Some references to chemtrails on Mensing’s website have been removed this week for unclear reasons. His main page previously featured “chemtrails” on his main page; that mention has since been removed (though his “chemtrails” subpage is still available). He also had a page about the California primary titled “June 5, 2018 Endorsements and Primary Campaign Points,” which stated that a “primary” point of his campaign was to “expose and eliminate chemtrails”; that page was up until recently but is now no longer available.
Mensing’s attention to the issue has been briefly noted outside of his website; for example, a May 8 articleabout the GOP primary in the Marin Independent Journal mentioned that Mensing “has a host of issues,” including “eliminating airplane chemtrails.”
The New York Times wrote in 2016 of chemtrails: “One persistent belief in some quarters is that the government -- or business, perhaps -- is deploying a fleet of jet aircraft to spray chemicals into the sky to control the population, food supply or other things. As evidence, they point to what they call ‘chemtrails,’ which are more commonly known as contrails, or condensation trails, produced at high altitudes as water vapor in jet engine exhaust condenses and freezes.” Scientists have repeatedly stated that there’s no evidence to support the chemtrails conspiracy theory.
Mensing has a page dedicated to chemtrails that states of the issue: “I have many questions and I know a few things. I know enough [to] tell the reader that dealing with chemtrails is one of the three primary issues of my campaign for the house of representatives. As I post these paragraphs, I plan to add more in the days and weeks to come.”
He also directed readers and potential voters to several videos related to chemtrails, including an August 2014 video on Alex Jones' YouTube channel. That video -- which is no longer available in its original location because YouTube has banned Jones’ channel, though an unofficial Infowars fan account has reposted it -- was titled “Government Weather Manipulation Exposed” and featured Jones pushing the chemtrails conspiracy theory (the video has been reposted to YouTube by an unofficial Infowars fan account).
In the Mensing-backed video, Jones
that “the globalists” are “playing God” and “they’re doing it with jet trails, with the chemicals, they’re doing it with these different microwave systems and relay towers that then resonate with it. They’ve got over-the-horizon radar, [that] is one reason they’re spraying this stuff. The point is, we need to know.”
Mensing did not respond to a request for comment by posting time.
---
1.
Dec 12, 2017 - Joe Rogan and Mick West debunk chemtrails. Category. People & Blogs. Show more. Show less. Loading... Advertisement. Autoplay When ...
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www.youtube.com › watch
2.
Jan 16, 2014 - This clip is from the Joe Rogan Experience podcast #385 with Duane Ludwig & TJ Dillashaw (http://bit.ly/Km37OG), also available for download ...
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www.youtube.com › watch
1.
Feb 15, 2017 - Alex Jones discusses chemtrails, HAARP, and weather manipulation. Taken from Joe Rogan Experience #911 ...
Joe Rogan on Twitter: "This is an important video to send to ...
twitter.com › joerogan › status
2.
CHEMTRAILS - Bulls**t Busted #4 @joerogan please show this to Eddie Bravo. https://youtu.be/mtgkkAZDXIo. 10:57 PM - 9 Oct 2016. 136 Retweets; 499 Likes ...
Joe Rogan on Twitter: "For all you chemtrail hardcore ...
twitter.com › joerogan › status
1.
Aug 1, 2013 - For all you chemtrail hardcore believers we're putting together a podcast with @MickWest @eddiebravoand any expert Eddie can round up.
==
Search Results
Web results
InfoWars' Alex Jones claims a 'psychosis' caused him to ...
www.nbcnews.com › news › us-news › infowars-alex-j...
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Amazon Alexa Tells Users Chemtrail Conspiracy Theory Is ...
observer.com › 2018/04 › amazon-alexa-chemtrails-co...
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Alex Jones: 5 most disturbing and ridiculous conspiracy theories
www.cnbc.com › 2018/09/14 › alex-jones-5-most-distu...
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My month with chemtrails conspiracy theorists | Environment ...
www.theguardian.com › environment › may › california-...
May 22, 2017 - But to Tammi, a 54 year-old organic farmer, it's a “chemtrail”: a toxic cocktail of aluminum, strontium and barium sprayed from planes in a plot to ...
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5/20 srch/grab
no lnx
About 5,210,000 results (0.40 seconds)
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Chemtrail conspiracy theory - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org › wiki › Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
The chemtrail conspiracy theory posits the erroneous belief that long-lasting condensation trails are "chemtrails" consisting of chemical or biological agents left ...
?Contrail · ?California drought ... · ?Solar radiation management · ?Mick West
What Are Chemtrails Made Of? - Scientific Americanwww.scientificamerican.com › article › what-are-chemt...
Sep 22, 2018 - Believers in chemtrails say those trails are actually clouds of chemicals used by the government for nefarious purposes. But as Carl Sagan says ...
Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory | The Keith Group - David Keithkeith.seas.harvard.edu › chemtrails-conspiracy-theory
We receive many emails and letters asking me about chemtrails. Many express deep concern, some are abusive and threatening. This page gives our views on ...
How one climate scientist combats threats and misinformation ...www.technologyreview.com › ... › Geoengineering
Jul 26, 2018 - Last spring, Harvard climate scientist David Keith announced that he and a colleague intended to proceed with small-scale geoengineering ...
My month with chemtrails conspiracy theorists | Environment ...www.theguardian.com › environment › may › california-...
May 22, 2017 - But to Tammi, a 54 year-old organic farmer, it's a “chemtrail”: a toxic cocktail of aluminum, strontium and barium sprayed from planes in a plot to ...
'Chemtrails' and other aviation conspiracy theories - Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk › Travel › News
Jul 4, 2017 - Ever wondered why some planes emit long, lingering clouds of white vapour, while others pass overhead without leaving a trace?
Chemtrails: An overview of the phenomenon - ScienceDirectwww.sciencedirect.com › science › article › pii
Introduction. The term contrail is a contraction of condensation and trail, as chemtrail is of chemical and trail. The first one is used to name trails left in the sky by ...
by CL Álvarez - ?2016
'Chemtrail' conspiracy theorists: The people who think ... - BBCwww.bbc.com › news › blogs-trending-42195511
Jan 31, 2018 - The first part of the BBC's series on online conspiracy theories: why some people think chemicals are dropping from the sky.
Chemtrails? Hardly. The science behind aeroplane contrails ...cosmosmagazine.com › chemistry › chemtrails-hardly-t...
Mar 12, 2018 - Everyone has seen the cloudy white trails across the sky that sometimes follow jet aircraft. It's easy to imagine that they are sign of chemicals ...
It Turns Out Airplane Contrails Are Bad – Even Without ...scitechdaily.com › Earth News
Feb 13, 2020 - Altering the altitudes of less than two percent of flights could reduce contrail-linked climate change by 59 percent, says a new Imperial College ...
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