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Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

cnn.com

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Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#41
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that dismisses people's concerns. What are those concerns? That most airlines spray chemicals that keep rain from falling on Spain? There's no reason to believe that's true. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory . Or concerns that governments aren't doing enough to prevent increased global warming? Or concerns that there's a conspiracy to promote the false story about global warming? Or…

Sadly Wikipedia has now lost all credibility, and is not a credible resource for anything even vaguely controversial. Many people think 'global warming' (or 'climate change' as it now called) is 80% snake oil and that there are many alarmist evangelizing grifters making a fortune and changing the global balance of power in its name. This is another failed example of 'trust me I'm a scientist' that has lost a large se…

Let me see..

You discredit the media. You discredit Wikipedia. You discredit the scientists. Then you make up some numbers to support your claim that people are being fooled by a powerful group working in the shadows.

I'm sorry, isn't this starting to sound like a conspiracy theory??

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#43

A group of scientists did actually come up with a "chemtrail" like plan to cool the planet... And it is horrific: > To achieve a 2 °C result, the plan would inject 6.7 teragrams (6.7 billion kg/14.8 billion lb) of sulfur dioxide per year into each pole, calling for an eye-watering total of 13.4 teragrams (29.5 billion lb) of material annually. https://newatlas.com/environment/sai-polar-refreezing/ The cost would be a…

FWIW, the SO2 injection rate for climate engineering is about 1/10 of our current tropospheric injection rate from burning fossil fuels.

I bring it up to illustrate that we are already making consequential choices about the climate.

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#44
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rain seeding is a thing of course. But that's different to contrails which are what conspiracy theorists point to as their "chemtrails"! It should be noted that rain seeding is realistically rarely used.

Guess what? You claiming that cloud seeding is real makes you a conspiracy theorist to others. It’s a completely meaningless term at this point.

No one believes cloud seeding is a conspiracy, except maybe the people who believe in chemtrails, to whom the commonly understood definition of 'conspiracy theorist' clearly applies. Your comment isn't the slam dunk you think it is.

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#45

A group of scientists did actually come up with a "chemtrail" like plan to cool the planet... And it is horrific: > To achieve a 2 °C result, the plan would inject 6.7 teragrams (6.7 billion kg/14.8 billion lb) of sulfur dioxide per year into each pole, calling for an eye-watering total of 13.4 teragrams (29.5 billion lb) of material annually. https://newatlas.com/environment/sai-polar-refreezing/ The cost would be a…

I'm pretty sure 'chemtrail conspiracies' have their origin in the (quite real) large-scale biological & radiological warfare tests the US government conducted in the 1950s and 1960s: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/weapon-... > "The first Large Area Concept experiment, in 1957, involved dispersing microorganisms over a swath from South Dakota to Minnesota; monitoring revealed that some of the par…

But the fact that the conspiracy is true or not is irrelevant.

The problem of the "conspiracy theory" is that it is a witch trial: a group of people have absolutely no proof what-so-ever, they just "want to believe they are right".

It does not matter if they end up being right, their logic is toxic for society, and if we are accepting their logic, then it means that tomorrow you can be fired from your job because your boss just had a dream in which you were a thief. Your argument is the same as saying "well, your boss says you are a thief, but thieves exist for real, and, who knows, maybe you are in fact really a thief, so it's fine".

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#46

Mainstream press never really looks at the deeper causes of why these conspiracies exist in the first place. Looking at it dialectically, at least one possibility seems quite simple. Thesis: The government wants to make laws that attack workers, to make them pay for stopping climate change (that was primarily caused by corporations and their wealthy owners.) Antithesis: Workers don't want to be attacked. Synthesis: S…

> Mainstream press never really looks at the deeper causes of why these conspiracies exist in the first place.

This is because reporting on psychology is boring:

* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-drawn-to-c...

* https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/con...

* https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/096372141771826...

* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/health/psychology-conspir...

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#47
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rain seeding is a thing of course. But that's different to contrails which are what conspiracy theorists point to as their "chemtrails"! It should be noted that rain seeding is realistically rarely used.

Another 2020 CNN article: 'China to expand weather modification program to cover area larger than India' https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/asia/china-weather-modificati... It's not hard to understand why people are anxious about global 'weather modification' and annoyed when they are insulted and dismissed as cranks. This is another of those obscure areas of operations that need a lot more transparency, explanation and…

Those cloud seeding programs are expensive and require dedicated hardware.

They are not installed on commercial passenger airlines. If they were, that would mean a huge number of aircraft maintenance workers and ground crew know about it, and are keeping it secret from the public - a conspiracy. Where are the chemicals stored at the airport? Are the fire/safety teams also in on the conspiracy?

If not on commercial passenger airlines, then which ones? Are there fleets of planes which are not on publicly available flight trackers? Or are a lot of those flights lying about their cargo and mission? If so, that's a conspiracy.

Those weather modification programs are not done in clear skies. The video you linked to earlier makes that very explicit. All cloud seeding does it change the timing of where rain falls. It doesn't work without a lot of water already in the air.

For rains to not fall, when it would have without active intervention, means the water had to be forced out before reaching Spain - doing it over Spain would be worthless. So pictures of clear-sky "chemtrails" over Spain can't be weather modification keeping rain out of Spain. Where are these flights based? Where do they travel? What conspiracy keeps us from knowing this about Europe, when we know about China's efforts?

That's why these are called 'conspiracy theories'. They require a large number of people to conspire to keep something secret, and have at best only weak circumstantial evidence to support it. ("People can modify the weather, so the droughts in Spain must be caused by people modifying the weather" needs a few more underpants gnomes worked out.)

Thing is, we know that contrails modify the climate, without a doubt. 9/11's flight shutdown made that analysis possible. "9/11 study: Air traffic affects climate" at https://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.cl... or https://www.nature.com/articles/418601a if you want the publication. It helped reduce the daily range in daytime highs and nighttime lows.

Which makes continued flights a form of weather modification right there, just like dumping massive amounts of CO2 in the air is another form of global weather modification.

But notice that those are both side-effects of a much more profitable business.

Who benefits in keeping the rain out of Spain, and how do they keep those activities hidden so well? Oh, right - a global conspiracy.

What is the right solution if people are extremely anxious for strongly illegitimate reasons?

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly Wikipedia has now lost all credibility, and is not a credible resource for anything even vaguely controversial. Many people think 'global warming' (or 'climate change' as it now called) is 80% snake oil and that there are many alarmist evangelizing grifters making a fortune and changing the global balance of power in its name. This is another failed example of 'trust me I'm a scientist' that has lost a large se…

Let me see.. You discredit the media. You discredit Wikipedia. You discredit the scientists. Then you make up some numbers to support your claim that people are being fooled by a powerful group working in the shadows. I'm sorry, isn't this starting to sound like a conspiracy theory??

My comments are about the sad state of credible information sources, not the actual topic being discussed. No need to apologize, it's easy to go down the paranoia rabbit hole and label anyone who questions your rigid beliefs.

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#49

Given these people's response it seems rising oceans, droughts and extreme weather are not the main dangers of global warming, but instead the hordes of the mentally untethered looking for someone to blame for what they've warned about for years.

Society in general is beset with nutjobs.

The problem is not that the perps are conspiracy theorists it's that they think harassment is a reasonable behaviour.

Climate activists can be just as harassing as their counter parts.

And it's getting worse.

Re: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

#50
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that dismisses people's concerns. What are those concerns? That most airlines spray chemicals that keep rain from falling on Spain? There's no reason to believe that's true. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory . Or concerns that governments aren't doing enough to prevent increased global warming? Or concerns that there's a conspiracy to promote the false story about global warming? Or…

Sadly Wikipedia has now lost all credibility, and is not a credible resource for anything even vaguely controversial. Many people think 'global warming' (or 'climate change' as it now called) is 80% snake oil and that there are many alarmist evangelizing grifters making a fortune and changing the global balance of power in its name. This is another failed example of 'trust me I'm a scientist' that has lost a large se…

This discussion goes nowhere if you reject the credibility of anyone you disagree with.

In that case, you also have lost all credibility. And you can say I've no credibility either.

> This is another failed example of 'trust me I'm a scientist'

No, it isn't. There's a large amount of engineering to do to make these work. How are the chemicals deployed? Who designed the deployment mechanism? Who makes the chemicals? How and where are they stored? Who transports them to the airports? Who is in charge of safety should things go wrong? If one of these flights crashes, how is evidence destroyed so it stays secret? Where are these flights based? Who are the flight crew? Why do airlines and cargo flight operators do this work? Is it more profitable than flying passengers and cargo? Or are there secret orders requiring them to work?

Somehow all of these operations must be kept secret.

"Trust me I'm a scientist" answers precisely none of these questions, any more than "trust me I'm Batman" does.

Where are the credible information sources which show theis required infrastructure exists? Because all I hear is "trust me, scientists can do it." Which carries no credibility.

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