> 76 of the 77 participating scientists said they had not encountered evidence of a secret spraying program,
Have they been looking for evidence? If not this study is pretty worthless.
'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
71–77 of 77 posts
Re: 'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well...powering heavier-than-air flying machines by burning dead dinosaurs is about as unnatural as it gets. Civilization and all that ;) Edit: someone seems to think that unnatural = wrong? On the Internet - a place that is so un-natural that it doesn't even physically exist? What irony.
Some planes still use leaded fuel which presumably fall closest to the ground in poorer parts of the country because in many cities airports are built where land is cheapest. Certainly not the same as chemtrails but I have wondered what kind of health effects come as a result.
Children living close to the airport serving leaded avgas were found to have a small but tangible increase in blood lead levels. General aviation itself has been on the decline for the past few decades and alternative fuel seems to be finally getting approved at last, so the problem seems to be a well managed one.
Re: 'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
#73The idea of chemtrails is appealing to so many people because it's a way to express outrage toward the elites or upper echelons in society. The theories are always a bit vaporous (like the chemtrails themselves), but I think it's stemming from an honest, genuine sense of frustration that one is being cheated or manipulated by a system that doesn't represent them. Chemtrails give a head to this boogeyman.
Those theorists are quite irrational, but what I find most ridiculous about a lot of them is not the theories themselves, but the idea that they have the ability to actually fight back. Sensationalists like Alex Jones assert crazy ideas such as the government tainting our tap water to perform mass mind control and yet at the same time spread this message that they can resist against the upcoming "New World Order." Wi…
This is probably a different way of expressing the same thing, but I think what is salient to people is that there isn't anything to be done about these kinds of conspiracies. It unleashes a satisfying chemical cocktail in the brain of outrage, fear, and the sense that something "serious" is going on.
And unless you're being asked to do something trivial like spray the air with vinegar or line your wallet with aluminum foil, generally the conspiracy is not accompanied by any obvious call to action that might bring on feelings of tedium and responsibility. All the entertainment value, none of the responsibility.
Re: 'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
#74The chemtrail people are nuts. I have some experience with them from my NASA sounding rocket days. Some sounding rocket missions do release chemicals, including lithium, into the upper atmosphere to study how high-altitude winds behave. That lithium, by the way is a different form than you'll find in psychoactive medications and a very small amount is released anyway. But many chemtrail people believe that every soun…
What's a sounding rocket?
Re: 'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, the problem is in the heads of the people who blindly trust everything they are told. Why is it so outrageous to assume that chemtrails might be a covert experiment to manipulate climate (or has some other purpose)? I'm not saying that it is, but is it outrageous to doubt official narratives? Since when is that scientific? Doubt is reasonable, there's no problem here. Unquestioned belief in "common sense" an…
Why is it so outrageous to assume that chemtrails might be a covert experiment to manipulate climate (or has some other purpose)? I'm not saying that it is, but is it outrageous to doubt official narratives? If it were a single national airline, or even a subset of airlines, then maybe there would be cause for concern. But, a global conspiracy involving airlines, private airplanes, multiple governments, and tens of t…
I don't care about these theories because there's nothing much I can do about them. However, I see plenty of so-called "skeptics" that don't question anything and they're always ready to just swallow the official story without even putting much thought into it.
Anyway - who said it has to be "all airlines"? Does it have to be 1 vs all? Couldn't it just be some percentage?
In Operation Mockingbird [1], the CIA found that infiltrating just 25% of media outlets was enough to sway public opinion. That's the type of operation that is obviously still ongoing too.
Re: 'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those theorists are quite irrational, but what I find most ridiculous about a lot of them is not the theories themselves, but the idea that they have the ability to actually fight back. Sensationalists like Alex Jones assert crazy ideas such as the government tainting our tap water to perform mass mind control and yet at the same time spread this message that they can resist against the upcoming "New World Order." Wi…
This. If the government is really that omnipresent and controlling in our lives, are they really going to let some blogger who knows the Truth run amok and post it everywhere? Yes siree, this government is capable of faking the Moon landing, concealing the existence of aliens / lizard people, and executing 9/11 to invade Iraq, but they are powerless against some random dickhead with a laptop who spotted the holes in…
Not this. "The government" is just groups of people. Some groups, such as the NSA, certainly do have the ability to be close to omniscient (or as much as it matters here). Their motto is "Total Information Awareness" for crying out loud!
Didn't you ever read Brave New World? You don't publicly kill the Truth-knowing bloggers. You drown them out with by a million distractions. See also: Mao's Hundred Flowers campaign.
I'm not going to argue every stupid conspiracy theory that anyone can name...but I don't need to. There are plenty of actual conspiracy facts that should be sufficient to convince anybody that this kind of shit actually happens. COINTELPRO, Operation Mockingbird and MK Ultra to name a few.
The modern "skeptic" gets it all wrong - they don't question anything and come to conclusions way too quickly. That's because they're not actually skeptics, they're just afraid of getting out of their mental comfort zone.
Re: 'Chemtrails' not real, say atmospheric science experts
#77The chemtrail people are nuts. I have some experience with them from my NASA sounding rocket days. Some sounding rocket missions do release chemicals, including lithium, into the upper atmosphere to study how high-altitude winds behave. That lithium, by the way is a different form than you'll find in psychoactive medications and a very small amount is released anyway. But many chemtrail people believe that every soun…
What's a sounding rocket?
Sounding is an old nautical term meaning "to measure something". You may have heard/read the expression "sound the depths", describing the process of seeing how deep the water under the keel of a sailing vessel is. That's the origin of the term.
Sounding rockets are rockets launched for scientific research purposes. NASA has the most robust Sounding Rocket program, but there are others out there.
Your typical NASA sounding rocket has two or three motor stages and can send a ~1000 lb payload to an altitude of about 280 miles, with about 10 minutes of time above 62 miles (the official demarcation between 99.99% of Earth's atmosphere and space). These are not orbital missions -- you go up and you come back down in the space of 20 to 30 minutes or so.
Science objectives include things like observing comets, the composition of the interstellar medium, the dynamics of the Sun, trying to find direct evidence of dark matter, understanding the dynamics of the ionosphere, wind currents in the upper levels of the atmosphere, and many more. For only $1 - $6 million USD per mission, a sounding rocket is a relatively cheap way to do some science in space, and the science payoffs have been huge.