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The white plumes seen from the rear of an aircraft are essentially condensed water vapor from a plane\u2019s exhaust \u2013 not a nefarious plot to distribute toxic chemicals. Photograph: Aviation Images Ltd\/Alamy<\/p><\/div>\n
Oliver Milman
\nTHE GUARDIAN<\/p>\n
A <\/span>conspiracy theory that airplanes are leaving nefarious \u201cchemtrails\u201d in their wake due to a sinister government plot has been given fresh impetus in the US amid a swirl of concerns and confusion about proposals to geoengineer a response to the climate crisis.<\/p>\n State legislation to ban what some lawmakers call chemtrails has been pushed forward in\u00a0Tennessee<\/a>\u00a0and, most recently,\u00a0Florida<\/a>. Meanwhile, Robert F Kennedy, who has expressed interest in the conspiracy theory on social media and his podcast, is set to be at the heart of Donald Trump\u2019s new administration following his\u00a0nomination as health secretary<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to stop this crime,\u201d Kennedy, who is known for his contrarian stances on\u00a0vaccines<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0offshore wind farms<\/a>, wrote about chemtrails on\u00a0X in August<\/a>. The former Democrat turned Trump ally said on his podcast last year that it was \u201ckind of frightening to think that somebody may be putting large amounts of bioavailable aluminum into the environment, spraying it in microscopic particulates from airplanes\u201d.<\/p>\n Believers of the chemtrails conspiracy theory contend that the white lines traced in the sky behind aircraft contain toxic chemicals that are released to achieve a devious end, such as mass sterilization or mind control.<\/p>\n This theory, which has no evidence to support it, has been put forward at various times since the 1990s despite being repeatedly debunked. Now, scientists are faced with a resurgent focus on chemtrails amid a related, more substantive, debate over whether actual modifications to the Earth\u2019s atmosphere should be made in a desperate attempt to slow global heating.<\/p>\n Interest in chemtrails \u201cbubbles up every once in a while and the hurricanes and weather modification kind of brings it up to the floor again\u201d, said David Fahey, director of the chemical sciences laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), in reference to two recent major hurricanes \u2013 Helene and Milton \u2013 that some figures, including Republicans, claimed were somehow steered by\u00a0the federal government\u2019s meddling with the weather<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe misinformation is abundant,\u201d said Fahey, who has spent several decades, on and off, fielding questions about chemtrails. There was no orchestrated weather modification conducted by Noaa, Fahey said, and even experimenting with such a thing would be a \u201cbig step for our agency and one that we are not quite prepared to do at the moment, and maybe our agency shouldn\u2019t do it\u201d.<\/p>\n No. The white plumes seen from the rear of aircraft are more aptly called condensation trails, or contrails. They are essentially condensed water vapor from a plane\u2019s exhaust that, in cold air temperatures at high altitudes, form as ice crystals that look like visible clouds.<\/p>\n A\u00a0survey of leading atmospheric scientists in 2016<\/a>\u00a0found there was no evidence of a secret spraying program that would form these contrails. This research led to backlash from conspiracy theorists, with Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist who led the study, saying that he received death threats.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like it was a risk to my personal safety,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople have bought into this false narrative. We\u2019re now seeing a worrying resurgence of conspiracy theories in general, from chemtrails to vaccines. There\u2019s a detachment from facts and rational analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, contrails do contribute to a form of \u201cweather modification\u201d \u2013 just not the sort envisioned by the conspiracy-minded. The plumes often grow into hazy cirrus clouds that trap heat and add to the greenhouse effect that is warming up the world, mostly via the burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n \u201cAs with many conspiracy theories, there is some truth to it in that aircraft are releasing particles and affecting the Earth\u2019s climate system,\u201d said Caldeira, who is\u00a0involved in an effort<\/a>\u00a0to get airlines to reduce their contrail output. \u201cBut this is because of unintended consequences of the fossil fuel airline system, rather than some nefarious secret reason.\u201d<\/p>\n There is a confusing stew of different processes, or just theories, with different goals that have been variously called weather modification, solar geoengineering or solar radiation management.<\/p>\n These often get mixed up and mistaken for secret government conspiracies. Cloud seeding, for example, involves dispersing tiny particles into\u00a0<\/strong>clouds to spur the formation of ice crystals that trigger rain or snow. Utah routinely does this to increase snowfall rates and authorities there\u00a0have had to point out<\/a>\u00a0that this is not connected to chemtrails.<\/p>\n A separate debate has stirred in recent years as to whether governments, or even wealthy individuals, should intervene to slow dangerous global heating by spraying reflective substances such as sulphur into the stratosphere in order to deflect sunlight from further warming the Earth.<\/p>\n Noaa is\u00a0setting up a system<\/a>\u00a0to monitor the stratosphere that could act as an \u201cearly warning\u201d system for such activities. A US startup has\u00a0offered<\/a>\u00a0\u201ccredits\u201d for people to buy in order to help cool the world\u2019s fever but as yet there has been no activity detected on a significant scale that would alter the climate.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some demonstration projects,\u201d said Fahey. \u201cBut in terms of large-scale airplanes taking material to the stratosphere, I\u2019m not aware of anything, certainly in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n This year is set to be the hottest ever recorded globally, the latest in a string of hot years that are pushing the average temperature to the point it looks certain to breach the internationally agreed threshold designed to avoid catastrophic heatwaves, droughts, floods and other worsening climatic disasters.<\/p>\n The failure of governments to stem this crisis has led to calls for more drastic interventions, like solar geoengineering, to curb the global temperature rise. Last year, the White House released\u00a0a congressionally mandated report<\/a>\u00a0on how a\u00a0research program<\/a>\u00a0into solar geoengineering would work.<\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/9eebd91591e609da80bb6d0f9f8e428a9c041a89\/0_0_4366_2621\/master\/4366.jpg?width=380&dpr=2&s=none&crop=none\")
<\/picture><\/div>\nRobert F Kennedy Jr: \u2018We are going to stop this crime.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0Photograph: Scott Morgan\/Reuters<\/h5>\n
<\/div>\nAre chemtrails real?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/div>\nAre any other weather modifications being conducted?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Can solar geoengineering help solve the climate crisis?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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