Discussion
True fact: there's no such thing as “chemtrails.” The word for the trails of vapor sometimes created by aircraft is "contrails," short for condensation trails. They're water. They’ve been understood for almost a century. There's no mystery about it, and no controversy, except for the controversy created by right-wing nutcases.
One of whom, to our shame, is the top health official of the US.
@gleick
Here, on the other side of the planet, they have been known as vapour trails for my entire life. Personally I like that, it's an accurate description.
Language matters.
@gleick I had a coworker once he was a firm believer in chemtrails - as she too referred to them.
@gleick I knew someone who believed in ‘chemtrails’, she died from Covid after refusing to get vaccinated.
@gleick The first time I heard about the chemtrail conspiracy I thought it was a Poe. Like the "birds aren't real" people making up a ridiculous fake conspiracy to poke fun at those folks. Nope. It turns out people actually believe something that blatantly wacky.
@gleick And his name is Mr. Reaper. Grim Reaper.
@gleick If I understand correctly, contrails do add to global warming (and can be avoided by sensible routing), so the very stable geniuses might accidentally do a good thing for the wrong reasons.
@gleick you know. If he was talking about CO2 and fine upper atmosphere particulates impact on climate change, he’d have something. But no. It’s something stupid
@gleick Yup. 💯 Now due electromagnetic fields.
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@gleick nytimes is going lower and lower. "Vaccine skeptics". Words are important and using this term validate the anti science concept of anti vaccine. Its a shame.