Goodbye to ‘chemtrails’? This state just passed a law banning them, but are they even real?

It’s a clear day with blue skies over head, you look up and see a airplane flying with long white lines trailing behind it. Now if you believe in conspiracy theories, those condensation trails from the aircraft’s exhaust are actually part of a nefarious government plot or secret program by the “elite.”

The repeatedly debunked theory claims that those ‘chemtrails’ are filled with toxic chemicals meant to modify the weather, control the population (mentally or numerically), or some form of biological warfare. Some lawmakers, more than you would think, are trying to outlaw chemtrails like those in the Louisiana state House of Representatives who recently passed a bill.

Louisiana is one of several states seeking to ban geoengineering

The Louisiana bill, which passed 58 votes to 32, is designed “to prevent any chemicals above us in the air, specifically to modify the weather,” said Republican state Representative Kimberly Landy Coates.

Should the legislation become law, it still needs to pass the state Senate and get the governor’s signature, reported chemtrail sightings would have to be investigated and documented, however, no fines would be issued.

It would be the responsibility of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to handle the record keeping and pass complaints on to the Louisiana Air National Guard.

Louisiana is not alone in the endeavor to ban chemtrails and geoengineering. 24 other states have some form of legislation pending with Michigan becoming the most recent.

The idea has support at the highest levels of the Trump administration in the form of anti-vax and conspiracy cheerleader Robert F Kennedy Jr. “[The] move to ban geoengineering our climate by dousing our citizens, our waterways and landscapes with toxins… is a movement every MAHA needs to support,” the Secretary of Health and Human Services said in a post in March, adding his agency “will do its part.”

What did the chemtrail conspiracy theory come from?

Climate economist Gernot Wagner told CNN that the chemtrail conspiracy theory dates back to at least the mid-1990s, well before the advent of social media. Promoters of the chemtrail conspiracy theory use the sporadic nature of contrails, which require a specific combination of humidity and temperature to form, to justify their claims.

Nowadays, the ability to rapidly spread videos and conjecture online has helped it go from the fringes into mainstream politics.

Wagner says it makes sense that chemtrails are being associated with geoengineering more these days due to the fact we are seeing an increased frequency of extreme weather events as the climate changes. “Especially if people at the highest level of government are suddenly tweeting about this as well,” he added.

While even if you could take in a deep breath at the altitude where the plane is flying, you wouldn’t want to. The contrail is after all exhaust from a jet engine, similar to “the types of emissions from diesel car or truck emissions,” explains the EPA.

Because there is enough moisture in the air and it is cold enough the water vapor from the jet engine condenses into ice crystals, but it is not part of some sinister plot.

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