The True Nature of Contrails

	If you’d like a clear view of what creates Jet Contrails just: Click for Facts…

If you think that jet travel isn’t playing a major role in either climate change, or modified atmospheric chemistry, then you probably don’t need to dive into this deeper exploration. Otherwise you might find some points of interests below to move on with.

In our explorations of jet exhaust and ‘vapour contrails‘ and the impact of air travel on our Future Environment, we’ve made previous attempts to speculate upon why certain channels in the Mainstream Media have taken interest in a rather weak Conspiracy Theory like “Chemtrails”, rather than digging into the underlying science of Contrails (and environmental impact of jet exhaust) for a bonefide piece of investigative journalism on a possibly much deeper conspiracy.

If there’s such a things as covering up “conspiracies” with weaker conspiracy theories, then it’s quite possible that the airline industry knows full well that it is doing serious damage to the stratosphere. That the prevalence of “Chemtrail” theories might simply be serving to throw people off the trail by simply associating any negative environmental news about airliners with more easily dismissed “conspiracy theories”…

Geo-Engineering: Laying Foundations

Unlike BIO-Engineering, which seeks to apply pure Science via Technological processes to produce engineered results in Biological fields (from GM’d corn, to the materials of Orthpaedic hip-joint replacement hardware), GEO-Engineering seeks to take the same approach to producing engineered results for the entire Earth, in order to effect positive changes to our environment. Regrettably, the term Geo-Engineering seems to have been misappropriated and popularized as a description of Ecological or Environmental engineering applications on a global scale, even though the terms Enviro, Global, or ECO-Engineering would likely have been much more appropriate descriptors for this sort of work. Unfortunately for the real Geo-Engineers out there (who’ve been working long and hard on true Geological Engineering), the term GEO has already been co-opted by Environmentalists, adopted by the Media, and is now popularized to represent applied technological solutions to our most pressing issues around Climate Change. So thanks to prevailing trends in the Media, Geo-Engineering has effectively come to mean something else entirely to all of us who are not engineers.

Geo-Engineering has been categorical science since the Sixties (when it first became popular to believe that Technology could fix anything), and it seems to be finally coming into vogue after being brought to back to public attention by mainstream Media sources such as the New York Times. Geo-Engineering (as we currently accept the poorly named field) has become a notably complex endeavor that requires the collection, collation and application of knowledge from three VERY large areas of study:

* Scientific disciplines including Climatology, Biochemistry, Ecology, Meteorology and several subsets of Biology and Physics
* Engineering disciplines including aeronautical, naval, architectural, ballistics, propulsion, and materials Engineering.
* Regulatory/Management and other control disciplines such as business process and risk management, and realtime operational research…and of course an insanely complex and interdependent maze of International Politics, Regulations, Diplomacy, and Trade.

Before delving into these ridiculously broad categories of study, first, let’s just put away any indignant or ignorant self-righteousness about “playing God” with the environment. Instead, let’s simply admit that we’ve already been toying with our Ecology, and changing the Earths environment in countless ways for a long time now already.

Whether it’s by altering watersheds and aquifers, re-engineering entire drainage systems for irrigation or hydro power, or by clearcutting the heat and CO2 consuming capacity of entire forests, and let’s not forget the ongoing and always contentious issues behind enormous volumes of CO2 (and other more potent greenhouse gases) escaping into the atmosphere, as Humans we are already very deeply ensnared in the tricky game of Geo-Engineering. Thus the dire scenarios described as AGW, or “Anthropogenic” (man-made) Global Warming are directly attributed to Human activities, which nobody questions as being capable of changing an entire planet.

So since we’ve already been behaving like foolish Gods (or rather like some lesser being that has self-provisioned itself with Godlike dominion over nature according to some self-distorting Judeao-Christian fallacy) let’s then look at the risks of Geo-Engineering more realistically.

Seeding Cloudy Conspiracies

	Some poorly supported Conspiracy Theories have been making their way into the Mainstream Media. Ironically, there might be a deeper, more subtle corrosion beneath this superficial trend!

According to the recent surge of Public and Media interest in “Chemtrails” it seems that the amorphous realm of  ‘Conspiracy Theories‘ is no longer just being limited to the outer fringes of Society. Of course, there’s been an enormous amount of mainstream news coverage for all the officially sanctioned Climate Change issues, but during this time we’ve also been witness to a fracturing and perceptible shift in Public Opinion around the central Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) issue. This has resulted in a dizzying array of new points and counterpoints of discussion around the official stories that come out out of the UN, IPCC, and all the larger NGO’s and Environmental Groups, which invariably resulted in most truly alternative views being largely suppressed, rejected, or at least fully discredited through standard PR and Press (or propaganda?)  methods that offered no real room for rationale discourse or debate, outside the chaotic streams of  pseudo-moderated Comments fields, or obscure online forums. If you prefer to be spoonfed an opinion, or would like to consider a fact-based position on what actually causes the jet contrails implicated in Chemtrails, just click/scroll right down to The True Nature of Contrails

Generally speaking, the Media would certainly not turn against the hands that feed it, but rather than lose the over-stressed attentions of its brow-beaten Audience, certain segments of the Media (as a pandering reflection of its Advertisers first, and of Society as a close second) have been increasingly willing to selectively examine at least some of these more alternative points of view, even if they do verge on the realm of Conspiracy Theory. Not only to bolster flagging public interest, but perhaps to retain some general credibility as a balanced source of mainstream information, after having already whipped the leading Climate Change horses all the way down the backstretch to their disappointing finish in Copenhagen.

Unfortunately it seems that the lack of investigative reporting that we’ve seen for Climate Science is becoming even more obvious now in these fringe subjects as well, and leads us to wonder what the ultimate consequences will be of such Media-inspired lassitude?

In the same way that just a few key trigger points (such as ClimateGate, the failure in Copenhagen, and a cool Winter, etc)  started a right-wing Media landslide from the over-driven buildup of Global Warming issues, we also saw huge segments of both American and European populations get tipped off the AGW fence, and into the clutches of the right-wing media. These were loosely decided segments that might have otherwise remained open to further suggestions, or at least remain pliably indecisive. Can this be seen as a form of ‘statistical housecleaning for undecided remainders, or just a social backfire which will likely set the entire Environmental Movement back by at least a few paces. You can decide.

Anyhow let’s get back to finding some verity behind “Chemtrails” since this seems to better represent the types of environmental issues that people still seem to have a stomach for these days…Just as controversial, poorly defined, and relatively as un-actionable as climate change, yet at least with a strong anti-authoritarian spin to feel like they can finally push back against the “establishment” somehow, just by ‘spreading the word’…Just like in the early days of a easily adopted Global Warming Movement.

Sp let’s look at Chemtrails. The persistent theory is that any jetplane ‘contrails’ (condensation trails) that are observed to linger in the sky, overlap, and/or form clouds are actually ‘chemtrails’ – Which are claimed to not only be a method of Weather Control, but also of Population Control, Global Dimming, and Bio Warfare, or possibly just very expensive waste disposal.  In the true spirit of conspiracy theory though, lets drill down through the alternating layers of confusion and deceit, and interpret the core samples with yet another new twist.

Let’s consider the possibility that this recent Media phenomenon of openly validating and reporting on the subject of ChemTrails, (among other fringe theories) might possibly be part of a very clever strategy for an even more subtle form of mass/media/mind control!  Why hasn’t the Media simply researched and explained the actual physical phenomenon of (polluted?) Contrails instead?  Could the truth actually be, that among all the rather flimsy issues out there, that this alternative ‘climate issue’ has been handpicked (among others?) to achieve higher Media visibility in order to just publicly debunk it, and thus discredit the entire concept of Conspiracy Theory, or worse yet to help derail any public credibility around the existence of an underground railroad for  suppressed information, or any other signs of a growing Alternative Press which might risk having an impact on the Mainstream Media Message, and general Public Consciousness in the event of a genuine crisis?

Cloudy Coverup for Climate Change

        

In an effort to wrap our collective heads around all the Causes that can Effect Climate Change, perhaps we could go up into Space to gain some seriously wide-angle perspectives on the subject, and then come back down to Earth with a more grounded view of what’s driving this change.

The first layer of atmosphere that we encounter upon re-entry is the Mesospehere, and it’s a frontier zone that’s only now being better explored for it’s peculiar properties. What’s driving this curiosity are visible signs of changes going on up there, which are impacting some wild theories about geo-engineering the skies, to counteract climate change down here.

More than 120 years after their discovery, Noctilucent Clouds (from the Latin words for “Night Shining”) remain a mysterious enigma that only appears up at the very edge of space – or about 75-85 kilometers (50 miles) straight up! This area is called the Mesosphere, and it’s not only very cold (-193F/-125C), but it’s also incredibly dry. Studies show that the mesosphere is about 100 MILLION times drier than the Sahara, so one of the questions that we find 80 kms above us is: just how do these eerie clouds form under such poor conditions? Just to contrast abit, the highest clouds that we normally see are called Cirrus, and form at only about 11 km (36,000feet) where it only gets down to about -40C.

So…Let’s consider what makes clouds to begin with? Basically ice crystals, or rain need to two things to form. A dust (1)particle that allows (2)water vapor to collect/condense around the particle in a process called “nucleation”. The theories on Noctilucent Clouds are that the dust required to form them at that altitude is either coming from space, or somehow coming up from the surface far, far below. Water vapor is also incredibly scarce at that altitude, which suggests theories that the water is actually coming from rocket exhaust. An even more fascinating theory suggests that oxidized Methane* is at the supply base for the components of water since atmospheric methane levels have been increasing since the 19th century, and have more than doubled in the past century! So we might be just seeing the early signs of some new form of climate change at work up there at the edge of space…

Geo-Engineering: Laying Foundations

Geo-Engineering has been a fringe science since the Sixties (when it first became popular to believe that Technology could fix anything), and it seems to be finally coming into vogue after being brought to back to public attention by mainstream Media sources such as the New York Times .

Before drilling down too deep though, let’s start by sharpening some of our bits of terminology first.

Unlike BIO-Engineering, which seeks to apply pure Science via Technological processes to produce engineered results in Biological fields (from GM’d corn, to the materials of Orthpaedic hip-joint replacement hardware), GEO-Engineering seeks to take the same approach to the entire Earth in order to effect positive changes to our environment. Regrettably, the term Geo-Engineering seems to have been misappropriated and popularized as a description of Ecological or Environmental engineering applications on a global scale, even though the terms Enviro, Global, or ECO-Engineering would likely have been a more appropriate descriptors. Unfortunately for the real Geo-Engineers out there (who’ve been working long and hard on true Geological Engineering), the term GEO has already been co-opted by Environmentalists, adopted by the Media, and is now popularized to represent a much more narrow scope of applied technological solutions to our most pressing issues around Climate Change. So Geo-Engineering has effectively come to mean something else entirely to all of us (relatively ignorant) non-engineers.

So….Geo-Engineering (as we currently accept the poorly defined definition) is a notably complex endeavor that requires the collection, collation and application of knowledge from three VERY large areas of study:

* Scientific disciplines including Climatology, Biochemistry, Ecology, Meteorology and several subsets of Biology and Physics
* Engineering disciplines including aeronautical, naval, architectural, ballistics, propulsion, and materials Engineering.
* Regulatory/Management and other control disciplines such as business process and risk management, and realtime operational research…and of course an insanely complex and interdependent maze of International Politics, Regulations, Diplomacy, and Trade.

Before delving into these ridiculously broad categories of study, first, let’s just put away any indignant or ignorant self-righteousness about “playing God” with the environment. Insteaed, let’s simply admit that we’ve already been toying with our Ecology, and changing the Earths environment in countless ways for a long time now already.

Whether it’s by altering watersheds and aquifers, re-engineering entire drainage systems for irrigation or hydro power, or by clearcutting the heat and CO2 consuming capacity of entire forests, and let’s not forget the ongoing and always contentious issues behind enormous volumes of CO2 (and other more potent greenhouse gases) escaping into the atmosphere, as Humans we are already very deeply ensnared in the tricky game of Geo-Engineering. Thus the dire scenarios described as AGW, or “Anthropogenic” (man-made) Global Warming are directly attributed to Human activities, which nobody questions as being capable of changing an entire planet.

So since we’ve already been behaving like foolish Gods (or rather like some lesser being that has self-provisioned itself with Godlike dominion over nature according to some self-distorting Judeao-Christian fallacy) let’s then look at the risks of Geo-Engineering more realistically.