Since the state law went into effect, the Floridians who backed it have grown increasingly angry by seeing the skies just as marked by white trails as they were prior to the state law.
What are those white lines behind airplanes? Debunking ‘chemtrails’
Contrails — the little white lines streaming out of an airplane — form when the hot air from the exhaust mixes with the cooler temperature and low-pressure environment.
unbranded – Lifestyle
It has been fun watching Florida’s “chemtrails” conspiracy theorists get a taste of the real world.
Florida’s multi-pronged attack on science and responsible public policy has taken many forms. The state has negligently bad-mouthed life-saving vaccines and made it illegal for municipalities to fluoridate their drinking water.
And then there’s “chemtrails”, the imaginary poisoning of the public by mysterious “theys” who are raining heavy metals down on us in some secret plot to dim the sun, weaponize the weather and kill us all.
Twisting the benign common appearance of water vapor trails from aircraft into a nefarious weather modification plot used to be the sole province of America’s fringiest crackpots.
People such as Alex Jones at Infowars have been claiming for years that Americans are under air attack from secret forces who poison the skies.
No ‘chemtrails’ in the skies of the ‘Free State of Florida’
Now, those fringe views have taken center stage in Florida, thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led legislature.
“People have a lot of kooky ideas that they can get in and put things in the atmosphere to block the sun and save us from climate change. We’re not playing that game in Florida,” DeSantis said in a recorded message on social media.
DeSantis signed a state law banning weather modification experiments in Florida (they were already banned by an existing law) and creating a new felony penalty for violators.
“The Free State of Florida means freedom from governments or private actors unilaterally applying chemicals or geoengineering to people or public spaces,” DeSantis said.
And to fully humor the delusional conspiracy theorists, the state has deputized the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to establish a hotline for Floridians to call when they see white trails in the sky they believe to be suspicious.
This is bottom feeding on a grand scale.
The law went into effect in July, and the people who were foolish enough to applaud it imagined that the skies over Florida would now be free of white trails.
“Florida, July 1, will be the end of chemtrails! Hallelujah!” wrote a poster on the social media site X.
But Florida can’t be free of white trails in the sky.
‘The invasion continues. Florida skies are under constant attack.’
That’s because the state can’t legislate away the scientific fact that when hot exhaust of jet engines create harmless water vapor coming from the engines of aircraft in the cold, high altitudes, it freezes that vapor into ice crystals. And those ice crystals form a wake behind that engine in what is known as a condensation trail or “contrail.”
Quick review: “Contrail” equals real science. “Chemtrail” equals crackpot political mischief.
Since the state law went into effect, the Floridians who backed it have grown increasingly angry by seeing the skies just as marked by white trails as they were prior to the state law.
Here’s a smattering of irate posts on X in the two months since the state law went into effect:
— “Yes, the spraying has taken place every single day since the Ban was put in place!”
— “The invasion continues. Florida skies are under constant attack.”
— “DeSantis, why do you lie? Why do you say that you signed a Florida Bill getting rid of these hideous chemtrails, and it is all a fat big LIE?”
— “Welcome to Florida, the chemtrails state. Now we are being sprayed from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., so by 10 a.m. the skies are cleared but you are breathing heavy metals. Thank you DeSantis.”
— “See how the chemicals are spreading out. Trees are dying, crops are barely growing. Why is our government doing this to us?”
By humoring Florida’s free-dumb coalition on chemtrails, state lawmakers have unleashed a tornado of disappointment upon themselves.
“They were spraying early in the morning after 12 a.m.,” one Floridian posted. “And now the planes are spraying again mid morning. Our skies in this area are covered with the chemicals. There are no birds in the trees. You cannot hear one bird in this area. I had to come inside because the chemicals were giving me a headache again.”
DeSantis, Florida Republicans have got to be getting tired of this… right?
My favorite is a Floridian who posted a photo of jet contrails crossing in the sky that happened to form the letter X.
“The cabal is getting bold,” the poster wrote. “Cloud seeding and chemtrails over Florida. With a giant X that marks the spot. Targets.”
I wonder how many more months it will take before DeSantis and other Florida leaders acknowledge that they made a mistake to validate such nonsense. That it’s time to come clean and tell their constituents that “chemtrails” and the conspiracy theories around them need to be returned to the lunatic fringe and the worm-eaten mind of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., where they belong.
In the meantime, the rest of us — those Floridians in the constantly challenged reality-based community — can enjoy the spectacle.
Here’s Ann Vandersteel, a multi-faceted Florida conspiracy theorist, who describes herself as an “Information War Correspondent” to her 372,000 followers on X.
She posted this 12 days after Florida’s chemtrails law went into effect.
“This morning I recorded chemtrails being sprayed right over our home,” Vandersteel wrote. “Tonight we watched a full storm come from the north and move south with rain and lightning.
“In Florida. In July. DOESN’T HAPPEN,” she continued. “This is weather warfare. And you are under attack.”
Actually, afternoon and evening thunderstorms do happen quite often in Florida, especially in July.
We are not under attack. We are amused.
Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, which is part of the USA Today Network-Florida. He can be reached at fcerabino@pbpost.com.
Join the Conversation: The Palm Beach Post is committed to publishing a diversity of opinions. Email us at letters@pbpost.com. Letters are subject to editing, must not exceed 200 words and must include your name, address and a daytime phone number to confirm the letter is for publication. We only publish names and cities with the letters.
