If you didn't read the title of this video, and watched the first minute, you might actually agree with some of the points made. Geoengineering, something that has been a hot topic of late, has side effects. Cloud seeding, for example, is literally emitting more aerosols in the air, and so should not be considered the only solution to droughts. That is a valid point that no one--liberals nor conservatives--can deny. Weather is a complicated issue that affects vast amounts of land and people, so methods of inducing precipitation should be used with caution. If only that was the nuanced point made by the video above. Instead, the video, sponsored by the infamous Info Wars (it is exactly as it sounds, they fight against factual information), tries to spread the word about "chemtrails." Chemtrails are the false notion that the U.S. government is trying to alter weather by spraying various types of heavy metals into the atmosphere. This doesn't happen. The government isn't spraying Strontium into the sky to alter the weather. Why would they do that? False pieces of evidence like jet patterns in the sky have been used to support the idea of chemtrails. But interestingly, nobody in the video claims to understand what the scientific theory would be to spray these metals in the sky. Cloud seeding usually happens with salts with crystal lattices, like silver iodide. These salts may indeed have harmful effects to humans, and more research definitely needs to be done on them in the atmosphere. But why would other heavy metals be used? There is no scientific basis for this. Further, the video claims there is also evidence that aluminum is being sprayed because aluminum related incidences have been "off the charts" in the past year. Yet their actual evidence for this is a graph that shows autism rates increasing, having no relation to aluminum. I thought info wars claims that autism is caused by vaccines? The alt right needs to pick a conspiracy and stick with it.
In sum, this is the type of lunacy that gets people to believe in things that are just plain not true. For someone who isn't familiar with the topic, the video makes a compelling case for the U.S. government trying to change weather at the expense of lives. But the sad part is there is a half decent point buried deep under the nonsense--be careful of geoengineering, before we make a change to the atmosphere we regret.
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