fox files

Local news outlets attack residents they claim to serve instead of listening to them.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has collected more than 400 reports from citizens upset with the trails left behind by aircraft that linger, disperse, and block the sun and sky since June, when the state’s anti-geoengineering bill was signed into law.

The FAA, NASA, and NOAA have admitted that these trails—formed when metal nanoparticle- and sulfur-containing jet engine emissions meet cold, wet air—can “last for hours to days” and “span several hundred kilometers.”

These aircraft-induced contrail cirrus clouds artificially alter the weather and prevent people from experiencing natural sky and sunlight conditions as they would otherwise occur.

Some also worry about the negative health and environmental outcomes associated with prolonged exposure to persistent aircraft-generated aerosols that settle into the air we breathe, as well as the surrounding soil and water.

Screenshot from globe.adsbexchange.com showing the sheer volume of aircraft simultaneously flying over the continental United States in real-time.

---

However, local news outlets, whose role is to serve the communities they cover, have instead adopted a condescending tone toward residents raising these concerns, downplaying and dismissing their complaints.

One staff writer for New Orleans’ NOLA.com chose to adopt such a condescending framing, repeatedly characterizing residents’ concerns as a “long-debunked conspiracy theory.”

The writer calls the reports themselves “alarming,” not the fact that the sun and sky are being obscured artificially, as multiple federal agencies have confirmed they are.

Here’s how the writer portrays the reports from concerned citizens:

The reports are alarming.

Angry residents say the Louisiana skies are being sprayed with chemicals, creating “tic-tac-toe” shapes up above, or in one case, an “Acura logo.”

The supposed culprit: Chemtrails, a long-debunked conspiracy theory that scientists say is not accurate.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the state agency charged with regulating the state’s expansive petrochemical industry, among other sectors, has collected more than 400 such reports since just this summer, when the Republican-led Legislature passed a bill requiring them to track such reports.

A handful of Republican state lawmakers have encouraged their constituents to write in, propping up the conspiracy theory that the condensation trails airplanes leave behind are, in fact, dangerous chemicals or heavy metals.

(Notice the tired and out-of-date “left-versus-right” trope the writer is still stuck in, which only serves the mainstream political elite establishment.)

The writer claims these residents are reporting “chemtrails,” but without citing a single report that uses that term.

This is not only an ad hominem (juvenile name-calling) attack on the people the writer claims to represent, but it’s also a straw man fallacy.

Rather than engage with what residents are reporting, the writer invents a simplified “chemtrails” belief and knocks it down, avoiding the substance of the complaints altogether.

The bill itself doesn’t even use the term ‘chemtrail.’

In reality, people are genuinely upset that their sun and sky are being obscured by these metal nanoparticle- and sulfur-laced jet emissions.

The majority of Americans support laws banning weather modification.

They’re worried about the health and environmental effects.

Whether we call what’s coming out of airplanes ‘chemtrails’ or ‘cirrus contrails’ misses the point: our sun and sky are being blocked, our weather is being manipulated, and there are legitimate concerns about our soil, water, and the air we breathe.

American citizens deserve news agencies that report on their concerns accurately and in good faith, rather than dismissing them through caricature or ridicule.

They also deserve transparency and clarity from the airline industry and state and federal agencies about what’s really going on over our heads.

With more than 400 formal reports filed in just months, this is not a fringe issue but a widespread public concern that large numbers of ordinary citizens believe warrants serious attention, not dismissal.