There was a time when the morons who believed fringe conspiracy theories about chemtrails and weather manipulation were treated like the crackpot weirdos that they are. Now that Republicans have gone absolutely mad, though, those same conspiracy theorists have gained enough political influence that lawmakers have introduced a string of bills to ban chemtrails that don’t exist. Now Florida State Senator Ileana Garcia has joined the fun, filing SB 56, a bill to ban all forms of weather modification.
Chemtrails, of course, don’t exist and have been debunked for years. Weather modfication such as cloud seeding is possible but is pretty localized and questionably effective at best. The idea that the government had the ability to control where Hurricane Milton went is so ludicrous it’s laughable, and yet Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted exactly that recently. You’d think more people in her district would be embarrassed she represents them on a national state, but apparently not. You’d also think Florida lawmakers would have more important problems to solve, but that is also not the case.
Garcia’s bill would ban all forms of weather manipulation including, “[t]he injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of a chemical, a chemical compound, a substance, or an apparatus into the atmosphere within the borders of this state for the express purpose of affecting the temperature, the weather, or the intensity of sunlight.” Ultimately, it’s just more of the same stuff we’ve seen from other lawmakers who think the conspiracy theorists raise some valid points and ask good questions.
At the same time, I say let’s pass these bills. We need to crack down on companies that pollute the air and contribute to climate change, and if that means letting chemtrail truthers think they’ve won a victory, so be it. Maybe there’s no magic hurricane gun sitting in the Oval Office, but we’ve also known for decades that human activity caused climate change and is making everything from hurricanes to air turbulence worse. That whole time, Republicans have resisted any legislation that might make the planet a better place to live, but perhaps that doesn’t have to be the case if we let the chemtrail whackos influence the legislation.