Chemtrails: another conspiracy theory confirmed? Or just that the crazies are infiltrating science?

 one of the crazier conspiracy theories is that airplane contrails are evil. 

I always ignored this, mainly because the photos they posted to show all the contrails filling the sky ignored the fact that planes usually traveled on certain routes, meaning that it ignored the 80 percent of the sky that lacked contrails.

Sort of like showing a traffic jam on I 80 and pretending it represented this respresented not only the rest of the country's roads but the area of the country that lack roads.

Know your meme: explains the theory

The Chemtrail Conspiracy Theory is the belief that the tracks across the sky left by airplanes, usually called contrails, are actually composed of illness-causing or weather-controlling chemical elements actively being distributed to the populace by malevolent parties like the Illuminati or a secret government program. The conspiracy theory is widely discussed in forums online.

 

So today I ran across a post about the evil carbon producing airplanes, and the plans of the greens to destroy the air industry.

 PhysOrg has a summary of an editorial in Nature magazine: about evil carbon emitting airplanes, and why we have to destroy the airline industry to save Mother Gaia, and way down in the article I spotted this

Achieving the levels of clean fuel adoption that many governments and firms aim for—and doing so sustainably—will require commercializing new production methods and feedstocks that are still technologically in their infancy. 

And neither of these solutions are sure to address the climate impacts of contrails, which trap heat radiating from the earth's surface, causing warming in the atmosphere below.

WTF?

they go on to note that there are few studies about contrails, and that it is unknown if their impact is big or small, but hey they might be causing problems, so let's remake the airline industry just in case.

 It's possible that the effects are small ... But the effects could also be massive—up to half the total climate impact of aviation, according to some studies—and require entirely new aviation technologies and approaches to cutting the impact of aviation on the climate. The study argues that addressing contrails may require profound overhauling of engines, airframes and onboard storage—big, costly and financially risky decisions. The authors urge for more experimentation to test what really could work—backed by government policies and industry collaborations.,,,

Translation: Send money.

 as for that part about risky decisions? Duh. Not just financially but to people who travel on airplanes.