Cloudscape concerns, monologue, Dec 2024.

The criss crossing contrails in the sky dispersing to create thick stratus clouds blocking out the blue sky became obvious to me when lockdowns ended in 2021, when planes and their clouds suddenly returned to the sky after 6 months of no flights.  Above the Forest of Dean half the cloud cover now comes out the back of jets. A Level Geography cloud study in 1980 did not describe these clouds. I asked people and googled cloud appreciation society, contrail and chemtrail but found nothing informative, or even a name for these novel but pervasive cloud formations.  I started to call them jumbo stratus and felt maybe it was my task to attempt to name this phenomena so it could be more easily discussed.

Eventually I thought to google jet fuel, there were pages of research papers, engineer reports, discussion pages, authority recommendations. The aviation industry knows it is making half the clouds in the sky, it is not a secret. They even have a name for my jumbo stratus, they call them persistent contrail cirrus. This name is misleading, cirrus are high fluffy wisps, jet clouds are often too low and dense to be classified as cirrus - they are stratus clouds, and there are cirrus mists, thin mists that sometimes descend from cirrus level down to ground level, I have no idea what you would call these! There is nothing near this in the cloud categorys identified by Victorian Luke Howard.

According to industry research persistent contrail cirrus may reflect some sunlight back into space, but overall represents a blanket that reflects heat back to earth, causing 2 - 4 times more global warming than the CO2 emissions from burning the jet fuel.

Jet fuel is so called clean burn kerosene, but with sulphur added. Some sulphur is needed to keep the diesel flowing in freezing temperatures, but no one has bothered to do conclusive research required to reliably remove as much sulphur as possible without jumbos falling out the sky. Is there enough sulphur in the fuel to cause acid rain comparable to the UK coal fired power station acid rain of the 1970s? No one appears to be doing that research either.

Jet engines might not work with a catalytic converter, no one has done definitive research. But some planes flying through air pollution enforced zones do fit them.

There are up to 2000 different chemicals in jet fuel, and up to 25% of the mixture of jet fuel can be additives known as aromatics. These are often benzene, potentially up to 25 times more of it than you can legally use in a car engine, and your car is fitted with a catalytic converter to remove even more. But jet fuel refiners could be adding all sorts of chemicals by the tanker load in the name of aromatics, we have no way of knowing - there is no ingredients list on jet fuel.

The industry claims strict standards overseen reassuringly by US and UK government regulators, but UK and US regulators are now corporate rubber stampers often even being paid directly by the industry concerned to save the tax payer money. Strict is obviously a meaningless subjective term chosen to sound reassuring.

Not many companies offer jet fuel, it is a niche market. Airports do not offer a lot of choice at the pump, you take the house special. Flying is mostly an international operation - a kind of wildwest regulation free zone. It is a gentlemens agreement, the pilot does not ask what is in the fuel, and the fuel suppliers promise you will stay in the sky.

One late afternoon driving along the M4 I saw a persistent contrail cirrus crossed sky, which cast shadows on the layers of dispersed jumbo stratus lower down, and then cast some beam shadows down to ground level. To my mind that represents persistent contrail smog, jumbo smog or jumbo mist. We are likely inhaling or ingesting whatever pollutants are seeding these weird clouds, it is not just a problem for downwind Europe, they are falling to the ground around us as well.

After 70 years of jet flight, it is noticeable how many aviation reports recommend further basic research into issues of environment and health. Especially considering jets are a known disaster, it is known that a full jet passenger miles are probably 10 times more toxic than a full car of passenger miles. But aviation industry legal teams have researched how to avoid the hazard of airport worker lung disease law suits, quite extensively.

The weather forecast BBC website does not bother with pressure bars and fronts any more, the forecasts show cloud progressions. The forecasters are frequently predicting jumbo stratus the day or even week before it arrives. They are clearly as informed by air traffic as nature for our daily weather forecasts.

Government and media are apparently less keen to be informed. However the COP29 agenda included discussion to combat the persistent contrail cirrus environmental issue. Interestingly parliament had a policy proposal ready for something it does not admit exists, and the mainstream media had to report about something it calls a conspiracy theory.

The proposal was to re-route planes to avoid highly humid condensation ready air zones, and add bio fuel oil to the jet fuel cocktail. To pay for these inconveniences the airlines would add a few quid onto the ticket price, and then we can all carry on flying as normal.

The research papers I came across asserted that bio fuel is slightly less polluting at take-off and might kill fewer ground crew, but was more cloud seeding at cruise level because of high soot emissions easily cancelling out any environmental gain. Research in Japan suggested re-routing planes could reduce cloud seeding, but other research suggested the Atlantic air is all highly humid and so there was no improving re-routing available.

In other words, existing research knows that the COP29 proposals will have no environmental gain, not for the Atlantic Arctic or the Forest of Dean. Governments must know this, but none said out loud this is absurd, travel by jet is 10 times worse than even travel by car (and our corporate jets 10 times worse than your jumbos). None said lets clean up jet fuel. None said petrol prices are 80% tax, lets slap on a proportionate jet fuel tax. Neither did the media. An award winning long standing environment correspondent for the BBC wrote the following - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz7wp777780o

The journalist displays what must be wilful ignorance, wilful minimisation of harm, taking all the press releases from the aviation industry and governments at face value, and spends half the article insulting anyone who might criticise them in the future. The government and mainstream media are not just apparently blind to the existence of an issue, but are actually projecting/manufacturing a delusional tunnel vision protecting aviation industry and fuel profits from the obvious harm they are doing, not even attempting to hold them to account or clean up. This is blatant advocacy journalism and government. 

This is not the only or first type of man-made cloud, 1950s London was famous for coal-fire-seeded murderous pea soup fogs. Throughout the 1970s and 80s UK coal-fired power stations created trails of acid cumulus clouds, that then rained on and killed lakes and forests in Norway. The M48 Severn Bridge is an excellent viewpoint from which to watch the chimneys of the South Wales Industrial Cluster (SWIC) creating little low-level cumulus clouds which cross towards the bridge and then follow the prevailing wind direction up the M4 to London. SWIC is not the industrial hub it once was, so the clouds are quite low, small and well spaced. Quite often from this bridge you see both persistent contrail cirrus and little SWIC cumulus being made at different levels at the same time. The cloudscape is as highly manufactured as the landscape below it.

But I too play my part in weather modification. At combustion point, the only fuel that comes close to being as polluting as jet fuel is my wood stove. As an environmental issue proponent this is somewhat awkward. I claim that if you include the emissions of methane and the poisoning of the water table, the US fracked gas I use in my gas boiler is far worse than my wood stove. I claim that if you include the waste and emissions of the 100-year war of destruction of the middle east then jet fuel is far more devastating than my stove. Most of the trees I burn are squirrel or deer ring barked standing dead wood which is about to start emitting CO2 and methane as it decays - if I did not burn it. I know my coppicing is increasing the woodland bio diversity. In fact the overall damage from my stove may be zero. But, at chimney exit point, comparable it is, jet travel is a lot like flying an 1840 early inefficient steam engine across the sky.

Here are two iconic fuel exhausts. The million years of hominoid evolution are defined by our ability to make fire from wood, keep warm and cook. Modern people are defined by the possibility to fly on vacation to the other side of the globe in a jumbo jet. It is modernisms biggest carrot, what is the point of the frustrations of modern living if you can not holiday in Spain for a fiver? It would be nice to stop here, that the ending is how or should the 21^st Century go about coming to terms with these problematic icons from the past?

But maybe there is another chimeric elephant in this room. Some might conclude persistent contrail cirrus simply demonstrate that every bumbling lever of society is failing. Researchers, designers, manufacturers, aviation industry corporations, regulators, administrators, media oversight, governments, and passengers are all doing our best, but just failing to recognise the monster mess made by jet travel. We are all just heads down as the most obvious mess ever made blots out the sun. Some might think this is just another sign that the modernist mind frame is on a suicide mission, and we should just enjoy it while we can.

But others might conclude this mess is intentional. Contrails are only supposed to make clouds for a third of a mile before dispersing. When contrails leave a trail from horizon to horizon that then spreads out into multi layered jumbo stratus and all altitude mists, it begs the question, is that just laughably dirty fuel, just what did they put in the aromatics mix, or does it contain cloud seeding additives designed to create clouds - a chemtrail? Even a jumbo jet does not need to be that disgusting - surely. Here in the Forest of Dean we barely had a full day of clear deep blue sky in 2024.

I have seen youtube films of climate scientists saying that in a time of climate change it would be irresponsible not to experiment with weather change. I have seen generals saying weather modification is the ultimate weapon and the UK should be researching it. There are clearly many authority figures in the UK who believe it is their duty to seed clouds and change the weather.

The UK government denies knowing anything about weather modification. The media labels anyone who even thinks about it a conspiracy theorist. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/26/chemtrail-conspiracy-theories-rfk-climate-crisis

The above article is obviously written to mislead. It starts saying contrails are mostly water vapour, which is true, and thus nothing to worry about? No, the acid rain of the 1980s that killed forests and lakes was mostly water. Battery acid is mostly water. The public discourse is so opaque that no realistic discussion is possible. The BBC is paid for by the public, the government is supposed to represent the electorate, but neither is representing the public interest. They are advocating/legislating for something else, persons and reasons unknown. Without the possibility of realistic discussion, without knowing who or what our institutions represent, they have made themselves useless, they have rendered us hostage to whoever their cloaked but more generous paymasters may be.

Whichever you believe, I think the government/BBC collective tunnel vision delusion of mass bumbling goes mostly unchallenged because it is so comfortable. For most people the alternative that the government and media are lying to us and have only a secondary interest in our welfare appears traumatic. Personally I think it is more worrying if the manufacture of our cloudscape is by serial ignorance than by design.

I think its time to recognise the cloudscape is a record of industrial skidmarks in the sky, and name the clouds as such. Thats a nice jumbo stratus, cool cumulo SWIC, smog Tom is a bit early tonight.

Whether jet fuel is just disgusting, or someone/thing for some reason is making it filthier to modify the weather does not really make any difference at the practical level of our daily what to do list, that is still totally obvious, encourage awareness in those around us, and - fly less, grow more vegetables.

Enjoy flying less and grow more vegetables.

Fly less, grow more vegetables.

Fly less and enjoy growing more vegetables.

It is has to be at the top of the list every day.

If you enjoyed the cloudscape monologue, then try this -

The mysterious case of white LED headlights. Jan 2025.

It appears most new cars are now sold with white LED headlights. Lightbulb manufacturers have been firefighting criticism for selling white light LEDs for 20 years or more. First there was a storm over domestic lightbulbs, and then street lamps.

In the name of research a lot of mice have been tortured revealing that white LED light is indeed health damaging. It is linked to interrupting sleep patterns, potential eye strain, headaches, and incredibly confusing for insects. But also it is obviously linked to retina damage.

In a room or street setting white LEDs are clearly detrimental to health. But in car headlights they are a complete disaster. In a room or street you are normally looking at what is lit, not directly at the light itself. When driving at night, your eyes are opened to the maximum, letting in as much light as possible so that you can see the road, and then you are looking directly at banks of white LED headlights. The inevitable retina damage will lead to mass blindness.

This appalling retina damage could easily be reduced, at no extra cost, simply by using ‘warm’ white LED head lights. Why has something so known to be hazardous, and avoidable at no extra cost, become the new norm? The industry whose business it is to illuminate the world, is manufacturing our premature blindness.

Auto designers could have spotted the issue. Light bulb manufacturers could have said we know this is an issue. Auto manufacturers, Highways Agencies, Ministry of Transport, could all have demanded the no extra cost/much less damage alternative. The mainstream media could have made it a media issue, MPs could have demanded an inquiry, people could have refused to buy them.

Public health is about to take a serious hit, every single lever of society supposedly working for the public good has failed. Its not obvious anyone is even profiting from the mass injury. I assume we have a collective self harm wish, the only other alternative is that the corporations (and therefore there administrators – the government) actually want to degrade the public health.

Among the many collective fails by our social structures, this one strikes me as the most pointless.

What to do about it is obvious though, encourage a new awareness and in the meantime - drive less, grow more vegetables.

Drive less, enjoy growing more vegetables.

If you enjoyed the Cloudscape Concerns and the LED Mystery, maybe you’d like to try -

Persistent Plastic

By 1975 plastic was becoming a known issue. In my High Street the first supermarket opened selling food wrapped in plastic carried out in plastic bags, and our Mars bars and crisps came in plastic wrappers. As teenagers we wondered how long it would take for plastic that lives for 400 years to cover the entire earth in a1ft layer of rubbish. It was a difficult sum to do on our new plastic slide rules. It seemed improbable at the time, surely it wouldn’t happen, after all where there’s muck there’s brass, so the saying went, someone will clean up and get rich.

Every year since 1975 more of our clothing, utensils, and buildings include higher proportions of plastic. Our food comes vacuum packed in thicker and thicker plastic and now plastic boxes as well.

Now in 2025, 50 years later, sure enough it is said you can walk across vast areas of the Pacific that are 6ft deep in floating plastic. There are tropical beaches where you can not see the sand for recycled Tescos, Waitrose and Liddls bottles, bags and packaging. It is said that all UK water courses are charged with micro plastic. It is said that 5% of our brains are now micro plastic rubbish.

Despite there being literally oceans of plastic available, barely any is recycled. It has always been possible. Crisp factories have always recycled any bag offcuts in the manufacturing process, but barely a bottle of even much easier to recycle grades of plastic is recycled.

How is this happening? Every single lever of public safety has failed, for 50 years. Fossil fuel industry, designers, manufacturing industry, government regulators and administrators, MPs, mainstream media, and the public have all just carried on as the world becomes coated in plastic, even allowing a heads to gradually fill with the stuff.

Obviously the status quo is not fit for purpose, and hasn’t been interested in the public or environmental health been for 50 years. Who has it been serving all this time? But while we encourage an evolution of awareness, in the meantime, the answer of what to do today and tomorrow is obvious. Look twice at anything plastic and ask do I really need this? Buy less, grow more.

Buy less, enjoy growing more vegetables.

Buy, drive and fly less, enjoy growing and eating more vegetables.