Where has the sun gone?

Joint investigation by Niall McCrae and Roger Watson:

Cast your mind back to 2020, to lockdown in particular. Apart from the imposed insanity including facemasks, social distancing, hand sanitisers and vaccine mandates, there was something else: the weather.

From early March to late September we had the longest spell of good weather that we can recall in many years. The sun shone daily and there was barely a cloud in the sky. Those of us with gardens considered ourselves lucky.

The view from Hull (RW)

As a regular flier I was devastated by the almost complete cessation of air travel, and it was remarkable how there was barely a streak in the sky. I like to track the flights over my house in Hull using the FlightRadar® app. Sometimes you cannot see the planes you are tracking as they are flying at such high altitude if they are long haul flights. Sometimes they are visible only thanks to their vapour or condensation trails (referred to as ‘contrails’). I was not alone in wondering if the almost complete lack of contrails – caused by the condensation of water vapour in the atmosphere around small particles in the outflow from jet engines – was perhaps responsible for the good weather.

Lockdown went on and, as restrictions were eased, flights resumed. Then people began to report strange patterns in the sky. Contrails were back and some of this was undoubtedly a result of the resumption of long haul flights. But it was remarkable – and people did remark – how contrails seemed to be more numerous than some could remember.

Reluctant, as ever, to jump to conclusions beyond the evidence I had to question some of the pictures I was seeing on social media of skies criss-crossed with contrails. The patterns seemed too neat to be believable. Until I saw it with my own eyes.

Driving down to Lincoln from Hull on the A15, immediately after restrictions on travelling and shopping were lifted, about half way in the journey the sky appeared exactly as it had in some of the pictures I had seen. There was a perfect criss-crossed hatched pattern in the sky. I had never seen this pattern previously and had never seen so much evidence of air activity in one area of sky. The trails did not appear to be at very high altitude.

I have not seen that pattern again, but I still find the number of contrails at any one time on relatively clear days to be in excess of anything I have seen before. An average morning in Hull may begin with some sunshine in the early morning but gradually the contrails appear and soon after the sky clouds over. It is also noticeable, if you have not spotted any planes or contrails in the morning, how the sky nearly always seems to be streaked these days. This is visible above my town and easily seen elsewhere on long train journeys.

The lack of sunshine is one thing, but the cooling effect is also noticeable. It reminds me of witnessing a total eclipse of the sun when, not only does it go dark and quiet (the birds stop singing), the sudden drop in temperature for the short duration of the eclipse is memorable. That is the effect of blocking out the sun – it gets colder.

Shrouded Sussex (NM)

The sign as passengers alight at Eastbourne railway station states ‘Welcome to the Sunshine Coast’. This has seemed a sick joke for the first four months of this year, when the sky has clouded over almost every day, immersing us in a  grey dampness that suppresses body and mind. Normally, it is well known that the Sussex seaside gets rays of sunlight even when inland areas are rainy all day, but not in 2024. Daffodils came out later this year, tulips stayed in bed, and blossom appeared fleetingly on fruit trees weeks later than normal. The tourism trade hasn’t come out of hibernation yet – who wants to take a day trip to Bexhill in the drizzle?

Like Roger I have always been sceptical of conspiracy theories about chemtrails.  But now I’m not so dismissive. In my book  Green in Tooth and Claw: The Misanthropic Mission of Climate Alarm (Amazon.co.uk: McCrae, Niall: 9781739315283: Books) I wrote a chapter ‘Making it Happen’. Although the claim of a climate emergency is unscientific ideology for the underlying motive of total control of population and resources, there is no doubt that the powers-that-be have the ability to change weather patterns – at least locally and temporarily. It is no secret that cloudseeding is used to induce rainfall in China, the Arabian peninsula and California, among other places. 

Why Sussex? There was no drought here, or any sign of cataclysmic climate change. I wonder whether geoengineering is in a major experimental phase, with large parts of Britain deprived of sunshine for a lengthy trial period of several months. It should no longer come as a surprise to anyone that our governments would allow such radical intervention to happen without our knowledge (never mind consent). 

The ‘heatwave’

Then there was 2022 when, admittedly, temperatures briefly spiked to around 40C in some parts of the country. The ante was upped by the Met Office, in weather reports and in the media. Global warming was out of control, and we were going to lose thousands of vulnerable people, especially older people. Ludicrous advice was issued about how to keep cool, and groups were established by local councils to be able to react with emergency supplies if the temperature spiked again. It didn’t and we mostly pulled through. But the best was made of the ‘crisis’ in 2022 to heighten awareness of global warming and to inculcate the notion in people’s heads that something had to be done. According to the Met Office 2023 was likely to be even worse…it wasn’t.

The following two years have been a great disappointment weather-wise and 2024 has been very cold up to the end of April. The temperatures are by no means record lows and we have had worse years for snow and ice well into Spring. But for those of us who look up occasionally it is impossible to miss the fact that cloud cover has been prolonged, and the density of contrails has been noticeably higher than usual. This is not based on rigorous research; it is based on almost everyone I speak to remarking on it or agreeing with me that such activity is higher than usual.

How do they do it?

Using chemicals in the atmosphere to alter the weather is not new. For, example, one of us is nearly 70 and recalls learning about cloud seeding at school in geography lessons. Cloud seeding involves introducing particles into the air around which water vapour in the air can condense to form clouds and then rain.

Particles can also be dropped into clouds to induce them to rain. The chemical commonly used in silver iodide, and it is reckoned, in areas of drought, that this can increase rainfall by around 25%. Cloud seeding, therefore, is most frequently used in Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia where there can be extended periods of drought. Clouds are considered common property and not owned by dint of being in any particular country’s airspace.

This is relatively uncontroversial apart from the fact that, under these circumstances one person’s rain is likely to be another person’s drought, so interfering with weather patterns to the advantage of one country is almost bound to have an effect – probably an adverse one – in nearby countries. Rich countries such as Saudi Arabia have the resources to conduct cloud seeding; it is doubtful if their neighbours in Yemen can do this.

The process of introducing silver iodide takes place by planes burning flares containing silver iodide and flying at a relatively low altitude to introduce the chemical particles into the atmosphere. This has given rise to the conspiracy theory custom of referring to contrails or vapour trails as ‘chemtrails’. But the particles introduced into the atmosphere in the process of seeding are virtually invisible and certainly not visible to the naked eye from ground level. What is visible is the result of the chemicals being introduced when the moisture particles in the atmosphere coalesce around the chemical particles to form what are, essentially, clouds.

Toxic shock

Quite apart from the issue of intensive and extensive cloud seeding over our skies in an effort, probably, to block out the sun there remains the issue of whether introducing chemical particles into the atmosphere is harmful in other ways. And it most certainly is. While the toxicity of silver iodide is downplayed on some platforms, it is a toxic substance and there is guidance, for example, about flushing it carefully from the eyes and washing the skin if it is splashed onto them. How much of a danger this is to us on the ground as we stare up in wonder at our changing cloud patterns is unclear, but it is known that, as a result of cloud seeding, silver iodide does reach the ground where it can be found in the earth. The resulting silver ions are described as ‘very toxic’ to plants and animals which consume them.

The UK government have not admitted to any deliberate efforts to change the climate but the Spanish government have, and it is worth quoting at length from Iberian Voice (New Era) from an article titled ‘The Spanish Meteorological Agency has confessed that Spain is being sprayed with lead dioxide, silver iodide and diatomite’:

“On May 19, 2015, MEP Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (ALDE) announced in the European Parliament that four workers from the State Meteorological Agency had confessed that Spain is being sprayed entirely from airplanes that spread lead dioxide into the atmosphere, silver iodide and diatomite. The objective, according to the same MEP, would be to keep away the rains and allow temperatures to rise, which creates a summer climate environment for tourism and, at the same time, helps corporations in the agricultural sector. This, in turn, is producing cold drops of great intensity.”

NB: that did say ‘lead dioxide’ and the toxic effects of lead in the atmosphere are well known. We took strident measures in the last century to remove lead from fuel and paints for that reason.

Is there anything else up there?

You may well ask and there may well be. One of us recently reviewed The Gates of Hell by Daniel Jupp for The European Conservative and we quote directly from the review:

“Naturally, his interest in climate change is more than academic. He is involved in a wide range of initiatives. Some of these are positively dangerous, such as plans to block out the sun as a measure to combat global warming. Towards that end, he funds geoengineering projects whereby substances are released into the atmosphere, which reduces the penetration of the sun’s rays to earth. Many believe these experiments are already underway, with some internet commentators associating Gates’ plans with so-called ‘chemtrails,’ namely the deliberate release of undisclosed substances into the air via airplanes. Whatever the truth may be about that, Gates is planning alarming initiatives that were the stuff of ‘conspiracy theories’ only a few minutes ago. And we can be sure that all of these projects will be pursued to the degree that they have the potential to profit Gates.”

We may well be witnessing an experiment on a grand scale above us in our skies. What we could be witnessing is cloud seeding in the good old fashioned way. On the other hand, what we are witnessing could be an experiment using “the deliberate release of undisclosed substances”. The following questions arise:

• Are significant and potentially toxic levels of chemicals (known and unknown) being released into our atmosphere?
• If so, are these chemicals posing a danger to the health and well-being of the population?
• Is what we are witnessing in our skies a deliberate attempt to obscure the sun and induce global cooling?
• Can we induce our ruling classes to admit to any of this?
• If any of the above is true, can we stop it?

Whatever is going on ‘up there’ is surely morally wrong without informing and gaining consent of the people on whom it has a direct effect. If this is really happening, then we ought to be told but, somehow, we don’t think we will be.