Bill Gates, the same billionaire who has bankrolled research into dimming the sun, released a new “educational” video explaining the difference between so-called “chemtrails” and ordinary airplane condensation trails, or contrails.
The Microsoft co-founder posted the short film, titled “For an affordable climate win, look to the sky,” on his YouTube channel on October 7 and paired it with a Gates Notes essay.
“Some people refer to them as ‘chemtrails’ and believe they contain toxic chemicals,” Gates says. “The reality is much less dramatic: They’re just clouds.”
He then pivots. Contrails, he writes, “are also a significant contributor to climate change.” Persistent warming contrails, he claims, account for about half the temperature increase caused by aviation. “If we were to get rid of them, we would eliminate up to two percent of all global warming.”
Gates insists no one is spraying the sky on purpose. “Contrails are an unintentional byproduct of plane travel, and no one is putting lines in the sky on purpose.”
In his telling, water freezes around soot from jet engines when a plane hits the right pocket of cold, humid air. Some trails vanish. Others linger, spread, and act like cirrus clouds that trap heat at night.
Gates argues that preventing the formation of these warming contrails could offer a relatively inexpensive way to reduce aviation’s climate impact.
