While logs should not be confused with the Chemtrail conspiracy theory – which suggests that the evaporation of airplanes is connected to additives used to control the population – they are bad in more prophetic ways. It is now believed to contribute up to 35 % of the planetary heating caused by aviation, second only to the carbon emission. The persistent spread are the most harmful, as these anthropogenic clouds can cover long periods of heaven, trapping heat in the atmosphere. Recent studies have shown that the impact of Contrails could be significantly reduced by pilots slightly changing their lessons to avoid areas where perceptions are likely to form, as they do today to avoid air patches where they are likely to disturb . It is likely that in a few years, Contrails will be rare, the remains of a less ecological past, such as aerosol containers and plastic-foam.
Is it wrong to find beauty in something we know is devastating? There is, of course, something a little perverted to be enthusiastic. For me, they cause a sense of Sublime, a confrontation with something overwhelming and inevitable, as scary as beautiful. Traditionally, Sublime refers to meetings with the natural world, as it stands on the brink of Grand Canyon, or witness to the destructive power of a tsunami. I had a similar feeling for the famous “orange day” in 2020, when the skies over San Francisco, and much of the west coast, were dim and orange because of the fire smoke. I walked through the transformed landscape of my neighborhood felt a sense of negative awe. At that moment, I understood myself as a fragile mammal of tiny proportions in relation to the scale of the planet and the climate crises that threaten it.
Contrails produce a similar result for me. Sometimes, when I look at one, it slips into an ocean feeling – a sense of connection with the rest of the universe, as if it were a reason it is an indicator between me and everyone else. Unfortunately, “everything else” also includes the massive waste we impose on the planet. What is the only thing to say: I’m not always in the mood to fascinate from Contrails. In some days, logs are stripped of their magic, which are revealed as harmful clutter. I imagine the sky moaning like an etch-a-sketch, freeing it from its atmosphere.
Regardless of my mood, I can appreciate that Contrails as a natural archive of the existence of humanity on this earth. I am thinking of this, as I notice a junction of persistent canned, scars that left the planes that have departed from my small slice of heaven. They are fantastic forms that remind us of the plane that recently occupied this point in space, such as the echo speed left by a cartoon character as they are in a hurry. I am here, and a moment later I am elsewhere, but a shadow of my former self remain – for better or worse.
Kate Folk is a novelist whose upcoming book is “Sky Daddy” (Penguin Random House, 2025)
