“The experts we surveyed resoundingly rejected contrail photographs and test results as evidence of a large-scale atmospheric conspiracy”.
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In a new study published in the Environmental Research Letters on August 10, researchers surveyed atmospheric chemists who specialize in contrails and geochemists who specialize on pollution and dust that are deposited into the Earth’s atmosphere, with the aim of shedding light on the suspected secret spraying program.
In their new paper, however, Caldeira, Davis and their fellow investigators set out to provide a scientifically-sound response to the 17 percent of people who, as part of an worldwide survey conducted in 2011, reported that they believed in the existence of a secret, large-scale spraying program to some extent.
The conspiracy theory, according to which shady organisations or even governments use aircraft to seed all sorts of chemicals into the air we breathe, just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, finds the first peer-reviewed study on the subject.
An article just published in Environmental Research Letters contains the findings.
The researchers found no evidence of large-scale chemical spraying programs going on without our knowledge, and concluded that distinctive “chemtrail” patterns in the sky can all be explained by the regular science of water vapour.
However, scientists have finally poured cold water on the conspiracy theorists – and claim chemtrails are just normal condensation. Of those, 77 scientists responded, and 76 said they “had not encountered evidence of a secret spraying program, and agree that the alleged evidence cited by the individuals who believe that atmospheric spraying is occurring could be explained through other factors, such as typical airplane contrail formation and poor data sampling”.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed the long-lasting condensation trails, or contrails, left behind aircraft are evidence of a secret large-scale spraying program.
‘The chemtrails conspiracy theory maps pretty closely to the origin and growth of the internet, where you can still find a number of websites that promote this particular brand of pseudoscience, ‘ said Steven Davis, the study’s co-author and associate professor of Earth system science at UCI. He added that the recent survey found little agreement in the scientific community with claims that the government, the military, airlines and others have colluded to poison the planet from the skies.
“Contrails are becoming more abundant as air travel expands”, Caldeira said in a statement.
Some also think that the trails now last longer, but experts said this could be attributed to high-flying aircraft, engines that produce more water vapor, more plane traffic, high atmospheric water vapor content due to climate change and reduced temperature of aircraft exhaust due to improved fuel efficiency.
They are believed by many to be a secret, large-scale spraying used to change everything from the environment to health.
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‘We might not convince die-hard believers that their beloved secret spraying program is just a paranoid fantasy, but hopefully their friends will accept the facts’.
