E.U. Parlamentarier Meijer stellte 2007 Chemtrail-Anfrage

CHEMTRAILSAND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

By W. Hall
Aigi­na, Greece
August 30, 2007.

Sub­mis­si­on in the European Par­li­a­ment of writ­ten ques­ti­ons on “chem­trails” by Dutch Socia­list depu­ty Erik Mei­jer will be seen as a posi­ti­ve deve­lop­ment by some activists. Are we witnes­sing the begin­nings of a new pha­se in the years-long saga of this aero­sol-spray­ing activi­ty, and of the stig­ma­ti­zed oppo­si­ti­on to it?. (See the pre­sent writer’s: “Cli­ma­te Chan­ge Jekylls and Hydes”). Meijer’s writ­ten ques­ti­ons, under the hea­ding “Air­craft con­den­sa­ti­on trails which no lon­ger only con­tain water but cau­se per­sis­tent mil­ky veils, pos­si­b­ly due to the pre­sence of bari­um and alu­mi­ni­um”, are not the first such sub­mis­si­on to have been tab­led in a European legis­la­tu­re: in 2005 the Demo­cra­tic Left depu­ties Ita­lo San­di and Pie­ro Ruz­zan­te rai­sed simi­lar ques­ti­ons in the Ita­li­an Par­li­a­ment. More recent­ly their poli­ti­cal asso­cia­tes Asi­mi­na Xiro­ti­ri and Fotis Kou­ve­lis did the same in Greece. But faced with the ste­reo­ty­ped and unin­for­ma­ti­ve respon­ses such ques­ti­ons recei­ve from offi­ci­al spo­kes­per­sons, the reac­tion of par­li­a­men­ta­ri­ans is to beco­me dis­cou­ra­ged — or at any rate inac­tive and inac­ces­si­ble — perhaps not per­cei­ving what they should do next and for that rea­son reluc­tant to have too much con­tact with citi­zens still pres­sing them for action and/or ans­wers, whom they are obli­ged to con­front “with empty hands”.Objec­tively Erik Mei­jer has grea­ter mar­gins for action. Working insi­de the uncom­ple­ted insti­tu­ti­ons of the European Uni­on, a citi­zen of one of the two nati­ons that deli­ve­r­ed the death blow to the first attempt to impo­se a poli­ti­cal­ly unac­cep­ta­ble “con­sti­tu­ti­on” on the European peop­les, lea­ding mem­ber of an ex-Mao­ist poli­ti­cal grou­ping now able to field twen­ty-five depu­ties in the Dutch par­li­a­ment, with one foot in such would-be insti­tu­tio­nal­ly pionee­ring milieux as the Soci­al Forums, Mei­jer could take advan­ta­ge of the poli­ti­cal abdi­ca­ti­on of the European Com­mis­si­on, and the European poli­ti­cal class gene­ral­ly, on this ter­ri­ble sub­ject. He could turn it to the bene­fit not only of the European Par­li­a­ment but also of the citi­zens’ move­ments see­king a voice insi­de and out­si­de the Soci­al Forums. Not to men­ti­on of European inte­gra­ti­on gene­ral­ly. He could be a hero.

So let’s look at his ques­ti­ons:
10 May 2007
E-2455/07

WRITTEN QUESTION by Erik Mei­jer (GUE/NGL) to the Com­mis­si­on
Sub­ject: Air­craft con­den­sa­ti­on trails which no lon­ger only con­tain water but cau­se per­sis­tent mil­ky veils, pos­si­b­ly due to the pre­sence of bari­um, alu­mi­ni­um and iron

 

1. Is the Com­mis­si­on awa­re that, sin­ce 1999, mem­bers of the public in Cana­da and the USA have been com­p­lai­ning about the gro­wing pre­sence in the air of air­craft con­den­sa­ti­on trails of a new type, which some­ti­mes per­sist for hours and which spread far more wide­ly than in the past, crea­ting mil­ky veils which are dub­bed ‘aeri­al obscu­ra­ti­on’, and that the new type has par­ti­cu­lar­ly come to people’s atten­ti­on becau­se it is so dif­fe­rent from the short, pen­cil-thin white con­trails which have been a fami­li­ar sight ever sin­ce jet engi­nes came into use and which remain visi­ble for 20 minu­tes at most and can only be pro­du­ced if steam con­den­ses on dust par­ti­cles due to low tem­pe­ra­tures and high humi­di­ty?

2. Is the Com­mis­si­on awa­re that inves­ti­ga­ti­ons by the­se com­p­lai­nants, obser­va­tions by pilots and state­ments by government bodies increa­singly sug­gest that what is hap­pe­ning is that air­craft are emit­ting into dry air small par­ti­cles con­sis­ting of bari­um, alu­mi­ni­um and iron, a phe­no­me­non which in public deba­te in Ame­ri­ca has come to be known as chem­trails?

3. Unli­ke con­trails, chem­trails are not an ine­vi­ta­ble by-pro­duct of modern avia­ti­on. Does the Com­mis­si­on know, the­re­fo­re, what is the pur­po­se of arti­fi­ci­al­ly emit­ting the­se Earth-deri­ved sub­s­tan­ces into the Earth’s atmo­s­phe­re? Does it help to cau­se rain, bene­fit telecom­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons or com­bat cli­ma­te chan­ge?

4. To what extent are aeri­al obscu­ra­ti­on and chem­trails now also being employ­ed in the air over Euro­pe, bea­ring in mind that many peop­le here too are now con­vin­ced that the phe­no­me­non is beco­m­ing increa­singly com­mon and are beco­m­ing con­cer­ned about the fact that litt­le is so far known about it and the­re is no public infor­ma­ti­on on the sub­ject? Who initia­tes this spray­ing and how is it fun­ded?

5. Apart from the inten­ded bene­fits of emit­ting sub­s­tan­ces into the air, is the Com­mis­si­on awa­re of any pos­si­ble dis­ad­van­ta­ges it may have for the envi­ron­ment, public health, avia­ti­on and TV recep­ti­on?

6. What is being done to pre­vent indi­vi­du­al European sta­tes or busi­nes­ses from taking mea­su­res uni­la­te­ral­ly who­se cross-bor­der impact other Sta­tes or citi­zens’ orga­ni­sa­ti­ons may regard as unde­s­i­ra­ble? Is coor­di­na­ti­on alrea­dy taking place with regard to this? Is the EU play­ing a part in it, or does the Com­mis­si­on anti­ci­pa­te a future role, and what are the Commission’s objec­tives in this con­nec­tion?

Com­ba­ting Cli­ma­te Chan­ge

To start with the ques­ti­on of whe­ther the spray­ing helps to com­bat cli­ma­te chan­ge. This sub­ject of cli­ma­te chan­ge is so cen­tral to public dis­cus­sion today that one might ima­gi­ne anything with a bea­ring on it would be given simi­lar high-pro­fi­le tre­at­ment. Not so with “chem­trails”. Extra­or­di­na­ry efforts are made to try to per­sua­de the public, against all the dic­ta­tes of com­mon sen­se, that what are being seen in the sky all over the world are just the con­den­sa­ti­on trails we have been fami­li­ar with sin­ce the begin­ning of jet-pro­pel­led flight.

It can be demons­tra­ted that they are not but it is also worth poin­ting out that all such demons­tra­ti­ons are coun­te­red not only by the offi­ci­al deni­als but also by the argu­ments of sin­gle-min­ded and often fana­ti­cal inter­net “debun­kers” of vary­ing levels of exper­ti­se. Though less known to the gene­ral public, the­se “chem­trails debun­kers” are no less relent­less than their “cli­ma­te chan­ge scep­tic” big bro­thers.. But their con­trails vs chem­trails argu­ment (an argu­ment pro­bab­ly best avoi­ded) is con­duc­ted against a back­drop of unde­nia­ble offi­ci­al pro­po­sals for the use of air­craft to “miti­ga­te” the effec­ts of cli­ma­te chan­ge, with docu­men­ted cor­re­spon­ding exis­tence of the rele­vant patents. “Geo­en­gi­nee­ring” sche­mes of this kind were pro­po­sed in a major stu­dy of the Ame­ri­can Aca­de­my of Sci­en­ces in 1992. They are the sub­ject of mat­ter-of-fact refe­ren­ces in reports of the Inter­go­vernmen­tal Panel of Cli­ma­te Chan­ge. The panel’s 2001 report informs us that geo­en­gi­nee­ring: ‘inclu­des the pos­si­bi­li­ty of engi­nee­ring the earth’s cli­ma­te sys­tem by lar­ge-sca­le mani­pu­la­ti­on of the glo­bal ener­gy balan­ce. It has been esti­ma­ted, for examp­le, that the mean effect on the earth sur­face ener­gy balan­ce from a doub­ling of car­bon dioxi­de could be off­set by an increa­se of 1.5% to 2% in the earth’s albe­do, i.e. by reflec­ting addi­tio­nal inco­m­ing solar radia­ti­on back into space ….Tel­ler et al. (1997) found that ~10 bil­li­on tons of dielec­tric aero­sols of ~100 nm dia­me­ter would be suf­fi­ci­ent to increa­se the albe­do of the earth by ~1%. They show­ed that the requi­red mass of a sys­tem based on alu­mi­na par­ti­cles would be simi­lar to that of a sys­tem based on sul­phu­ric acid aerosol.…(They) demons­tra­te that use of metal­lic or opti­cal­ly reso­nant scat­te­rers can, in princip­le, great­ly redu­ce the total mass of scat­te­ring par­ti­cles requi­red.”

All this “geo­en­gi­nee­ring” aspect of the cli­ma­te chan­ge pro­blem is sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly avoi­ded by the cli­ma­te chan­ge mass move­ment that has grown up in recent years. The deni­al extends through every level of the move­ment from for­mer US vice-pre­si­dent Al Gore down to the demons­tra­tors who recent­ly held their Camp for Cli­ma­te Action at Heathrow Air­port near Lon­don. It appears to be a struc­tu­ral com­po­nent of the move­ment as intrin­sic to it as nuclear wea­pons dan­ger-mon­ge­ring was to the anti-nuclear move­ment of the Cold War peri­od (which now has the appearan­ce of an eclip­sed pre­de­ces­sor).

The­re is a pecu­li­ar coha­bi­ta­ti­on of poker-faced deni­al among sci­en­tists and poli­ti­ci­ans with a neu­ro­tic media dis­cus­sion of geo­en­gi­nee­ring in pseu­do-light-hear­ted “sci­ence fic­tion” mode (just look at what the­se mad sci­en­tists are up to). Vir­tual­ly all rele­vant sci­en­tists go along with the deni­al. To give just one recent examp­le of the thousands that could be cited: in respon­se to a request for infor­ma­ti­on on geo­en­gi­nee­ring from Greek jour­na­list Ali­ki Ste­fa­nou, Ken Caldei­ra of the Car­ne­gie Insti­tu­ti­on said: “I used to work in a nuclear wea­pons lab and we were try­ing to get money to do geo­en­gi­nee­ring rese­arch. I think if money was avail­ab­le for this pur­po­se, we would have been able to obtain some. The fact was that the­re was no money avail­ab­le.” When Ali­ki Ste­fa­nou asked Caldei­ra whe­ther, if and when pro­po­sed aero­sol spray­ing pro­gram­mes came to be imple­men­ted, he thought they would, and/or should, be imple­men­ted secret­ly or publicly, he said: “I think that near­ly all rese­arch should be public and cer­tain­ly all geo­en­gi­nee­ring rese­arch should be public. Secrets cor­ro­de demo­cra­cy.”

Not an ine­vi­ta­ble by-pro­duct of modern avia­ti­on

In his par­li­a­men­ta­ry ques­ti­ons Mei­jer makes the good point that that chem­trails “are not an ine­vi­ta­ble by-pro­duct of modern avia­ti­on”. In the mid-90s Dan Bodan­sky was one of the key wri­ters dis­cus­sing this from the per­spec­tive of inter­na­tio­nal law. Bodan­sky wro­te: “The fact that geo­en­gi­nee­ring is an inten­tio­nal activi­ty with glo­bal effec­ts rai­ses the issue of who should deci­de whe­ther to pro­ceed. Should all coun­tries be able to par­ti­ci­pa­te in decisi­on making sin­ce all will be affec­ted and the­re will be both posi­ti­ve and nega­ti­ve impac­ts? Also, how should lia­bi­li­ty and com­pen­sa­ti­on for damages be addres­sed?” Becau­se no easy ans­wers to the­se ques­ti­ons seem to have been forth­co­m­ing, and becau­se, as Bodan­sky put it: “exis­ting inter­na­tio­nal legal norms are… unli­kely to be a reli­able gui­de to how the inter­na­tio­nal com­mu­ni­ty will react if geo­en­gi­nee­ring sche­mes are serious­ly pro­po­sed” what seems to have hap­pen­ed is that a decisi­on was made to “play it by ear”, to pro­ceed with imple­men­ta­ti­on of lar­ge-sca­le aero­sol spray­ing and sort out the lega­li­ty pro­blem “later”. Until such times as pro­gram­mes can be legal, they “do not exist”.

Any poli­ti­cal sys­tem embar­king on this road is asking for trou­ble becau­se the ques­ti­on ari­ses of how the tran­si­ti­on to this “later” legi­ti­ma­ti­on or nor­ma­li­za­ti­on will be hand­led. “The rule of law” is a power­ful ideo­lo­gi­cal com­po­nent of pre­sent-day “advan­ced” socie­ties. Is it pos­si­ble to make a tran­si­ti­on from government by deceit to government through laws?

One method that can be tried, and is evi­dent­ly being tried, is to allow the pas­sa­ge of time, and genera­tio­nal chan­ge, to bring about the hoped-for nor­ma­li­za­ti­on. The­re is much dis­cus­sion on the Inter­net of this aspect of “chem­trails”: NASA enlists child­ren in “Con­trails Count-a-Thon” cam­pai­gns. Jour­na­listic jus­ti­fi­ca­ti­ons, in “sci­ence-fic­tion” mode, pro­li­fe­ra­te. Child­ren grow up habi­tua­ted to such dis­cus­sions, and to the phe­no­me­non its­elf, in their real-life expe­ri­ence, in films, in adver­ti­sing. Even in school­books, such as the book men­tio­ned by Will Tho­mas — published by Cent­re Point Lear­ning Sci­ence and ent­it­led “Solu­ti­ons for Glo­bal War­ming”, which informs school­child­ren that “Jet engi­nes run­ning on richer fuel would add par­ti­cles to the atmo­s­phe­re to crea­te a sun­screen”. (“Could we deli­ber­ate­ly add par­ti­cles to the atmo­s­phe­re?”)

The­re have been serious attempts at lega­li­za­ti­on of one form of geo­en­gi­nee­ring, name­ly wea­ther modi­fi­ca­ti­on, by poli­ti­ci­ans who­se moti­ves are anything but oppo­si­tio­nal. In 2005 US Sena­tor Kate Bai­ley Hut­chin­son pro­po­sed a “Wea­ther Modi­fi­ca­ti­on Rese­arch and Deve­lop­ment Poli­cy Aut­ho­ri­za­ti­on Act”. It did not even­tua­te final­ly becau­se “the legal and lia­bi­li­ty issu­es per­tai­ning to wea­ther modi­fi­ca­ti­on, and the poten­ti­al adver­se con­se­quen­ces on life, pro­per­ty, and water resour­ce avai­la­bi­li­ty resul­ting from wea­ther modi­fi­ca­ti­on activi­ties, must be con­si­de­red ful­ly befo­re the U.S. Government could take respon­si­bi­li­ty” (for admit­ting that it is actual­ly enga­ged in any such activi­ties).

Envi­ron­men­tal Reper­cus­sions of Air­craft Emis­si­ons

So yes, chem­trails are not “an ine­vi­ta­ble by-pro­duct of modern avia­ti­on”. If one plans to make use of air­craft emis­si­ons for geo­en­gi­nee­ring pur­po­ses, how then can one secu­re the sup­port, or at least tole­ra­ti­on, of the more mili­tant sec­tions of the com­mu­ni­ty, tho­se least likely to be per­suad­a­ble that mas­si­ve pla­ne­ta­ry-wide par­ti­cle pol­lu­ti­on to increa­se the “albe­do” (reflec­tivi­ty”) of the earth’s atmo­s­phe­re and redu­ce levels of inco­m­ing sun­light, is a defen­si­ble opti­on?

One ans­wer might be to start a cam­pai­gn on the envi­ron­men­tal reper­cus­sions of air­craft emis­si­ons. As a par­ti­ci­pant in the mid-90s in an ulti­mate­ly unsuc­cess­ful attempt to estab­lish a branch of Fri­ends of the Earth in Greece, I can con­firm that at more or less the same time that lar­ge-sca­le aero­sol spray­ing ope­ra­ti­ons appe­ar to have got under way around the glo­be, Fri­ends of the Earth, inter­na­tio­nal­ly, embar­ked on what then loo­ked like an impos­si­ble cam­pai­gn to fight com­mer­ci­al avia­ti­on.

Over a deca­de later the cam­pai­gn has made more pro­gress than see­med likely then. And the anti-air­craft cam­pai­gners have a very radi­cal image. Take this quo­ta­ti­on from a public speech by Tony Juni­per, direc­tor of Fri­ends of the Earth in Bri­tain: “Avia­ti­on is a rogue sec­tor and its envi­ron­men­tal impact is out of con­trol. Cli­ma­te chan­ge is the most urgent chal­len­ge facing huma­ni­ty and yet avia­ti­on poli­cy is doing the oppo­si­te of what is nee­ded.” Or take this quo­ta­ti­on from Guar­di­an jour­na­list Geor­ge Mon­bi­ot: “The growth in avia­ti­on and the need to address cli­ma­te chan­ge can­not be recon­ci­led. In com­mon with all other sec­tors, aviation’s con­tri­bu­ti­on to glo­bal war­ming must be redu­ced in the UK by some 87% if we are to avo­id a 2°C rise in glo­bal tem­pe­ra­tures. Given that the likely pos­si­ble effi­ci­en­ci­es are small and tend to coun­ter­act each other, an 87% cut in emis­si­ons requi­res not only that growth stops, but that most of the aero­pla­nes fly­ing today be groun­ded…

This means the end of distant for­eign holi­days, unless you are pre­pa­red to take a long time get­ting the­re. It means that busi­ness mee­tings must take place over the inter­net or by means of video con­fe­ren­ces. It means that trans­con­ti­nen­tal jour­neys must be made by train or coach. It means that jour­neys around the world must be reser­ved for visi­t­ing the peop­le you love, and that they will requi­re both slow tra­vel and the saving up of car­bon rati­ons. It means the end of shop­ping trips to New York, par­ties in Ibi­za, second homes in Tusca­ny and, most pain­ful­ly for me, poli­ti­cal mee­tings in Por­to Aleg­re — unless you belie­ve that the­se activi­ties are worth the sacri­fice of the bio­s­phe­re and the lives of the poor.”

The extre­me radi­ca­lism of this rhe­to­ric could easi­ly lead one to lose sight of the fact that its sub­ver­si­ve poten­ti­al is much infe­ri­or to that of Erik Meijer’s poli­te­ly framed ques­ti­ons in the European Par­li­a­ment. Igno­ring fac­tors of inten­tio­na­li­ty ver­sus non-inten­tio­na­li­ty of air­craft emis­si­ons, the mili­tant anti-avia­ti­on decla­ra­ti­ons effec­tively deflect atten­ti­on not only from the ille­ga­li­ty of what may be sur­mi­sed to be pre­sent governmen­tal activi­ties, but also from the who­le logic of geo­en­gi­nee­ring and thus from its appro­pria­teness or inap­pro­pria­teness as a solu­ti­on to cli­ma­te chan­ge.

Some­ti­mes the anti-avia­ti­on rhe­to­ric can even look sus­pi­cious­ly like col­lu­si­on in the manu­fac­tu­re of divi­de-and-rule sce­n­a­ri­os, of inci­te­ment and pro­vo­ca­ti­on of glo­bal war­ming “scep­tics” and con­tra­ri­ans through the arti­cu­la­ti­on of extre­me­ly radi­cal con­clu­si­ons and pro­po­sals wit­hout cor­re­spon­din­gly radi­cal and com­pre­hen­si­ve theo­re­ti­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­ti­on. One gets the con­tra­ri­ans foa­ming at the mouth, along with a rea­dy-made mass con­sti­tu­en­cy of fre­quent fly­ers to back them up, wit­hout oneself put­ting for­ward the clin­ching and unans­wer­able argu­ments (which cer­tain­ly exist) that might silence the bay­ing mob one has hel­ped to crea­te.

In a cha­rac­te­ris­tic arti­cle by the Aus­tra­li­an con­tra­ri­an jour­na­list Andrew Bolt, Mon­bi­ot is bra­cke­ted tog­e­ther with the Aus­tra­li­an aca­de­mic Tim Flan­ne­ry as examp­les of “hair­shirt war­ming cul­tists” who should, becau­se of their views on cli­ma­te chan­ge, be ban­ned from tra­vel­ling by air. But what does Tim Flan­ne­ry say about avia­ti­on? “Trans­port accounts for around a third of glo­bal car­bon dioxi­de emis­si­ons. Trans­port by land and sea can easi­ly be powe­red in ways that emit less car­bon dioxi­de and the tech­no­lo­gies to achie­ve this eit­her alrea­dy exist or are on the hori­zon. Air trans­port, howe­ver, is fast gro­wing and not likely to be fuel­led by anything but fos­sil fuels. Thank­ful­ly, jet con­trails con­tri­bu­te to glo­bal dim­ming, so it may be just as well that the jets keep fly­ing long after wind-powe­red and solar-powe­red ships and com­pres­sed-air cars mono­po­li­ze sur­face trans­port” (Tim Flan­ne­ry: The Wea­ther Makers, pp. 282–283)

Flan­ne­ry, in other words, impli­citly if not open­ly, a sup­por­ter of “chem­trails” and of geo­en­gi­nee­ring. It is not necessa­ry to enter into a dis­cus­sion of which of the two — Flan­ne­ry or Mon­bi­ot — is more or less of a hypo­cri­te or has more or less ina­de­qua­te or one-sided views. Both of them pre­sent a power­ful ana­ly­sis of cli­ma­te chan­ge and then sub­vert it by choo­sing to tell less than the who­le sto­ry. By doing this they lea­ve open a loo­p­ho­le for the debun­kers and the “scep­tics” to pre­sent them both as “Chi­cken Litt­les”. Flan­ne­ry is bold or delu­ded enough to sup­port geo­en­gi­nee­ring and/or “chem­trails” as a hypo­the­ti­cal future pro­s­pect. But he will not embrace it as a pre­sent rea­li­ty to which he gives his infor­med con­sent.. Mon­bi­ot is in even deeper deni­al about the evi­dent pre­sent rea­li­ty of “chem­trails”. Both enga­ge in ste­ri­le argu­ments with con­tra­ri­ans and debun­kers ins­tead of initia­ting the dia­lo­gue that SHOULD be being heard by the public: their dia­lo­gue with each other about the accep­ta­bi­li­ty or unac­cep­ta­bi­li­ty of geo­en­gi­nee­ring, and even more spe­ci­fi­cal­ly about whe­ther air­craft emis­si­ons have a war­ming (Mon­bi­ot) or a coo­ling (Flan­ne­ry) effect. The Euro­par­li­a­men­ta­ri­an Erik Mei­jer could be a cata­lyst for such a dia­lo­gue, but so far no-one gives any sign of kno­wing about his ques­ti­ons, or the European Commission’s “ans­wer” to them.

Glo­bal Dim­ming

Ano­t­her examp­le of shrie­kin­gly radi­cal cli­ma­te chan­ge dis­cus­sion on bogus foun­da­ti­ons is pro­vi­ded by the 2005 BBC Hori­zon docu­men­ta­ry on Glo­bal Dim­ming.. Focu­sing on the phe­no­me­non of decli­ning levels of sun­light reaching the earth’s sur­face in recent years, (bet­ween the 1950s and the ear­ly 1990s the level of solar ener­gy reaching the earth’s sur­face drop­ped 9% in Ant­arc­ti­ca, 10% in the USA, almost 30% in Rus­sia, 16% in parts of the Bri­tish Isles) the pro­gram­me again stu­dious­ly avo­ids men­ti­on of geo­en­gi­nee­ring, attri­bu­ting the rise in aero­sol levels in the earth’s atmo­s­phe­re, with sub­se­quent glo­bal dim­ming, to some unspe­ci­fied “air pol­lu­ti­on” from indus­tri­al activi­ty and the bur­ning of fos­sil fuels, inclu­ding in avia­ti­on.

Perhaps the most alar­ming aspect of glo­bal dim­ming” says the pro­gram­me script “is that it may have led sci­en­tists to unde­re­sti­ma­te the true power of the green­house effect….. it now appears the war­ming from green­house gases has been off­set by a strong coo­ling effect from dim­ming — in effect two of our pol­lut­ants have been can­cel­ling each other out. This means that the cli­ma­te may in fact be more sen­si­ti­ve to the green­house effect than thought..”

The stron­gest warning in the pro­gram­me on the impli­ca­ti­ons of glo­bal dim­ming (inclu­ding perhaps the clea­rest, though still vei­led, hints on the fac­tor of deli­be­ra­te inter­ven­ti­on, or “geo­en­gi­nee­ring”) comes from the cli­ma­te sci­en­tist Peter Cox: “If we car­ry on pum­ping out par­ti­cles it will have ter­ri­ble impact on human health, I mean par­ti­cles are invol­ved in all sorts of respi­ra­to­ry disea­ses…. If you, if you fidd­le with the, the balan­ce of the pla­net, the radia­ti­ve balan­ce of the pla­net, you affect all sorts of cir­cu­la­ti­on pat­terns like mons­o­ons….. it will be extre­me­ly dif­fi­cult, in fact impos­si­ble, to can­cel out the green­house effect just by car­ry­ing on pum­ping out par­ti­cles, even if it wasn’t for the fact that par­ti­cles are dama­ging for human health.”

The pro­gram­me reli­es hea­vi­ly for its effect on the pro­po­si­ti­on that “dim­ming was behind the droughts in sub-Saha­ran Afri­ca which clai­med hund­reds of thousands of lives in the 1970s and 1980s. The­re are dis­tur­bing hints the same thing may be hap­pe­ning today in Asia, home to half the world’s popu­la­ti­on.” “What came out of our exhaust pipes and power sta­ti­ons con­tri­bu­t­ed to the deaths of a mil­li­on peop­le in Afri­ca, and aff­lic­ted 50 mil­li­on more. But this could be just of tas­te of what Glo­bal Dim­ming has in store.”

The cli­ma­te modell­er Gavin Schmidt, in no way a cli­ma­te chan­ge “scep­tic”, que­ried the plau­si­bi­li­ty of this the­sis, say­ing that: “The argu­ment that (glo­bal dim­ming) would lead to huge re-assess­ments of future glo­bal war­ming, that it was lin­ked very clear­ly to the fami­nes in Ethio­pia, in the 1980s, with the impli­ca­ti­on that wor­se is to come, is hor­ri­b­ly pre­ma­tu­re. The sug­gested ‘doub­ling’ of the rate of war­ming in the future com­pa­red to even the most extre­me sce­n­a­rio deve­lo­ped by IPCC is high­ly exa­g­ge­ra­ted. Sup­po­sed con­se­quen­ces such as the dry­ing up of the Ama­zon Basin, mel­ting of Gre­en­land, and a North Afri­can cli­ma­te regime com­ing to the UK, are sim­ply extra­po­la­ti­ons built upon the­se exa­g­ge­ra­ti­ons. Whe­ther the­se con­clu­si­ons are actual­ly a fair sum­ma­ry of what the sci­en­tists quo­ted in the pro­gram wan­ted to say is unknown. Howe­ver, while the­se extre­me noti­ons might make good tele­vi­si­on, they do a dis­ser­vice to the sci­ence.”

Most of the sci­en­tists who appeared on the pro­gram­me pro­ved wil­ling to dis­cuss its style and con­tent and most expres­sed simi­lar, though more nuan­ced, objec­tions. Bea­te Lie­pert said that “during the rese­arch pro­cess for the docu­men­ta­ry I repeated­ly rai­sed my con­cerns about lin­king the indi­rect effect and the Sahel drought.” Gra­ham Far­quar said: “The­pro­gram was not scrip­ted in the way that I would have done. But I guess that you’d have to say that if I scrip­ted it, only my mother would have wat­ched it.” David Tra­vis said: “I belie­ve the Hori­zons show on glo­bal dim­ming was defi­ni­te­ly over-pro­du­ced and over-dra­ma­ti­zed. Howe­ver, I don’t think this is necessa­ri­ly a bad thing. Wit­hout such effec­ts much of the youn­ger audi­ence would likely have lost inte­rest half-way through and the sort of dis­cus­sions that are going on now would pro­bab­ly not be hap­pe­ning. I did howe­ver find mys­elf fee­ling uncom­for­ta­ble in spots whe­re state­ments see­med a bit too bold wit­hout suf­fi­ci­ent evi­dence to back them up (even one of my own!). Leo Rot­stayn said: I agree that some of the words in the Glo­bal Dim­ming docu­men­ta­ry were alar­mist. It scree­n­ed in Aus­tra­lia a few weeks ago, with some chan­ges to the voice over to make it a litt­le less alar­mist. It seems to have had a strong impact on many peop­le who saw it, and I have mixed fee­lings about whe­ther it is jus­ti­fied to be slight­ly ‘alar­mist’ in order to get a strong mes­sa­ge across. After all, if I had writ­ten the docu­men­ta­ry, com­ple­te with caveats and qua­li­fi­ca­ti­ons, it would have put most of the view­ers to sleep! On the other hand, as a pro­fes­sio­nal sci­en­tist, I feel that it is important to be as accu­ra­te as pos­si­ble.”

In a mes­sa­ge to Gavin Schmidt, the programme’s pro­du­cer David Sing­ton said: “I want to refu­te the noti­on that Peter Cox, or any other sci­en­tist taking part in this or in any other of the films I have made, was »mug­ged« with trick ques­ti­ons and made to seem to say things he does not belie­ve. …. Dr Schmidt’s sug­ges­ti­on is a serious libel (tan­ta­mount to accu­sing a sci­en­tist of fal­si­fy­ing his or her data). “The Hori­zon film” he con­clu­ded “was seen by 3.5 mil­li­on view­ers (rep­re­sen­ting about 7% of the adult popu­la­ti­on of the UK) and that copies were requested by the Prime Minister’s office. The issu­es it dis­cus­sed are being actively deba­ted in Bri­tain.”

From the com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons of a num­ber of indi­vi­du­als on both sides of the “cli­ma­te chan­ge” deba­te it is clear that fol­lo­wing the scree­ning of the pro­gram­me to such a lar­ge audi­ence, David Sing­ton was delu­ged with e-mails from Bri­tish peop­le con­cer­ned about “chem­trails” and/or geo­en­gi­nee­ring. It is equal­ly clear that he was abso­lute­ly deter­mi­ned to keep his distan­ce from the “con­spi­ra­cy theo­rists”, even boas­ting about this to a cli­ma­te chan­ge con­tra­ri­an who wro­te to him to com­p­lain about the Glo­bal Dim­ming programme’s sen­sa­tio­na­lism and “bias”. Having taken rece­ipt of Sington’s ing­ra­tia­ting reply, the con­tra­ri­an then lea­ked their pri­va­te cor­re­spon­dence onto the Inter­net. Sing­ton could not have been plea­sed about this. Could he have avoi­ded all the­se pro­blems by making a dif­fe­rent docu­men­ta­ry: less sen­sa­tio­na­listic, more truth­ful, more ade­qua­te?

Stav­ros Dimas

Erik Meijer’s ques­ti­ons in the European Par­li­a­ment were ans­we­red on behalf of the Com­mis­si­on by Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sio­ner Stav­ros Dimas. A Greek con­ser­va­ti­ve poli­ti­ci­an with a Wall Street and World Bank back­ground, Dimas has nevertheless, in par­ti­cu­lar through his stan­ding feud with Enter­pri­se and Indus­try Com­mis­sio­ner Guen­ter Ver­heu­gen, acqui­red a repu­ta­ti­on of being rela­tively sym­pa­the­tic to the objec­tives of the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. In one of his first spee­ches to the European Par­li­a­ment as Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mis­sio­ner he iden­ti­fied his poli­cy prio­ri­ties as cli­ma­te chan­ge, bio­di­ver­si­ty, public health and sustai­na­bi­li­ty. The Greens and the left-wing GUE/NGL (Erik Meijer’s grou­ping) oppo­sed his appoint­ment, cal­ling him “incom­pe­tent”, but the Greens later chan­ged posi­ti­on and in recent years they have co-ope­ra­ted with Dimas on envi­ron­men­tal issu­es.

In Decem­ber 2004 at UN cli­ma­te chan­ge talks in Bue­nos Aires Dimas attemp­ted to nego­tia­te a new sys­tem of man­dato­ry emis­si­ons reduc­tions to fol­low the expi­ra­ti­on of the initi­al Kyo­to tar­gets in 2012. This brought him into head-on con­flict with the U.S. government. Dimas is on record as say­ing “the fight against cli­ma­te chan­ge is much more than a batt­le. It is a world war that will last many years.” In 2006 he laun­ched a high-pro­fi­le cam­pai­gn for inclu­ding avia­ti­on in the European Uni­on emis­si­ons tra­ding sche­me.

Let us exami­ne Com­mis­sio­ner Dimas’ ans­wers to Erik Mei­jer:

To Meijer’s first ques­ti­on of whe­ther the Com­mis­si­on is awa­re of the ques­ti­ons the public is asking, Dimas replied: “The Com­mis­si­on is awa­re of claims that such trends and phe­no­me­na exist. Howe­ver, the Com­mis­si­on is not awa­re of any evi­dence sub­stan­tia­ting such claims. The extent to which air­craft con­den­sa­ti­on trails form and the speed at which they disap­pe­ar are in the first instan­ce deter­mi­ned by pres­su­re, tem­pe­ra­tu­re, and the rela­ti­ve humi­di­ty of a given flight level. Fuel and com­bus­ti­on pro­per­ties and the over­all pro­pul­si­ve effi­ci­en­cy may also have an impact. Any chan­ges or trends in the extent to which con­trails are repor­ted to remain visi­ble and deve­lop into more widespread clouds may thus be due to fac­tors such as chan­ges in

- meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal con­di­ti­ons

- traf­fic volu­mes

- jet-engi­ne effi­ci­en­cy”

To the second ques­ti­on about the con­tent of what were being cal­led “chem­trails” , Dimas replied: “The Com­mis­si­on is awa­re of such claims but is not awa­re of any evi­dence that par­ti­cles of bari­um, alu­mi­ni­um or iron are being emit­ted, deli­ber­ate­ly or not, by air­craft.”

To the third ques­ti­on of whe­ther the spray­ing helps to cau­se rain, bene­fit telecom­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons or com­bat cli­ma­te chan­ge, the reply was: “No. It can­not be pre­clu­ded that the release of such par­ti­cles might affect pre­ci­pi­ta­ti­on and cli­ma­te chan­ge, but as indi­ca­ted above the Com­mis­si­on is not awa­re of any evi­dence that such releases take place.”

To the fourth ques­ti­on on whe­ther “chem­trails” are now being employ­ed in Euro­pe the reply was: “The Com­mis­si­on is not awa­re of any evi­dence that such methods are being employ­ed in Euro­pe.”

To the fifth ques­ti­on on pos­si­ble dis­ad­van­ta­ges of the spray­ing, the Com­mis­sio­ner replied: “None of the sub­s­tan­ces refer­red to are hazar­dous per se, but some effec­ts on envi­ron­ment and public health can not be ruled out if lar­ge sca­le releases to the air occur­red.”

To the sixth ques­ti­on on whe­ther the European Uni­on is co-ordi­na­ting action to pre­vent uni­la­te­ral actions with cross-bor­der impact, Stav­ros Dimas said: “The Com­mis­si­on is not awa­re of any evi­dence sug­ges­ting that the­re is any rea­son to act.”

Rosa­lind Peterson’s comments

So far the only comments avail­ab­le on Dimas’ reply to Erik Mei­jer are tho­se made by the Cali­for­ni­an farm activist Rosa­lind Peter­son. Argu­ab­ly the most effec­tive “real­po­li­ti­ker” amongst the chem­trails oppon­ents, Peter­son has adop­ted a tac­tic of avoi­ding the term “chem­trail” and igno­ring dis­tinc­tions bet­ween “acci­den­tal” air­line emis­si­ons and the “deli­be­ra­te” use of air­craft emis­si­ons for geo­en­gi­nee­ring pur­po­ses. What this amounts to of cour­se is igno­ring the most likely rea­sons for the stra­te­gy of avo­id­ance and deceit prac­tised by governments. But it is a tac­tic that appears to have paid off, inso­far as Rosa­lind Peter­son has been invi­ted to speak in Sep­tem­ber 2007 to a United Nati­ons mee­ting of Non-Governmen­tal Orga­ni­za­ti­ons in New York. This makes her the only chem­trails activist to have recei­ved anything approa­ching this degree of reco­gni­ti­on.

Peterson’s comments on Meijer’s sub­mis­si­on and the Dimas respon­se to it on behalf of the European Com­mis­si­on are instil­led with the same spi­rit of “rea­lism”, rea­lism in this instan­ce mea­ning con­cen­tra­ting on play­ing the game more effec­tively on the terms that Dimas and the Com­mis­si­on requi­re.

To Dimas’s explana­ti­on for the for­ma­ti­on of long-las­ting con­den­sa­ti­on trails, Rosa­lind Peter­son says: “This is the stan­dard ans­wer and lets them off the hook. You have to ask why NASA is making state­ments in their reports and stu­dies which show that per­sis­tent jet con­trails turn into man-made clouds, that exa­cer­ba­te glo­bal war­ming, increa­se earth’s clou­di­ness, affect natu­ral resour­ces and chan­ge our cli­ma­te. Face them with real docu­ments, etc. Then they can’t squee­ze out with the usu­al sto­ries and explana­ti­ons.”

To Dimas’ asser­ti­on that the Com­mis­si­on is “not awa­re of any evi­dence that par­ti­cles of bari­um, alu­mi­ni­um or iron are being emit­ted, deli­ber­ate­ly or not, by air­craft”, Peter­son says: “What we can pro­ve are the spikes in drin­king water sup­plies. And we can also pro­ve that the­se che­mi­cals are being used by NASA in atmo­s­phe­ric hea­ting and tes­ting expe­ri­ments.”

To Dimas’ asser­ti­on that “none of the sub­s­tan­ces refer­red to are hazar­dous per se, but some effec­ts on envi­ron­ment and public health can not be ruled out if lar­ge sca­le releases to the air occur­red” Peter­son says “increa­sing acid rains com­bi­ned with alu­mi­num can kill trees, which can’t absorb the nut­ri­ents and water through the root sys­tems once alu­mi­num is found in the roots. They look as if they are dying of drought.”

Rosa­lind Peter­son argues that Dimas’ posi­ti­ons can be coun­te­red “just by the fac­ts on jet fuel emis­si­ons alo­ne, the nitric acid which redu­ces the bene­fi­ci­al ozone lay­er, the fact that NASA sta­tes they exa­cer­ba­te glo­bal war­ming..” But this dis­pla­ce­ment of focus from “geo­en­gi­nee­ring” to the air­craft emis­si­ons deba­te if anything streng­t­hens the creden­ti­als of Com­mis­sio­ner Dimas, who after all ack­now­led­ges an air­craft emis­si­ons pro­blem. What he is not pre­pa­red to ack­now­ledge is his own com­pro­mi­se with sce­n­a­ri­os in which air­craft emis­si­ons are seen not as a pro­blem: a con­tri­bu­ting fac­tor to glo­bal war­ming, but as a SOLUTION, a way of miti­ga­ting glo­bal war­ming..

When Erik Mei­jer men­ti­ons “inten­ded bene­fits of emit­ting sub­s­tan­ces into the air” (in a con­text of also men­tio­ning “dis­ad­van­ta­ges”), he is appar­ent­ly try­ing to offer a “swee­te­ner” to Com­mis­sio­ner Dimas, to assist him in “com­ing clean” about some hypo­the­ti­cal “real atti­tu­des” the Com­mis­sio­ner might have. (“We are not going to be over­ly cen­so­rious,” Mei­jer seems to be imply­ing, “just tell us what you are try­ing to do.”)

Rosa­lind Peter­son will have none of this non­sen­se. “What bene­fits are we tal­king about, and for what?” she says: “Let them pro­ve any bene­fits.” She then lists some dis­ad­van­ta­ges: “How about bee health: wit­hout them no flowers, tree crops, agri­cul­tu­re crop pro­duc­tion will be cut. How about lack of pho­to­syn­the­sis? We can talk about what impac­ts the lack of sun­light is crea­ting for human health, such as rickets. Depres­si­on can be cau­sed (SAD) by a lack of sun­light.«

Rosa­lind Peterson’s stan­ce of ‘let them pro­ve any bene­fits’ may seem more tough-min­ded, but the­re is an alter­na­ti­ve and not necessa­ri­ly less tough-min­ded view which would see the atti­tu­de of Stav­ros Dimas and the Com­mis­si­on as amoun­ting to poli­ti­cal abdi­ca­ti­on. Faced by the task of poli­ti­cal manage­ment of a pro­gram­me that has cho­sen to go ahead wit­hout first acqui­ring legal cover they can see no solu­ti­on for them­sel­ves other than to con­ti­nue fore­ver to lie about it.

Even genera­tio­nal tur­no­ver, and the com­ing to matu­ri­ty of young peop­le accusto­med to the sight of chem­trails, in the sky and on the media, will not sol­ve their pro­blem, which at some point must be tack­led at the level of words, ide­as, con­cepts, not just images. Europe?s lea­ders, like their Ame­ri­can mas­ters, have pain­ted them­sel­ves into a cor­ner. The poli­ti­cal igno­mi­ny of their stan­ce on chemtrails/geoengineering/weather modi­fi­ca­ti­on in a way makes them unwor­thy of being sub­ject to fur­ther peti­tio­ning. Should one was­te more time asking the Com­mis­si­on to ‘pro­ve any bene­fits’ of chem­trails? Should not one ins­tead seek to find ways of repla­cing such anti-demo­cra­tic insti­tu­ti­ons as the European Com­mis­si­on (not to men­ti­on the back­ward-loo­king European Coun­cil) with new insti­tu­ti­ons: a European Par­li­a­ment with real powers, Soci­al Forums that can be given real con­sti­tu­tio­nal func­tions. In the con­text of such a stra­te­gy Euro­par­li­a­men­ta­ri­an Erik Meijer’s wil­ling­ness to con­si­der the pos­si­bi­li­ty of the spray­ing pro­gram­me having ‘bene­fits’ could well faci­li­ta­te the task of sub­jec­ting the geoengineering/weather modi­fi­ca­ti­on pro­gram­mes to the demo­cra­tic soci­al con­trol that the Commission?s poli­cy of deni­al makes impos­si­ble. Rather than pla­cing bur­dens of ‘pro­of of bene­fits’ on dis­credi­ted peop­le and insti­tu­ti­ons one sta­kes the claim to be see­king to assu­me oneself the respon­si­bi­li­ty that pre­sent office-hol­ders shirk. One beco­mes an uphol­der of the princi­ples of the rule of law in place of the pre­vai­ling habit of rule by deceit.

Erik Meijer’s view of the Commission’s reply to his ques­ti­ons:

While wri­ting this arti­cle we recei­ved media­ted news from Erik Mei­jer that ‘chem­trails are not his prio­ri­ty’ and that he ‘can­not say anything serious about the ans­wer of the Com­mis­si­on, becau­se he has no serious infor­ma­ti­on.’ What this amounts to is fur­ther con­fir­ma­ti­on of the ten­den­cy alrea­dy noted with other par­li­a­men­ta­ry poli­ti­ci­ans to drop the chem­trails issue when con­fron­ted by offi­ci­al stone­wal­ling, eit­her at natio­nal governmen­tal level, or as now, from the European Com­mis­si­on. The fact is that so far no poli­ti­ci­ans have been elec­ted to office on the strength of their stan­ce on chem­trails, a fact which could well rai­se in any politician’s mind the ques­ti­on: ‘How many votes are the­re in this for me?’ It is pro­bab­ly worthwhile try­ing to get some chem­trails poli­ti­ci­ans elec­ted. But at the same time the­re should, in Euro­pe, be move­ment on the insti­tu­tio­nal front, lin­king the abdi­ca­ti­on of the poli­ti­cal sys­tem on the chemtrails/weather modi­fi­ca­ti­on front with a wider cri­sis of legi­ti­ma­ti­on. Perhaps it is time to bring out an inter­na­tio­nal (US/Canadian/European) ver­si­on of a peti­ti­on alrea­dy cir­cu­la­ting in the United Sta­tes, with thousands of signa­tures HERE