Suzanne Maher isn't correct when she says they're a new phenomenon: you can see condensation trails left behind aircraft in images from the Battle of Britain during the Second World War. But what most people call "contrails" Suzanne and other conspiracy theorists call "chemtrails" - and in them they see evidence of a clandestine globalist conspiracy involving a pick-and-mix selection of the UN, the military, national governments, the Rothschilds, climate scientists, pilots and big business.
Weather modification - or at least attempting it - has a long history. Chinese authorities used cloud seeding to ensure the opening ceremony of the Olympics wasn't washed out. Geo-engineering - deliberate intervention in the Earth's natural systems to counteract climate change - is a newer field of research.
While scientists have talked about it, there's been very little being physically done - most of the research in the field relies on computer modelling. Professor David Keith of Harvard University, is among the most prominent scientists calling for further research. He told the New York Times he knows of only two instances where one of the most controversial proposals has been tested in the field.
It's called solar geo-engineering and involves atmospheric aerosol injection of tiny reflective particles to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth and thus cool the planet. Similarly, successful weather modification efforts have been localised - and certainly not on the grand scale some conspiracy theorists claim. Nonetheless, "chemtrail" and geo-engineering conspiracy theorists flood social media with speculation, questions and images of contrail cross-hatched skies.
Suzanne says she first became aware of the subject six years ago. It was a very young girl, she wasn't even ten years old. She talked about the spraying going on in our skies and the fact she was so sad because she didn't want to go outside and the skies were no longer blue and we were being sprayed.
Why would such a young child be sharing this information if it wasn't truthful? This awakening truly changed my life," she says. She runs a closed group on Facebook, where around 5, fellow believers can discuss the theory, as well as raising money to buy billboard advertising. She closely vets the group's members.
Closed groups of like-minded people - the type common on social media and the internet - are one of the big reasons why conspiracy theories solidify online. Professor Karen Douglas, from the University of Kent, researches the psychology of conspiracy theories. And they read information which confirms what they believe. And as soon as I posted about it , the conspiracy theories, practical explanations, silly observations and wild guesses started rolling in.
Was this some secret government activity? Alien invaders? Something even worse? VictorFiorillo Those giant lines in the sky are shadows being cast on heavy metal particulate matter in geoengineered clouds. One important question is whether scientific attention to the conspiracy theory helps spread it further. Some chemtrails conspirators take the increased number of articles on the subject itself as evidence that there must be something to their theory.
This mirrors what we can observe with those arguing against vaccinating children, often for unwarranted fears of a link between vaccinations and autism Doja and Roberts, ; Miller and Reynolds, Regardless of possible unintended consequences, fighting tweets with peer-reviewed analyses does not work. Much more promising are attempts to engage at the same level, speaking to chemtrails conspirators directly using social media platforms e. West, Chemtrails are not real.
Belief in the chemtrails conspiracy is. That renders rational conversations around solar geoengineering and its potential role in climate policy even more difficult than it would be absent the chemtrails conspiracy Burns et al.
It also shows some of the broader implications of this online community of conspiracy with implications well beyond climate policy. Data analyzed using Crimson Hexagon are proprietary and are not publicly available. However, once given access, it is straightforward to duplicate our analysis by following the steps enumerated in the methods section above.
All summary data used in this analysis, including CCES survey results, are available from the corresponding author upon request. A sampling of them can be found on sites like thesleuthjournal. Media around the launch also resulted in a link, albeit tenuous, to the election of President Trump.
See Keith and Wagner in response to Neslen and Lukacs , followed by a large number of online commentaries and social media discussions captured by our analysis, Figs. The specific terms change somewhat over time. The overall trends, however, are relatively stable. Allcott H, Gentzkow M Social media and fake news in the election. J Econ Perspect 31 2 — Article Google Scholar. Random House, New York.
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Proc Natl Acad Sci 3 — Clim Change 3—4 — J Inf Technol Polit 10 3 — Download references. Harvard John A. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to Gernot Wagner.
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