The Geographical Journal - Wiley Online Library

geoengineering technologies are hypothetical... to be used ‘in case of emergency’ ... should radical emissions cuts fail... Running concurrently... ‘chemtrails’ ... interchangeably with the term geoengineering... belief that the persistent contrails left by aeroplanes provide evidence that a secret programme of large‐scale weather and climate modification is ongoing... devastating ecological and health consequences worldwide... marginal, it is not insignificant... 2.6% ... believed entirely ... around 14% ... to some extent...

most engagement to date ... attempts to ‘debunk’... Analysing the chemtrail conspiracy narrative as a knowledge producing discourse... allows an exploration of the boundaries of official knowledge... relationship between what is considered legitimate ‘geoengineering’ knowledge and illegitimate ‘chemtrail’ knowledge...

chemtrail conspiracy falls into the category... ‘world conspiracies’... partial and fragmented nature... most conspiracy narratives ‘fail to delineate any conspiracy at all... disrupt the presumption that there is a coherent, knowable reality...' while... incomplete... it incorporates a seemingly ever expanding subset of topics...

constant production of new ‘evidence’... requires chemtrail activists to be vigilant ... ‘keep up’... 9/11 conspiracy websites ... an infinite number of possible versions of digital images, sounds, videos... an endless loop of signification for the web browser... While... emotional trauma apparent among believers... can appear extreme... in the context of contemporary climate discourse ... appears less anomalous... public discourse around global warming routinely ... includes words such as “catastrophe”, “terror... collapse” ...

... pivotal point in a conspiracy narrative ... the moment of ‘totalizing conversion’ whereby the individual's world is reinterpreted once and for all... "we burst out and said: I'm awake, these are all lies. I can see the tyranny around me..."

desire... of chemtrail activists to be associated with the epistemic authority of science ... scientific evidence, data ... all crucial to establishing the legitimacy of the chemtrail phenomenon... On the other hand, it is scientists who are highly implicated ... critique is levelled at ‘the scientific worldview’...not dissimilar to critiques of ... ‘technological fix’ for climate change...

the strategy of ‘debunking’ arguably misses the point that such beliefs reflect not so much a lack of science as a lack of trust... an apparently marginal idea can take root in a given context as a result of reflecting widely held worldviews and experiences...

the conspiratorial view ... groups of people, acting with purposes that are undisclosed or outside accountability...' little room for blind social or economic forces... explaining the association of the chemtrail belief with scepticism about anthropogenic climate change...the idea that collectively, without intent, humanity has altered the climate... does not fit...

difficulty situating narrative along ... left/right spectrum... chemtrail discourse chimes with ... traditionally ‘left‐wing’ ... concerns with ... the environment...; on the other hand, anxieties about ‘big government’ ... chime with more ‘right‐wing’ ...

chemtrail belief hints ... that... solar geoengineering would have destabilising regional political effects, resonating with local political realities and suspicions of global economic powers... begs the question: is it necessarily more irrational to believe that the climate is being controlled, than to believe that one can control the climate?...

powerful emotional connections to weather ... are central to the chemtrail narrative... rarely heard in more mainstream discourse...

the chemtrail narrative has crossed the line from ‘distrust to disgust’... those allegedly involved... fundamentally evil, and unbelievers are ... ‘mentally retarded, clinically blind or paid liars’