Buzz Adams: DEBUNKINATOR–Chemtrails

In this series, Buzz Adams takes on a popular conspiracy du jour.

Today, Heavyweight boxer David Rodriguez was on and he talked about the supposed phenomenon of "chemtrails". DRod is a VERY big believer in chemtrails and judging from the response, so are alot of listeners. Before I debunkify, here’s a sampling from the mailbag…

From: ************

Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 9:37 AM
To: Buzz Adams
Subject: Geo-Engineering

Sorry Buzz there is a huge difference between com-trails and chem-trails

 do some research!

http://www.infowars.com/geoengineering-our-environment-under-attack/

YOUR EITHER IN DENIAL OR YOUR WORKING AS A DIS-INFO AGENT

My Response:

Well…

Going to Alex Jones’ website and hearing what Alex Jones thinks about "chemtrails" is not what I would really think of as "doing research".

My idea of research would be finding out what accredited scientists in the appropriate fields think about the subject. And when you do that, you will find that virtually every single meteorologist, climatologist and atmospheric scientist believes that "chemtrails" are the same as contrails. That is, water vapor from jet airplanes.

Sure, you’ll find lots of people who have blogs that will go to great lengths about their "evidence" for chemtrails. You’ll have a much harder time finding an actual scientist, you know…the people with actual "expertise", who believe that it is an actual phenomenon.

Of course, this can mean only one thing…

All scientists are in on the conspiracy!!!

So, I guess it really comes down to what you consider "research". You can either :

A.) Find websites and material from people who have no scholarly credentials whatsoever. You can then TRY to track down any original research that these hacks may have done, but you'll probably find that it's a neverending maze of one conspiracist citing another, equally unqualified conspiracist without EVER finding any original, serious, peer-reviewed reseach to back up the claims.

I choose not to take this options...

B.) You can take the years and years required to become an actual expert yourself (sorry, this will involve going to school and getting an academic degreee. No amount of watching Youtube videos will get you there). Then, you can go conducting your own experiments, under the strict and demanding criteria of the Scientific Method. You can then submit your work for peer review and after years and years you may actually find you have made a bonafide contribution to the wealth of human knowledge.

I also choose not to use this method.

C.) You can read what is written by scientist who have gone to all the effort described in B.).

This is the option I've decided to go with. If the day comes when 999 atmospheric scientist say that chemtrails are real and 1 radio host whose bread and butter depends on increasingly battier ideas disagrees...that is the day I will take chemtrails seriously.

Yay, science!