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Climates of suspicion: ‘chemtrail’ conspiracy narratives and the international politics of geoengineering
Climate Geoengineering Governance (CCG)
Climate Geoengineering Governance (http://geoengineering-governanceresearch.
org) is a research project which aims to provide a timely basis for the
governance of geoengineering through robust research on the ethical, legal,
social and political implications of a range of geoengineering approaches. It is
funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and
Humanities Research Council (AHRC) – grant ES/J007730/1
CGG Working Papers
The CGG Working Paper series is designed to give a first public airing to a wide
range of papers broadly related to the project’s themes. Papers published in this
series may be, but are not necessarily, early outputs from the project team;
equally they may be from other authors, and reflect different perspectives and
different issues from those directly pursued by the project itself. The aim is to
promote vigorous and informed debate, in a spirit of pluralism.
What the working papers have in common is that they will all be at an early
stage of development, prior to full publication. Comment and response, at any
level of detail, is therefore doubly welcome. Please send all responses in the
first instance to the authors themselves – each paper contains a correspondence
address. We will be looking for opportunities to use the website or other project
activities to give a wider airing to any dialogues and debates that develop
around a paper or issue.
About the Author
Rose Cairns ([email protected]) is a research fellow at SPRU – Science
and Technology Policy Research, at the University of Sussex. Her primary
research interests are in environmental politics and governance, participatory
research methods and discourse analysis, and the theory and practice of
interdisciplinary research for sustainability. Rose completed her PhD on
conservation politics on the Galápagos Islands from Leeds University in 2012.
She also holds an MSc in Conservation and Biodiversity from Exeter University,
and a BA in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University. Prior to her recent
roles in academia Rose worked for a number of years in environmental
campaigning and the voluntary sector.
Abstract
Concurrent with growing academic and policy interest in ‘geoengineering’
the global climate in response to climate change, a more marginal
discourse postulating the existence of a climate control conspiracy is also
proliferating on the Internet. Here, the term ‘chemtrails’ is used
interchangeably with the term geoengineering to describe the belief that
the persistent contrails left by aeroplanes provide evidence that a secret
programme of large scale weather and climate modification is on-going.
Despite recent calls for greater appreciation of the diverse ways in which
people conceive of and relate to ideas of climate control, and widespread
acknowledgement of the importance of democratic public engagement in
governance of geoengineering, the chemtrail conspiracy narrative has
received very little attention in academic work to date. This paper builds
on work highlighting the instability of the distinction between
‘conspiratorial’ versus ‘normal’ views, and examines conspiracy narratives
as discourse rather than as pathologies (either psychological or
sociological). A discourse analysis allows an exploration of parallel logics
and concerns animating both the chemtrail narrative and wider discourses
around climate and climate control. The analysis finds that while some
elements of the chemtrail narrative do not lend themselves to democratic
processes of deliberation, and potential for engagement with more
mainstream discourse appears to be low, nevertheless, analysis of the
chemtrail discourse offers some important insights for the politics of
geoengineering.
Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat
http://philosophers-stone.co.uk
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2015/03/climates-of-suspicion-chemtrail-conspiracy-narratives-and-the-international-politics-of-geoengineering/
