There is no such thing as chemtrails. I know this may come as a bit of a shock. Like being told there’s no Santa or no tooth fairy. But the truth is, a fat man coming down your chimney in a red suit is actually more believable than some sinister plot that entails the government spraying the population with chemicals to disperse cancer, or the flu or to dumb down hoi polloi.
If you feel dumbed down, it’s probably because you are. Dumb, that is. It’s the most obvious solution. And generally in life, it’s the most obvious solution that ends up being true. It’s highly unlikely you’re dumb because you’ve been ‘sprayed’. It’s just who you are. An unfortunate genetic lottery where you didn’t pull the big numbers.
I know what you are thinking (and please don’t hurt yourself engaging in critical thought): Mandy Nolan is clearly in the employ of Big Pharma. She’s probably got a small plane. She’s probably mixing up chemicals right now. To make everyone think she’s funny. Then she sprays us with them. Through this column. The ink lets off an invisible eye-spray that is absorbed by the retina and transported directly to the brain. Even when her jokes are shit, you think Mandy Nolan is funny. (You know if the technology were available I would do that.)
Maybe you’re thinking the opposite. That I’m some poor brainwashed citizen. You’re thinking: she’s definitely been sprayed. It’s an impossible thesis. If you believe in chemtrails it’s pretty well a given that you’ve established a robust mental proof that you’re right. Otherwise you have to admit you’re crazy. As soon as someone challenges the existence of chemtrails as a ’thing’, you nod knowingly and reassure yourself it’s not because your conspiratorial belief system is absurd, or in fact an indicator that you may be a teensy bit schizophrenic, at the very least suffering from an intrusive thinking type paranoid condition; you think, No, that’s because the person saying chemtrails is bullshit has been sprayed.
The only thing I have been sprayed with is perfume and deodorant. And I do that myself. Come to think of it, at the height of summer in our town it wouldn’t be a bad idea to send a crop-duster up with a barrel of Lynx.
Okay. I guess if you believe in chemtrails you would have stopped reading by now. And gone and washed your eyes. But if you are still with me, think about it. Those white clouds behind aircraft are just ice crystals. Don’t you think if the government or big business were that organised or creepy then they’d devise an invisible chem drop? Like in your water? Or your Centrelink payment?
It’s sad that people can’t enjoy an incredible sunset any more without suspecting that it’s ‘unnatural’. That vivid winter colours aren’t the result of hot air going up and cold air coming down, but because Dr Strangelove has dropped a canister of lithium. I have no doubt that chemicals are in our atmosphere. But they haven’t been put their by dark agents as some sort of superhuman controlling plot. If we had a government that organised, we’d have colonies on Mars.
The chemicals in our atmosphere are the unintended consequence of industry. The poisonous legacy of plastics. We have made more than 32,000 new chemicals since the Industrial Revolution. Something like 16,000 of them are toxic to humans and are in our environment. Eight hundred of them we know disrupt our hormones enough that they have been proven to have a role in the obesity and diabetes epidemic. These are known as EDCs or endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
You can’t escape these chemicals. It doesn’t matter how much kombucha you drink, how organic your food is. You’re still ingesting poison. The chemicals are here. And we keep willingly using them. They’re in your water. They’re in your air. They’re in the North Pole and the South Pole. They’re now part of our environment and possibly why we have such a spike in cancers and weird illness. As yet they’re unproven factors, but seen as determinants of ill health in humans.
So if you want to do something about chemicals in the environment, then stop looking up for planes and look down for plastic bags. Forget chemtrails and get on board with Plastic-Free July. And then try pushing into August, September…
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
