Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday that Americans have \u201clegitimate questions\u201d about airplane contrails as his agency launches webpages aimed at combatting misinformation on the topic.<\/p>\n
Contrails, the vapor trails that follow high-flying airplanes, are the subject of the \u201cchemtrails\u201d conspiracy theory<\/a>, which baselessly alleges that the trails are actually chemicals that are used for secret purposes, including weather modification.<\/p>\n The EPA published a webpage Thursday with information about contrails<\/a>\u00a0and geoengineering\u00a0that<\/a> experts tell The Hill is accurate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dustin Tingley, a public policy professor at Harvard University, described the EPA\u2019s webpages as \u201crather thoughtful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe EPA did a responsible job of taking the concerns that people might genuinely have and providing easy to understand explanations,\u201d Tingley said. <\/p>\n Columbia University climate economist Gernot Wagner also said the webpages published by the EPA are accurate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe actual \u2018About\u2019 page on the EPA website does not seem to get it wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The EPA webpage describes \u201cchemtrails\u201d as \u201ca term some people use to inaccurately claim that contrails resulting from routine air traffic are actually an intentional release of dangerous chemicals or biological agents at high altitudes for a variety of nefarious purposes, including population control, mind control or attempts to geoengineer Earth or modify the weather.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Zeldin also characterized questions about contrails as \u201clegitimate\u201d in a written statement. <\/p>\n \u201cAmericans have legitimate questions about contrails and geoengineering, and they deserve straight answers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re publishing everything EPA knows about these topics on these websites.\u201d<\/p>\n He also posted a similar sentiment on social platform X: \u201cAmericans have questions about geoengineering and contrails. They expect honesty and transparency from their government when seeking answers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, people who asked questions in good faith were dismissed, even vilified by the media and their own government. This ends today,\u201d Zeldin added.<\/p>\n His post sparked pushback from critics who say the questions only come from conspiracy theorists and have no factual evidence underlying them.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people have \u2018questions\u2019 about whether birds are real \u2014 will that be your next project?\u201d Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote in reply. \u201cHow much taxpayer money will you be spending on this?\u201d<\/p>\n Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has expressed support for the chemtrails conspiracy theory, praised Zeldin in a post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIm so proud of my friend Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump for their commitment to finally shatter the Deep State Omerta regarding the diabolical mass poisoning of our people, our communities,our waterways and farms, and our purple mountains, majesty,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n The EPA actions come as weather-related conspiracy theories have allegedly led to attacks on infrastructure<\/a>. It also comes as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has introduced a bill<\/a> that aims to outlaw \u201cweather modification.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday that Americans have \u201clegitimate questions\u201d about airplane contrails as his agency launches webpages aimed at combatting misinformation on the topic. Contrails, the vapor trails that follow high-flying airplanes, are the subject of the \u201cchemtrails\u201d conspiracy theory, which baselessly alleges that the trails are actually chemicals that are used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}