Text of first meeting of Athens, Greece, Chemtrails/Geoengineering Action
Committee December, 2010
Good evening.
We
came together this evening
to speak to people. And
to begin with to speak to our friends in Cyprus about the creation
of a committee of struggle because our friends in Cyprus
who are involved with the aerial spraying established such a committee
this year and set an example for us and we want this evening to start the
process, and the dialogue so that a similar movement can start here
in Athens.
Perhaps we should say who we are. My
name is Wayne Hall. I live in
Aigina. I have been involved with
the aerial spraying for 7-8 years. Mr
Katsaros will say….
Nikos Katsaros. I
am a scientist at the Democritus research centre.
J am Catherine Collin. I
am half French and half Brazilian. I live in Athens and
I see chemtrails every day, I
see spraying every day and
I want to get involved more systematically.
This year there have been some
developments with the subject. For a
start, after the failure in Copenhagen a
lot of discussion started generally about something called geoengineering.
And this geoengineering
became a subject of discussion and finally of an initiative by a group called
the ETC group which founded a movement called
“Hands off Mother Earth”. I
don’t know if Mr. Katsaros wants to say anything about that initiative because
we supported it, concretely. We put
on our site an open letter to
“Hands off Mother Earth” to make it clear that we support the
initiative that was started by the ETC group and the movement called
“Hands off Mother Earth”. I don’t know if Mr. Katsaros wants
to say anything about that:
Nikos Katsaros: Yes, for a start
let’s say a few words about what
this chemical aerial spraying is, or these chemtrails, as they are called. Many
people throughout the world, and particularly in
the NATO countries have observed
aircraft, without distinctive markings, leaving
white trails which by contrast with ordinary trails do not disappear
within a few minutes but instead
remain in the sky for a long time and many times spread out,
and moreover the aircraft
that leave these chemical trails
behind them don’t go in straight lines but leave grid patterns
or go in zig zags and this
has made many people wonder what is going on and what they are spraying us with
and although to date no responsible answer has been given,
governments have allowed the idea to get around
that something is being done
for the good of humanity, that it is a means of dealing with the greenhouse
phenomenon, in other words global
warming or climate change, so in
these aircraft trails, in the fuel they
put particles of aluminium and barium which, when expelled with the exhaust, reflect
the sunlight. Less sunlight reaches the
earth, and the temperature falls. So
the greenhouse phenomenon is dealt with, using particles of aluminium and
barium. We should note
here that both aluminium and
barium are toxic substances. However
long they remain in the sky at some point they will fall to earth, they will
pollute the water-table and
from there the food chain and they will not only affect human health
but also damage the
environment.
WH:
Mr. Katsaros….
Nikos Katsaros:
This is the reason for our opposition to this spraying – nobody
knows exactly what it is, but
this is what they have
allowed to leak - and no
government gives a responsible
answer .
WH: Mr. Katsaros do you believe
that the objective of the
spraying is geoengineering, that it
aims, as is implied by certain
statements, not official statements, at
geoengineering, that the
purpose of the spraying is geoengineering?
Nikos Katsaros: To start with
geoengineering is a new branch
of science which has appeared in the last ten years and is aimed at handling
large planetary phenomena. One
of those phenomena is climate change. So part of geoengineering involves
at the planetary level, dealing
with the greenhouse phenomenon. And
famous scientists such as Paul Crutzen who received the Nobel Prize for
discovering the ozone hole recommended something similar
to what is happening with chemtrails, with aerial spraying of chemicals.
That is to say he recommended that particles – in this case sulphur –
should be lifted up in the
atmosphere at a great height. That the sunlight be
reflected from them, that
less sunlight should reach the earth and
the greenhouse phenomenon be deal
with in this way. So geoengineering – which
also proposes other solutions –
includes that activity which is called aerial spraying or chemtrails and we as
action committee are opposed both
to the chemical spraying and to
geoengineering, because the
consequences of planetary
experiments of this kind are unknown and they should not be implemented
before we are sure that they will not have consequences for the
environment, for human health and for the water table.
WH: Catherine do you believe that the
spraying is for geoengineering
purposes?
Catherine Collin:
Perhaps. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I
have been sick because of the spraying in Athens. And my two cats were vomiting
when the spraying was very intense. Mr
Katsaros is certainly right that the spraying
can have very bad consequences for health.
WH:
Certain people who don’t believe in climate change – skeptics
– think that the spraying is for other purposes. That’s why I’m asking.
Catherine Collin:
Yes, climate change is a misleading idea. For
as long as we talk about climate change we don’t talk about t the spraying. We
remain on the subject of whether there is or is not climate change. Climate
change might exist for other reasons apart
from human causes. It could
be because there was a shift of the Earth’s axis when the comet Phaethon
passed. Many comets
have come close to the Earth. There has been a shift of the axis,
and that may have something to do
with it.
WH:
My view is that in the situation we are in it doesn’t make much
difference whether the purpose of
the spraying is - some people say
things like this – to kill us or to decrease fertility and so on,
or whether the purpose is to prepare the ground for the genetically
modified plants of Monsanto that are
resistant to aluminium or whether it
is to facilitate the operations of HAARP, or
whether the purpose is what they say, to reduce the level of sunlight
that reaches the earth. The
fact is that all these ideas are considered to be
conspiracy theories and so are kept outside the permitted boundaries of
public discussion. The only thing
that is beginning now to be permitted is the subject of geoengineering
because – particularly after the failure of the Climate Summit in
Copenhagen - governments, and
particularly the US government are
trying to secure the consent of the public to
the idea that geoengineering is acceptable,
an acceptable solution to the problem
of climate change.
And so this determines the framework of
the discussion. The discussion is
permitted, and so for that reason we have this discussion.
Part 2
Would you like to say
something?
Nikos Katsaros: Yes, it is to be expected,
Wayne, that from the moment that no
government says officially why this chemical aerial spraying is
taking place, conspiracy scenarios will be generated.
And a lot of those conspiracy scenarios mention that after the aerial
spraying some people experience
headaches, dizziness, discomfort and we have the specific
instance a few years ago in a town in Canada, Hispanola, 90 percent of
the population of the area, after such aerial spraying,
experienced something that seemed like flu and called the Canadian
government health service who examined the inhabitants and found that 90 percent
of the population were indeed suffering from
a strange kind of virus infection but they never told those people where the
infection had come from, what the
facts were, and what exactly was happening after the chemical spraying. So
the requirement is – and we in our
movement insist - that the responsible governments
of every country where this chemical spraying has
been observed should give a responsible and
objective answer on what is happening and if what we say is happening, why
it is happening, what
purposes it serves, and how we can be protected from such experiments, so
geoengineering, which is a broader
subject, but includes the chemical spraying, must be dealt with accordingly,
because there have been international conferences and geoengineering is
now a recognized branch of science which introduces specific measures and
planetary experiments to forestall phenomena that concern, that
affect, the whole planet.
WH:
Mr. Katsaros, you recently went to Cyprus,
where you were invited there by some parliamentarians and I believe bya
group of citizens -
THE group of citizens, the action committee, to be specific,, but perhaps
you can describe to us
your trip to Cyprus.
Nikos Katsaros: I
saw that in Cyprus there is a real democracy.
I say that in the sense that
in Greece we have been struggling
for years to get the Greek
parliament to give an official
answer to the question of whether
this spraying is occurring and why.
And so far nobody has given us an
official answer. On the contrary
they have ignored us, whereas in Cyprus the parliamentary committee for the
environment of the Republic of Cyprus was convened
and all the parliamentarians of the committee for the environment of the
Cypriot parliament were
present and at the same time they had summoned senior officials
of
the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the
Environment Ministry, the Health
Ministry, the Agricultural
Development Ministry and senior
state officials from the Water
Service, the Meteorological Service,
the Civil Aviation Authority and a number of other
state functionaries and at the same time they had invited a
representative of the British base
at Akrotiri.
So it was a wide-ranging and very serious discussion on the phenomenon of
the aerial spraying, which was
convened, I should point out, in response to a position paper delivered by the
Citizens’ Initiative against Chemical Aerial Spraying and to the testimonies
of the Citizens’ Initiative against Chemical Aerial Spraying a number of
responses were given by the
relevant functionaries and
finally there was unanimous acceptance by the
Environment Committee of the Cypriot Parliament
of the position paper delivered there
that after chemical spraying special
planes should be sent up and should
collect in special filters and that
then there should be analysis and an official answer be given as to what
substances are to be found in
this chemical spraying, why it is
being conducted and if is not being conducted
to provide reassurance to the Cypriot people
because there is a prevalent anxiety
that this aerial spraying is being carried out from
the base at Akrotiri, probably, so that it influences many phenomena
including various other protests that
have made their appearance there.
But the fact is that the Cypriot parliament has shown a responsible
stance to this subject, and I
believe that they will go forward also with
the commitment they have undertaken for
experiments to be conducted to show whether
something like this is occurring in Cyprus or not and the committee
of initiative against chemical spraying will carry out inspections and
make use of the media to inform people what
is happening with this spraying.
WH:
Mr. Katsaros let’s talk a little about
the significance of the
stance of the Cypriots, because what happened in Cyprus may
well be unique. It’s an initiative
of the Cyprus Greens, who have a parliamentarian,
Mr. Perdikis, who is actively involved with the subject of the spraying.
That is something that has no
counterpart in any other state in
the world, for a Green party to become involved with this specific subject,
despite the fact that there have been many appeals from citizens to the Green
parties. There was no response. Only
in Cyprus, and perhaps, our hope is now that this will
act as an example, and it will spread.
We should not forget that three Green parliamentarians
in Germany took out a lawsuit
against the German government that
this chemical spraying is taking
place and they have not been informed. So
it would be good for the moment, whether it is the
movement in Cyprus or the Greek movement here or wherever else such movements
are established to pressure their
responsible governments so that they give honest and responsible answers to
the question of the chemical aerial spraying that hundreds or thousands of
people in the world are constantly
observing. So too our action
committee aims to pressure the Greek
government and the responsible functionaries to give a responsible answer. The
same, I believe, should happen in
other countries, because citizens’ movements exist there too.
Many of them, of course,
direct questions to their governments. These questions are not answered but the
more this demand from
the citizens intensifies for their governments to answer, the more urgent
it becomes, so that at some
point they will be obliged to tell us what is happening. If
it is happening for the good of humanity why isn’t it publicized so that all
the scientific community, everyone who can, can help solve the problem of the
greenhouse effect or climate change
as they describe, as they give us to
understand.
WH: Let’s talk about a new development which
is the moratorium that was passed at the UN international convention
on Biological Diversity. This
moratorium was a product of the initiatives of the ETC group as we have
mentioned. They managed
to secure the support of almost all states with
the exception of the United States and
a few other insignificant instances –
essentially all the states of the world support
this moratorium, which means now that geoengineering, and specifically what
is called Solar Radiation Management ,
which is the phenomenon that is linked with
chemtrails in the popular consciousness, is now illegal, and this development is
something that should become
known.
It was buried by the media. Few
people know about it.
But despite that, the moratorium was passed
and the question now
is: what is our reaction?
We have found out who went from Greece to
that Convention and who represented Greece there.
And I think that the next step
is to speak with these people and to
ask them what their opinion is of
the reasons that the Greek state signed a moratorium that
it is clearly not observing. What do you say to that?
Nikos Katsaros: This is truly a very serious matter
because for a start many people who
heard from us about the chemical spraying, the chemtrails, either thought that
we were ridiculous or that we were dreamers
and in many cases we became
the butt of ironic remarks. And
now we have the United Nations in a conference that took place on biological
diversity officially recognizing
that there should be a moratorium, in
other words a suspension, of geoengineering activities, and specifically a
suspension of all activities that
are either programmed or are already
occurring in the form of chemical spraying for
the next five years .
So we have official recognition from the United Nations that
such experiments are either taking
place or are about to, and because
this sows doubt about
people’s safety from the chemical spraying,
there is a moratorium, that
is to say a halt to this activity for the next five years,
so it is official recognition and I address myself
to all those who thought us marginalized,
made us the object of ironic comments,
thought us silly people with
our heads in the clouds that the United Nations
itself acknowledges that this is happening or is programmed to happen
and warns that it should not do so.
And this is the other great responsibility of
the Greek government and the
president of the Environmental
Committee of the Greek Parliament,
who was present and voted for
that moratorium, to tell us specifically whether
in Greece this spraying is taking
place, if it is planned and what the
authorities are planning to do, finally. The
authorities, the state must answer
this question.
And we, as active citizens, and Catherine also, and
you, and all of us, must help, must
pressure the government to
give an official answer. Given that it VOTED that moratorium
what measures it plans to take. We can’t wait any longer.
WH:
Mr. Katsaros I was born in Australia and
I still have some links with Australia and because of the initiative we are
taking I discovered that in Australia too certain chemtrails activists have
found the names of the people who
went to Nagoya, and they will ask the same e question there.
Catherine, you have lived in many countries. Do you think it is possible
for us to ask the same question in
many states?
Catherine Collin: Yes, yes, in France, from
where I came, there are people who
are anxious about chemtrails, what
they see, what they feel.
And in Switzerland. And
in Brazil.
WH:
Of course many people have a
suspicious attitude to the moratorium. Particularly the skeptics,
and people who are not in
love with the UN. They have the view
that perhaps the UN is worse than
the spraying. Have you seen that phenomenon anywhere?
Catherine Collin:
I have read
that the UN has a vested interest in
having control geoengineering. It
wants to have the upper hand, to be
in control . The moratorium is just for show, finally.
WH:
The ETC group thinks that it is preferable for the UN to
have responsibility rather
than the United States or the
Royal Society in England. The Royal
Society has started a relevant
discussion in England. Up until now,
as the ETC group says, it is more or
less an Anglo-Saxon initiative, all
the discussion on geoengineering. Because
not many other states participate in the discussion on geoengineering and
particularly not the poor countries. That’s
why the ETC group believes that it
is better for control, and discussion on geoengineering to take place
in the United Nations.
Nikos Katsaros: I would like to add here
that these skeptics who don’t recognize the initiative and this
decision of the United Nations to some extent are perhaps justified
on that point because there is indeed
an article in the United Nations charter that
forbids experiments aimed at climate change because they are afraid that
probably, in this way, regulating climate change, they
will very likely develop the next generation
of weapons of mass destruction.
But with this initiative of the United Nations
it is at last recognized that
nobody has the right to manage the sunlight reaching the earth because this
management of solar radiation is aimed at bringing changes to the climate with
unknown consequences, or consequences that will
benefit only certain individuals, for
reasons that are still unknown.
So it is very positive, and everyone
from their own viewpoint should support
this decision taken by the
United Nations and responsible
governments, particularly those that signed it, should declare explicitly and
categorically what measures they plan to take and also to pressure the
governments of the great
powers , like the United States to
give their reasons why they did not sign and
what their purpose is.
WH: As far as
the ETC group is concerned, which
started the “Hands off Mother Earth” initiative, I believe, and I think all
of us believe, that their negative
stance towards geoengineering is
honest, But not everything they say
in relation to geoengineering is honest. For example that the
geoengineering programmes have
not been put into application on a large scale. Perhaps this lack of frankness
on the part of the ETC Group was in
a way the tax they had to pay to be more inside the action, more
inside the discussions, than we are, for example.
But we should not accept direct
collaboration or dialogue with them unless they are prepared to give us
reassurances that they will stop
talking to the media about whether chemtrails
exist or don’t exist. That is the
subject that preoccupies the media.
It is not a subject that preoccupies us,
because we know what we believe. I
don’t believe that in reality it
preoccupies the ETC group either. But the ETC group operates within a certain
system. When journalists come with
questions, they have to say
something to them. But I think
that if they want collaboration, or discussions, with
us, they will talk with us, and
not with the media. This is perhaps a hard stance, and of course it does not
exclude support, because we support them, without
qualification. But if it is a matter of collaboration
and discussion, we want honesty. I
don’t know what you want to say about that.
About the ETC group.
Catherine Collin: Yes, we agree completely.
Nikos Katsaros: I would like to add that
because many of those who are
listening to us don’t know who the ETC group are,
that there are – all over the planet –
various initiatives, with different views,
both in relation to geoengineering and in relation to the specific
subject of the aerial
spraying. All of them have a common
purpose, to publicize the matter, because
whether it is being developed or
whether it is already in
application, this is a positive
step, in my view, that there is
recognition that such experiments are
being planned, or are happening and they must be prevented, so we should applaud
the initiative and embrace this initiative of the United Nations, but
the most important thing is that we
should pressure the governments, particularly
those that signed it.
WH:
In relation to climate change, many
activists against chemtrails are skeptics
Part 4
But you don’t have to be a skeptic
in relation to climate change to agree that a bigger problem than climate
change are the practices that are
being proposed – purportedly as a means of dealing
with climate change: geoengineering, nuclear energy, pollution trading,
genetic modification of plants, use
of plants not as food but as fuel.
All of these phenomena are
being justified in terms of dealing
with climate change. That is a big
problem.
Nikos Katsaros: That is a big problem and
certainly behind it
there is great power,
specifically big international corporations
that are trying to gain advantage, in
any way possible, publicizing the
negative consequences of climate
change. I continue to be optimistic that there is time
to avert the phenomenon of climate change if an agreement can be achieved
among the states of the world, that
it should come about through the
initiative of the United Nations
and that at the same time there should be exposure
of those big international corporations who
work to exploit the phenomenon of
climate change for their own benefit to acquire ever greater profit
and we should note that
private companies have emerged everywhere on the planet, which promise
to cause climate change, that is to say
to cause droughts in one area or
to bring rain to another area, and
even to exploit them for private
purposes. So we have to struggle by
every means to stop big corporations from exploiting this phenomenon
for their own advantage.
It is real, it exists, but some interpret it
in their own way , so that the big corporation can derive as much benefit
as possible, whether they are
Monsanto, whether they are big
pharmaceutical companies, they are big
companies producing agricultural products.
WH:
Well, have we got anything else to add to what we have said?
Yesterday, from what I heard, a
meeting was held in Larissa, with many people present and
a local committee was formed. And the organizer of that meeting in Larissa says
that such initiatives and such meetings will take place elsewhere also. Can
we believe that today we are commencing a networking at
the national level, and let’s hope that….
Nikos Katsaros: It is something very
positive and initiatives will
have to be taken by other people in
other parts of the country for the purpose of
pressuring the responsible government to
give responsible answers and at the
same time to take concrete measures
and inform the Greek people of them.
WH:
Well, the initiative is in your hands now.