A group of lawmakers in the US state of Tennessee have introduced a Bill that would prohibit the use of ‘chemtrails’, which is based on a wild conspiracy theory that governments or secretive organisations are spraying chemicals from commercial planes in an attempt to control human behavior.
Bill SB2691, which is sponsored by Senator Steve Southerland, was initially introduced as an innocuous piece of legislation to decrease the amount of time that the Tennessee Air Pollution Control Board can have an open vacancy but was amended to include the chemtrail prohibition.
The bill has already passed the Tennessee Senate with a vote of 25 ayes to just six noes. Rep. Monty Fritts is now sponsoring the Bill for its passage into the House.
The chemtrail conspiracy theory is directly referenced in the bill, stating that it is “documented the federal government or other entities acting on the federal government’s behalf or at the federal government’s request may conduct geoengineering experiments by intentionally dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere, and those activities may occur within the State of Tennessee”.
The amendment would seek to ban the use of chemtrails.
“AMENDMENT #1 rewrites the bill to prohibit the intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus within the borders of this state into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight.”
The chemtrail conspiracy theory first started to emerge in the 1990s, but fears over the use of chemtrails really started to take hold during the pandemic.
The conspiracy theory pushes the idea that governments or other shadowy organizations are spraying chemicals or biological agents from commercial planes for a variety of wild reasons, including to change the weather, geoengineering, population control, change human behavior or spreading disease.
People who believe the chemtrail conspiracy theory point to the long white trails that emerge out of the back of aircraft engines high in the atmosphere as evidence that chemicals are being actively sprayed into the air.
In reality, these trails are a natural byproduct of an aircraft engine exhaust. They are generally referred to as contrails, which are short for condensation trails, which are formed when the hot, humid air coming out the back of an aircraft engine mixes with the cold air at high altitudes.
Despite the theory being widely debunked by the scientific community, the idea of chemtrails persists on social media and now, even in state legislatures.
