Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Monsanto’s Sealed Documents Reveal the Truth behind Roundup’s Toxicological Dangers


 RoundUpCancer032515


I am sorry to report that it is infinitely worse than i ever imagined or expected.  It is no exaggeration to describe the companies behavior as a 'Crime against Humanity' and actually it is a Crime against Nature.

Blow back is now setting in is a number of different countries and the present momentum tells me that we have no more than a couple of years left before this is all out in the open.


With the science finally disclosed we are looking at a massive global criminal case that will go forward as the scientific consensus matures.


This is in fact as disgusting as the organized gassing of Jews by the Nazis.  They globally distributed a know toxin with wide reaching biological effects.  Arsenic was possibly safer.


Monsanto’s Sealed Documents Reveal the Truth behind Roundup’s Toxicological Dangers



 15 September 2015

 http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsantos-sealed-documents-reveal-the-truth-behind-roundups-toxicological-dangers/5476443

The year 2015 hasn’t been kind to Monsanto. In March, the World Health Organization declared that the company’s flagship product, its herbicide glyphosate or Roundup, is a probable human carcinogen. Increasingly, national health ministries are taking a hard second look at glyphosate’s health and environmental dangers and efforts are underway to ban the herbicide.[1] To protect its citizens, last year the Netherlands, Bermuda and Sri Lanka have either banned or imposed strict limits on Roundup. Last June, France banned its use in gardens. Brazil, Germany and Argentina are considering legislative bans. And this month, California’s environmental protection agency launched plans to label Roundup as a carcinogen.[2]

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world today. Over 130 countries currently permit extensive use of the chemical. The US is the largest consumer, using approximately 20% of the world’s Roundup.[3] The latest reliable figures from the US Geological Survey record 280 million pounds of Roundup were used in 2012, nearly a pound for every American.[4] In 2013, gross profit of $371 million on crop chemicals including Roundup climbed 73% due to a 37% increase in sales. That same year Monsanto’s net income rose 22% to $1.48 billion.[5]

Over the years a large body of independent research has accumulated and now collectively provides a sound scientific rationale to confirm that glyphosate is far more toxic and poses more serious health risks to animals and humans than Monsanto and the US government admit. Among the many diseases and health conditions non-industry studies identified Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and autism since Roundup has been shown to instigate aluminum accumulation in the brain. The herbicide has been responsible for reproductive problems such as infertility, miscarriages, and neural tube and birth defects. It is a causal agent for a variety of cancers: brain, breast, prostate, lung and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Other disorders include chronic kidney and liver diseases, diabetes, heart disease, hypothyroidism, and leaky gut syndrome. In addition to lung cancer, glyphosate may be responsible for today’s growing epidemics of chronic respiratory illnesses among farm workers and their families.[6] However, these findings derive from outside the Big Agriculture industry. Private industries routinely defend themselves by positing their own research to refute independent reports. Consequently, for several decades it has been a he-said-she-said stalemate. Monsanto is content with this. It can conduct business as usual, Roundup sales increase, and the debates and media wars continue without government interference. Then who is protecting the public?

Government officials and health regulators more often than not simply ignore these studies even if published in peer-reviewed journals. The bulk are independently funded. Most have been performed in foreign nations and therefore American bias dismisses them outright. Furthermore, Monsanto and other large chemical agricultural companies are quick to counter and discredit adverse scientific findings. The company has the financial means to retain large international PR firms, such as Burson-Marsteller and Fleishman Hillard, consultation firms and think tanks, as well as large armies of hired trolls and academic spokepersons to mobilize damage control upon notice and protect the integrity of Monsanto’s products and public image. It funds and orchestrates self-serving research at universities and research laboratories to increase an arsenal of junk science. And of course it has Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates as its celebrity cheerleaders.

The EPA continues to align itself with Monsanto’s safety claims and limits glyphosate’s risks to kidney, reproductive and carcinogenic damage; and the warning only applies for very long-term exposure to high levels of the toxin. Anything under that is considered harmless. The EPA continues to approve small amounts of glyphosate as safe in drinking water to children. Its safety level is 0.7 ug/L. This was determined back in 1994, and after 20 years of further research into glyphosate’s biomolecular activities and health risks, the level has remained the same.[7,8] A review of existing data sponsored by Moms Across America found that out of 21 drinking water samples analyzed, 13 had glyphosate levels between 0.08 and 0.3 ug/L, well below the EPA’s limit, but significantly above the European Union’s limit of 0.1 ug/L.[9]

While the company manages to successfully dodge scientific research outside its purview, the tables would certainly turn if it could be proven in a court of law that Monsanto has known for decades that glyphosate is one of the most toxic substances ever launched on the public, which adversely affects almost every tissue and cell in a mammal’s body.

Imagine for a minute that evidence emerged to implicate Monsanto on a massive cover-up and manipulation of scientific data from hundreds of research trials. If it were Monsanto’s data indicting itself about glyphosate’s toxicity, and if it can be shown the company falsified, masked or fudged its data to win regulatory approval, it may likely be the largest corporate scandal in history. The question could Monsanto be charged with crimes of omission and more deservingly crimes against humanity?

This scenario may not be fantasy or the wishful thinking of GMO’s opponents. The case has a precedent and has been played out in the courts before. In November 1998, the US government won a judgment against the four largest US tobacco companies: Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard. The case came to trial after a former vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson, Jeffrey Wigand, turned whistleblower and revealed that his company concealed the tobacco’s health risks and was making concerted efforts to addict people to smoking. High ranking executives were found to have approved the inclusion of known addictive and carcinogenic chemicals, such as coumarin, in its cigarettes to increase smoking, sales and profits.

Before the trial there had never been a lawsuit lost by a tobacco company because no one could prove with absolute medical certainty that smoking had ever caused lung cancer or emphysema. During Congressional hearings, all seven CEOs representing the four tobacco giants lied under oath stating they had no knowledge about an association between nicotine and brain addiction. Their rationale was that they believed their research data and marketing strategies were protected under propriety secrecy claims and therefore they could avoid conviction. Although FDA scientists possessed all the necessary information that could condemn Big Tobacco’s false claims, the industry relied upon proprietary rules in order to hide behind legal protection. The FDA was silenced and powerless to make the industry’s information public. Consequently it is estimated that millions of people died from a risk that could have been prevented or at least reduced substantially. Instead, the FDA honored the tobacco industry above all human life.

The guilty verdict, which resulted in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement against the tobacco companies, enforced a minimum $206 billion settlement over a 25 year period. While the majority of payments were to settle 46 states’ Medicaid lawsuits to recover smoking related health costs, the settlement unfortunately exempted the industry from private tort claims. Many critics of the Agreement state that the settlement was too merciful. No tobacco executive went to prison and evidence indicates the industry emerged stronger and consolidated the companies into an ever more powerful cartel.[10]

What busted the tobacco companies was not the scientific evidence piling up outside the industry. Rather it was its crimes of omission about cigarettes’ health risks within the industry. The industry’s own research prosecuted itself. And this is demanded today in order to bring down Monsanto’s chemical regime and to protect populations and children throughout the world.

Perhaps we might want to consider the atmosphere Monsanto faced after it first developed glyphosate in 1973 and prepare for EPA approval for the remainder of the decade.

During the latter half of the 1970s, Monsanto’s leading products were under federal inquiry and public assault regarding safety. Dioxin had been banned. Safety concerns arose over its sweetener saccharin, and cyclamate was removed from the market. The company’s attempts to get it’s new artificial sweetener aspartame confronted obstacles during FDA scientific review. Independent research had shown that aspartame caused brain tumors in mammals. And its best selling herbicide at the time, Lasso, was showing signs of carcinogenicity. Today Lasso is a restricted-use pesticide due to its oncogenicity. With sales falling and future growth under threat, Monsanto faced a desperate need to launch a new and novel flagship product. Monsanto found itself banking its future on its new herbicide glyphosate. As we recently discovered, enormous amounts of research, analysis and hundreds of trials were conducted to learn as much as possible about the compound’s bioactivity in mammals and its potential health risks. All of this research data, studies and reports were subsequently sealed as trade secrets upon submission to the EPA. For over thirty years it has sat in the EPA vaults.

Monsanto has yet to be caught and charged for falsifying scientific data on glyphosate. However on earlier occasions two laboratories Monsanto outsourced research to were caught and indicted. In 1978, the EPA busted Industrial Biotest Laboratories for rigging laboratory results; the company’s executives were found guilty for submitting fabricated data supporting glyphosate positively to the government. In 1991, another firm, Craven Labs, was found guilty on similar charges with 20 felony counts.[11]

To this day, Monsanto continues to assert that Roundup is environmentally friendly. We are told it biodegrades rapidly and therefore poses no long-term risks after repeated usage. We are told that the herbicide is ideal for weed control. Throughout the US, it is liberally sprayed on our public parks, school playgrounds, sporting fields, and throughout our lawns and gardens. We are told it doesn’t bio-accumulate in the body’s cells and tissues and is excreted rapidly. We are also told that glyphosate toxicity is dose specific. Only exceedingly high levels of the pesticide pose any serious health risks.[12]

How factual are these claims or are they mere propaganda to obscure scientific truths far more deceptive and sinister? To answer that we would have to know for certain whether or not Monsanto conducted long-term studies on glyphosate that revealed devastating toxic effects on mammal health. We would need evidence that their own data clearly negates their scientific declarations, and that the company intentionally, and with forethought, either distorted or concealed data from federal regulatory officials and the public.

There is now an enormous cache of evidence on both scientific and legal grounds that Monsanto in fact conducted numerous studies in the 1970s and 1980s on glyphosate’s toxicity and health risks and intentionally sealed this research from independent and public review and scrutiny. As with Big Tobacco’s proprietary claims that prevented the FDA from publicly warning Americans about the dangers of smoking, the EPA has sat on Monsanto’s own deleterious data for decades.

Anthony Samsel is an independent research scientist working internationally in the interest of public health and the environment. He is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a former scientist and consultant at Arthur D. Little, one of the world’s leading management consulting firms. Now retired, Samsel has devoted much of his independent research on Roundup’s toxicological characteristics and bioactivity. Unable to gain access to research reports and data Monsanto submitted to the EPA through FOIAs, he turned to his senator’s office, who assisted in the procurement of studies and reports he sought. Months later he received a hoard of scientific documents, over 15,000 pages worth, covering Monsanto’s complete glyphosate research.

With his co-investigator Dr. Stephanie Seneff at MIT the two have been reviewing Monsanto’s data. Their conclusion is Monsanto’s claims about glyphosate’s safety are patently false. The company has known for almost four decades that glyphosate is responsible for a large variety of cancers and organ failures. Clearly it was for this reason that Monsanto demanded the data and reports to be sealed and hidden from public scrutiny as proprietary trade secrets.

During an exclusive interview on the Progressive Radio Network on September 4, Samsel stated that Monsanto used an industry trick to dismiss evidence about glyphosate’s risks in its own research. “Monsanto misrepresented the data,” says Samsel, “and deliberately covered up data to bring the product [glyphosate] to market.”[13]

In order to minimize and cancel out its adverse findings, Samsel explained that Monsanto had relied upon earlier historical animal control data, toxicological research with lab animals afflicted with cancer and organ failures, and completely unrelated to glyphosate. In some cases the control animals displayed kidney, liver and pancreatic diseases. Many of Monsanto’s own studies required the inclusion of extraneous studies in order to cancel out damaging results. This is not an uncommon industry habit, particularly in toxicological science. It enables corporations to mask undesirable outcomes and make claims that observable illnesses and disease are spontaneous occurrences without known causal factors. Frequently, Monsanto would have to rely on three external control studies to negate the adverse effects of a single one of its own. Samsel found other incidences in Monsanto’s data where 5, 7 and in one case 11 unrelated studies were necessary to diminish the severity of its own findings. In effect, glyphosate received licensure based upon a platform of junk tobacco science. By ignoring cause and effect relationships behind the onset of multiple cancers and other life-threatening diseases throughout many of its research trials, Monsanto engaged in a radical scientific denialism that has since raked in tens of billions of dollars.

But the cache of Monsanto documents, after Samsel’s and Seneff’s review, reveals much more that we should be worried about.

In addition, Monsanto’s studies included doses from low to high range. Samsel observed that low glyphosate doses were equally if not more toxic than higher doses. The company later discontinued low dose trials, relying only on higher levels because it is customarily assumed to have greater toxicological risks. Samsel’s observation has recently been confirmed by a study published in the August issue of the Environmental Health Journal by scientists at Kings College London and the University of Caen in France. The two year study found that glyphosate administered at an ultra low dose of 0.1 ppb (the EU’s safety limit) in drinking water altered over 4000 gene clusters in the livers and kidneys of rats. These alterations, the study reports, “were consistent with fibrosis, necrosis, phospholipidosis, mitochondria membrane dysfunction and ischemia.”[14] Consequently low doses of Roundup are far more toxic than US EPA limits.

During its years investigating glyphosate’s bioactivity, Monsanto conducted hundreds of trials on mice, rats, beagle dogs, rabbits and other life. Among the many cancers and diseases Monsanto’s own research found associated with glyphosate are:

Adenoma cancer in the pituitary gland
Glioma tumors in the brain
Reticular cell sarcomas in the heart
Malignant tumors in the lungs
Salivary mandibular reticular cell carcinoma
Metastatic sarcomas of the lymph gland
Prostate carcinoma
Cancer of the bladder
Thyroid carcinoma
Adrenal reticulum cell sarcomas
Cortical adenomas
Basal cell squamous skin tumors
In female mammals there were cancers of the lung, liver, thymus, stomach, bladder adrenal glands, ovaries, colon, uterus, parathyroid and mammary glands.

Samsel and Seneff also noticed that Monsanto had conducted many long-term studies, as much as two years, on mice and rats. When Gilles-Eric Seralini and his French team reproduced and extended the length of Monsanto’s 3-month GMO maize rat-fed study for the life of the animals, they observed profuse cancer and tumor development started after the 4th month of the study. Monsanto continues to stand by its 3-month study as sufficient proof of GM maize’s safety. Yet the thoroughness and variety of Monsanto’s research operations should give strong reason to suspect that Monsanto has likewise conducted long term studies and knows all too well the deleterious effects of its pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified crops.

One of Monsanto’s claims is that glyphosate doesn’t bio-accumulate in tissues, rapidly bio-degrades and is excreted from the body readily. Contrary to this claim, Monsanto carried out meticulous studies to determine levels of accumulation and the organs, tissues and cells glyphosate reaches. Glyphosate was radio labeled with carbon 14 and given in 10 mg doses to seven groups of animals, male and female. After only 24 hours, the toxic chemical was found in the lungs and all body fluids: lymph, blood, urine and cerebral spinal fluid. Glyphosate also accumulated in the bone by 30 ppm and in the bone marrow by 4 ppm. Monsanto’s studies were comprehensive. It found an accumulation of the chemical in red cells, thyroid, uterus, colon, testes and ovaries, shoulder muscle, nasal mucosa, heart, lung, small intestine, abdominal muscle and the eyes.

Samsel and Seneff noted that the bioaccumuilation in the pancreas was not reported. Why would such meticulous efforts be made to measure radio labeled carbon 14 laced glyphosate levels in all the other organs, tissues and bodily fluids and then ignore the pancreas? The scientists believe this was deliberate.
Samsel notes that glyphosate does a “particular number on the lungs.” According to a 2014 report by the National Cancer Institute, lung cancer rates have been declining. The decline is largely due to the national decrease in smoking. However, other lung cancers such as adenocarcinomas are on the rise. The NCI is unable to account for this anomaly.[15] Yet the Institute is not considering that Americans are increasingly being exposed to glyphosate in their food, water and environment?

During the PRN interview, Dr. Seneff stated that the pancreas may be driving glyphosate to gather in the lungs. The pancreas is responsible for the release of the enzyme trypsin. which in turn infiltrates the lungs. A study published by Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Santa Maria in the medical journal Ciencia Rural measured glyphosate’s reactivity with digestive enzymes including trypsin. Trypsin activity was found to increase in parallel to higher glyphosate concentrations.[16] Seneff suggests that this may be contributing to the increase of glyphosate in the lungs that is contributing to the dramatic rise in COPD and asthma conditions, as well as lung cancers.

The occurrence of cataracts is rising rapidly, particularly in Mid-Western states such as ND, SD, NB, IA, KS, and MO. According to Prevent Blindness America’s statistics, 17% of adults over 40 years have cataract problems. The NIH projects the rate will reach nearly 40% by 2030.[17] Monsanto’s study showing glyphosate activity in the eye may be contributing to this epidemic. Dr. Seneff stated that the eye’s exposure to sunlight reacts with glyphosate residue thereby potentially making the chemical more toxic. Farmers often apply glyphosate on crops when it is warm, moist and when there is plenty of sunlight in order for the chemical to activate more effectively. These are similar conditions to our eyes during the day.

Monsanto’s research was not limited solely to the Roundup compound. It also performed extensive research on glyphosate’s individual metabolites, the intermediate molecules that result after Roundup’s breakdown through metabolic reactions. Many of these metabolites are every bit as toxic as glyphosate. All the glyphosate metabolites in solutions fed to rats were measured before and after feeding. One of Samsel’s more disturbing discoveries was that levels of the metabolite N-Nitrosoglyphosate (NNG) were found in higher concentrations in the rats’ feces and urine excretions than the original amount in the feeding solutions. NNG is a known carcinogen and endocrine disruptor. Samsel postulates that our own body’s natural nitrous acid reacts immediately with glyphosate, without requiring a catalyst, to produce NNG. Both the EPA and the World Health Organization acknowledge that NNG is present in glyphosate during the manufacturing process. The agencies therefore have established safety limits for NNG. However, for any endocrine disruptor, there is no realistic safety limit because such chemical disruptors destroy cells on a molecule to molecule basis.

Nitrous acid naturally occurs in the colon, urinary tract and skin tissue. According to the CDC, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the US, and affects more men than women. The Skin Cancer Foundation estimates that “each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and colon.”[18,19] Basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas are the two most common forms, both which have been identified by Monsanto with glyphosate exposure, particularly in males. When glyphosate reacts in the skin along with nitrous acid the metabolites NNG contributes to skin melanomas. Other chemicals are added to Monsanto’s Roundup to increase its effectiveness such as the surfactant POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine), which also increases its toxicity.

We don’t pay enough attention to these other ingredients, Samsel states, because the EPA permits Monsanto to add anything it wants to enhance Roundup’s potency while identifying these substances innocuously as “inert.” When Monsanto convinces the public that glyphosate breaks down quickly, we are not told that the compound’s metabolic byproducts are equally toxic.

Therefore Anthony Samsel’s unprecedented discovery and review of Monsanto’s actual scientific and toxicological data of Roundup has provided us with information that warrants a thoughtful pause. Samsel and Seneff cover the subject in more detail in a new peer-reviewed paper titled “Glyphosate Pathways to Modern Diseases IV: Cancer and Related Pathologies.” The paper has been approved for publication in October.

During recent years dozens of states are submitting bills to label GMO foods. These food crops are heavily laced with glyphosate residue. Not only GM crops, but even non-GM produce are sprayed with Roundup. According to the Organic Consumers Association, non-organic and non-GM foods such as wheat, barley, oats, flax, peas, lentils, beans and sugar cane are also being sold to farmers “as a dessicant, to dry out all their crops so they could harvest them faster.”[20] Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Grocery Manufacturers of America and other agro-chemical companies are aggressively combating labeling efforts. The Big Ag lobby is today pushing for a national bill to prevent GMO labeling that would supersede individual state’s rights. We can only wonder what the voting outcome in California, Colorado, Washington and Oregon may have been had Monsanto’s own research been made available to the media and public. Is it therefore not time for full Congressional hearings to learn the truth once for all and make the disclosure of Monsanto’s Roundup research public for all?
Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Seeds of Death about GMOs and Poverty Inc. More at the Progressive Radio Network

Notes:

[1] Daniel Cressey. “Widely Used Herbicide Linked to Cancer” Nature. March 25, 2015
[2] RT (Russian TV). “California EPA mulls labeling Monsanto’s Roundup as being ‘known to cause cancer” September 6, 2015https://www.rt.com/usa/314544-california-epa-glyphosate-carcinogenic/
[3] Alexis Baden-Mayer, “Monsanto’s Roundup. Enough to Make You Sick” Organic Consumers Association. January 21, 2015
[4] Mary Ellen Kustin. “Glyphosate Is Spreading Like a Cancer Across the U.S.” Environmental Working Group. April 7, 2015
[5] Jack Kaskey, “Monsanto Raises Forecast as Profits Tops Estimates on Corn” Bloomberg Business, April 3, 2013.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-03/monsanto-raises-forecast-as-profit-tops-estimates-on-corn-seed
[6] Alexis Baden-Mayer, op.cit.
[7] Environmental Protection Agency “Glyphosate Fact Sheet”http://www.epa.gov/safewater/pdfs/factsheets/soc/tech/glyphosa.pdf
[8] Environmental Protection Agency. “Basic Information about Glyphosate in Drinking Water”
[9]Zen Honeycutt, Henry Rowlands, Lori Grace. “Glyphosate Testing Full Report: Findings in American Mothers’ Breast Milk, Urine and Water,” Moms Across America. April 7, 2015 http://www.momsacrossamerica.com/glyphosate_testing_results
[10] “Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement,” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement
[11] “Monsanto Timeline of Crime 1901-2014” Children of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance. February 16, 2015.http://covvha.net/monsanto-1901-2014-timeline/
[12] EPA, “Glyphosate Fact Sheet” op cit.
[13] Interview with Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. Gary Null Show, Progressive Radio Network. Broadcast on September 4, 2015. http://prn.fm/the-gary-null-show-09-04-15/
[14] Mesnage R, Arno M, Costanzo M, Seralini G-E, Antoniou M., “Transcriptome profile analysis reflects rat liver and kidney damage following chronic ultra-low dose Roundup exposure” Environmental Health 2015, 14:70 doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0056-1
[15] “Lung Cancer Fact Sheet.” American Lung Association. http://www.lung.org/lung-disease/lung-cancer/resources/facts-figures/lung-cancer-fact-sheet.html
[16] Salbero I, Pretto A, Machado da Silva V, Loro V, Lazzari R, Baldisserotto B. “Glyposate on digestive enzymes activity in piava (Leporinus obtusidens). Cencia Rural Vol. 44 no. 9. September 2014.
[17] “Vision Problems in the US,” Prevent Blindness America. http://www.visionproblemsus.org/cataract/cataract-map.html
[18] Skin Cancer Foundation. “Skin Cancer Facts.” http://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/skin-cancer-facts
[19] “Skin Cancer Statistics,” Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/statistics/
[20] Alexis Baden-Mayer, op cit.

Hidden Superchain of Volcanoes Discovered in Australia

 Scientists recently realized that separate chains of volcanic activity in Australia were actually caused by a single hotsput lurking under the Earth's lithosphere. The new superchain, called the Cosgrove Volcanic Track, spans 1,240 miles (2,000


Piece by piece, we are putting together the big geological picture and there is nothing more important that a plume to alter global geology.

That plume likely still exists and is now deep in the ocean awaiting discovery.   We certainly have discovered such hot spots that never break sea level.


This should also lead to more mineral discoveries as well as a larger effective model often does.  It will certainly eliminate a lot of poor prospects as well.
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Hidden Superchain of Volcanoes Discovered in Australia


Scientists have just found the world's longest chain of volcanoes on a continent, hiding in plain sight.
The newly discovered Australian volcano chain isn't a complete surprise, though: Geologists have long known of small, separate chains of volcanic activity on the island continent. However, new research reveals a hidden hotspot once churned beneath regions with no signs of surface volcanism, connecting these separate strings of volcanoes into one megachain.

That 1,240-mile-long (2,000 kilometers) chain of fire spanned most of eastern Australia, from Hillsborough in the north, where rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef, to the island of Tasmania in the south.

"The track is nearly three times the length of the famous Yellowstone hotspot track on the North American continent," Rhodri Davies, an earth scientist at Australian National University, said in a statement

String of volcanoes

Scientists had long known that four separate tracks of past volcanic activity fringed the eastern portion of Australia, with each showing distinctive signs of past volcanic activity, from vast lava fields to fields awash in a volcanic mineral called leucitite that's dark gray to black in color. Some of these regions were separated by hundreds of miles, leading geologists to think the areas weren't connected.

But Davies and his colleagues suspected that the Australian volcanism had a common source: a mantle plume that melted the crust as the Australian plate inched northward over millions of years. (Whereas many volcanoes form at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where hot magma seeps up through fissures in the Earth, others form when mantle plumes, or hot jets of magma, at the boundary between the mantle and Earth's core reach the surface.)

To bolster their hypothesis, Davis and his colleagues used the fraction of radioactive argon isotopes (versions of argon with different atomic weights) to estimate when volcanic activity first appeared in each of these regions. They combined this data with past work showing how the Australian plate had moved over the millennia. From this information, they could estimate where and when volcanism affected certain regions.

The team found that the same hotspot, likely from a mantle plume, was responsible for all of the volcanic activity crossing eastern Australia. The new volcanic chain, which the team dubbed the Cosgrove volcanic track, was formed between 9 million and 33 million years ago. (None of the volcanoes on Australia's mainland have been active during the recen past.)

However, there are large gaps in volcanic activity on the surface of this track. To understand why, the team modeled the thickness of the lithosphere, the stiff layer that forms the upper mantle and Earth's crust.

Plate thickness and melt

It turned out that, at certain spots along the Australian tectonic plate, the lithosphere was so thick that the mantle plume couldn't permeate all the way through to create melting the showed up at Earth's surface. However, at other points, the lithosphere was just barely thin enough to show the tiniest hints of magma at the surface. One of these spots is a region of northern New South Wales rich in leucitite, which contains high concentrations of potassium, thorium and uranium. Surface volcanism appeared only when the lithosphere was less than 81 miles (130 km) thick, the researchers reported today (Sept. 14) in the journal Nature.

The new finds could help scientists model how mantle plumes interact with the continental crust to create volcanism.

"Now that we know there is a direct relationship between the volume and chemical composition of magma and the thickness of the continent, we can go back and interpret the geological record better," study co-author Ian Campbell, also an earth scientist at Australian National University, said in the statement.

The History of Chemtrails:




 I have been avoiding this particular topic for a long time mostly because the only sources were long on conspiracy and short on science.  So let us take a run at it with this very useful report.


What is central however is that all that fuel gets burned mostly at a high elevation into generally non turbulent air allowing a wide dispersion before interacting with the cloud cover.   Wheras gasoline interacts at ground level and has vegetation to assist in cleaning it up all that jet fuel combustion products does mix into the cloud cover to produce high level smog.


What this report  brings home is that the problem is not trivial.  Those contrails do matter.  This also makes them a great medium to introduce chemical agents into the atmosphere as has been claimed by a number of folks.  So did they really do something without public oversight?


I do not know the truth but i do know that we are clearly producing a high level smog at the least.  that may be sufficient to explain climate change in the USA.
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The History of Chemtrails: How to Geoengineer a Planet with Jet Fuel 
 
Posted: 13 Sep 2015 07:01 AM PDT

The History of Chemtrails: 

How to Geoengineer a Planet with Jet Fuel 


A Tale of Soot, Sulfur, Dirty Lies, and Shady Clouds

http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-history-of-chemtrails-how-to.html

The Chemtrail Conspiracy as explained by Wikipedia (which is the most trustworthy spot on teh internetz, ya know):

According to the chemtrail conspiracy theory, long-lasting trails left in the sky by high-flying aircraft are chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed for sinister purposes undisclosed to the general public.

There-in lies the Straw-man, attribution of intentional harmful actions to jet-made clouds.

The term chemtrail is a portmanteau of the words “chemical” and “trail,” just as contrail is a contraction of “condensation trail.” Believers in the conspiracy theory speculate that the purpose of the claimed chemical release may be for solar radiation management, psychological manipulation, human population control, weather modification, or biological or chemical warfare, and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems. Contrails are formed at high altitudes (5–10 miles or 8–16 kilometers) and if any chemicals were released at such altitude they would disperse harmlessly and fall many hundreds of miles/kilometers away, or degrade before touching the ground.

All the evidence states clearly that chemtrails, or contrails, are not a depopulation scheme. Although 10,000 deaths are directly attributed to jet exhaust each year, global population has steadily risen since the first jet flights and ever since. Each year diarrhea kills around 760,000 children under five, just saying.

What if we removed the “intent” Straw-man and take a discerning look at the facts about these unique jet-made clouds?





On the Wikipedia article there is a section titled “Contrails as chemtrails” but no mention or link to the much lengthier “Environmental Impact of Aviation” page. Furthermore, if you image search the term “chemtrails” do you know what you get? Pictures of contrails, big ugly contrails. The only difference is the word you choose to call these clouds, so let’s explore our options:

Chemtrails
Contrails
Persistent Contrails
Contrail Cirrus
Aviation Induced Cloudiness (AIC)
Aviation Induced Cirrus
Induced Cirrus Cloudiness
Jet produced cloud cover
Artificial Cloud
Global Dimming? 

So many terms, so little time.

If chemtrails are contrails, and contrails are chemtrails, is this all some sort of semantic ninjitsu

The answer is Yes.

Here is the real conspiracy: Contrails are really screwing up the atmosphere, trapping heat, possibly exacerbating drought conditions under high traffic corridors, and the “aviation industry” does not want you, or anyone else, to know the facts. Even worse, by 2050 ground-based astronomy may be a thing of the past due to jet produced cloud cover, and that may be the tip of a very big iceberg. What will Solar Energy do to combat these clouded skies?

Here is a timeline that will open your eyes to the real Contrail Conundrum, the circumvention of international law and regulation to geoengineer our skies using contrails and sulfur-doped fuels, and the hell we will pay if the plans to use biofuels and Pepto-bismol for Contrail-Control come to pass.

The truth is scarier than fiction.

I will be presenting this information to the EPA at a hearing August 11, 2015

The Shady History of Jet Trails

THOSE WHO FORGET THE PAST ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!

This extensive list will open your eyes to all things that shall not be mentioned by chemtrail believer nor debunker, nonetheless, these are facts:

April 6, 1948
First airliner with full jet power flown
July 27, 1949
First purpose-built jet airliner takes flight
December 6, 1958

“As you know our entire economy is dependent upon tourist trade, which is predicated on our bright sunshine and warm climate.

Recently our sky has resembled a mob of exuberant sky riders performing an aerial circus.

The ‘contrails’ are breaking down into a haze and creating a cloud-like appearance in the sky.

The Air Force, so far, is flabbergasted.”





December 1968


Jets Increase Clouds

Reid A. Bryson said that jet aircraft contrails were one of the more recent types of cirrus clouds, which are comprised of ice crystals at high altitude.

Where jets are operating today, cirrus clouds have increased by 5% to 10%, Bryson said.

He estimated that if the day came when 300 supersonic transports were in the air at one time, the region of operation of most SST’s “might easily be 100% covered with cirrus clouds.”

The net effect of this would be further to reduce the heating of the earth, and blue skies might become a rarity.


January 1970



Illinois and New Jersey officials will not settle pollution suits against the nation’s major airlines out of court, despite Tuesday’s agreement between the airlines and the federal government to lean up the jet aircraft exhaust.

Representatives of 31 major domestic airlines agreed to install “burner cans” to eliminate most of the smoke from their nearly 1,000 aircraft by 1972.


The government will tell the nation’s 43 commercial airlines Tuesday that they must end pollution of the skies with jet engine smoke by 1972 or face punitive legislation from Congress.

Mainly at issue is the installation of a redesigned combuster – or burner can – on 3,000 existing commercial jet engines of one maker that reportedly account for 70 percent of all smoke pollution from airliners.

 


October 1970



“likely contrails are affecting precipitation to a much greater extent than are present deliberate seeding operations.”


September 1971


A jet air plane in one landing and takeoff drenches the environment with as much soot as 2,500 automobiles produce in a entire day… soot, gases of carbon monoxide, aldehydes (irritants in smog), hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides. 10,000 tons of particulate matter (three airports)


September 1972

 
There will be a marked aesthetic improvement, since the so-called burner cans cut out something like 70 percent of the visible pollution and thus the familiar “black belch” will be seen no more.


July 1974


“Growing global population pressures and predicted future food shortages dictate that man fully explore his potential use of solar energy. … Interest is concentrated on the feasibility of mesoscale (~ 100-300 km) weather modification through solar energy absorption by carbon aerosol particles of the size ~ 0.1 µm [micrometer, 100 nanometer] or less”



December 1980

Roger O’Neil, NBC News, Champaign, Illinois. Aired on 12/30/1980.


JOHN CHANCELLOR, anchor:

On clear days, you can often see long white lines being traced high in the sky. They are contrails of jet aircraft. They’re actually long, slender clouds. Other men are finding them especially fascinating because the theory is being developed that those long, white lines may be changing our weather for the better. Details from Roger O’Neil.

ROGER O’NEIL, reporting:

The exhaust from jet engines, usually seen as long, thin trails of white clouds behind high-flying jet airplanes, may be a big reason why there are 30 fewer days of sunshine a year in the Midwest now than there were in 1900. The daily range between high and low temperatures has also narrowed. Weather researchers, studying cloud cover in 10 Midwestern states, found a sharp increase in cloudiness with the increase in commercial jet travel, particularly in the main East-West jet corridor, there were even more clouds. A jet produces a contrail or cloud because its exhaust consists primarily of water vapor.

RICHARD SEMONIN (Illinois Institute of Natural Resources): In the absence of natural clouds, given the correct atmospheric condition, jet aircraft in high frequency can almost completely cover the atmosphere, visible atmosphere, with clouds.

O’NEIL: Semonin says, unlike most changes in the atmosphere caused by man, this one is beneficial. Clouds help farmers in the Midwest by blocking the sun. Temperature extremes can damage plants and speed up the evaporation of soil moisture. In the Winter, city people benefit because clouds act as a blanket, preventing warm air from escaping into the atmosphere. No one is trying to make clouds now using jet engines, but this study suggests that jet travel is inadvertently making our days more cloudy and some day, weather researchers may be able to use jets on purpose to change our weather.
September 1982



1987-1993

International Cirrus Experiment,

Participants: France, Germany, United Kingdom


April 1990
Hughes Aircraft Company suggests Geoengineering jet fuel.

The particles may be seeded by dispersal from seeding aircraft; one exemplary technique may be via the jet fuel as suggested by prior work regarding the metallic particles. Once the tiny particles have been dispersed into the atmosphere, the particles may remain in suspension for up to one year.
1994-1999

Fuel sulfur content tested as a source of contrail production.



April – May, 1996


The SUCCESS project was conducted from the Kansas State University airport facilities in Salina, Kansas from April 8, 1996 until May 10, 1996, with an extension from May 10 until May 15, 1996 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Ca. SUCCESS had several objectives:

to better determine the radiative properties of cirrus clouds and of contrails so that satellite observations can more reliably measure their impact on the Earth’s radiation budget.
to determine how cirrus clouds form, whether the exhaust from subsonic aircraft presently affects the formation of cirrus clouds, and if the exhaust does affect the clouds whether the changes induced are of climatological significance. 

to develop and test several new instruments. 

to better determine the characteristics of gaseous and particulate exhaust products from subsonic aircraft and their evolution in the region near the aircraft 




1996


August 1997

Geoengineering SRM proposed by Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, Roderick Hyde at Lawrence Livermoore National Labs

“It may well be feasible to transport and disperse enough SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide or SO3 or H2SO4) into the stratosphere to produce the desired insolation modulation effect”
March 1998

August 1999

Geoengineering Models by Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, Roderick Hyde, Ken Caldeira
November 2000

September 11, 2001

All planes grounded for three days due to terrorist attack. Contrails seen on satellite from six fighter jets cover more than 11,000 square miles. From The Contrail Effect:

At least that was the case until September 11, 2001. For the first time since the jet age began, virtually all aircraft were grounded over the United States for three days. Even as they tried like the rest of us to absorb the enormity of the terrorist attacks, climatologists realized they had an unprecedented opportunity to scrutinize individual contrails, and several studies were quickly launched.

One study looked at the aforementioned contrails that grew to cover 7,700 square miles. Those condensation trails arose in the wake of six military aircraft flying between Virginia and Pennsylvania on September 12, 2001. From those isolated contrails, unmixed as they were with the usual dozens of others, Patrick Minnis, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Langely Research Center, and his colleagues were able to gain valuable insight into how a single contrail forms. Those once-in-a-lifetime data sets are so useful that Minnis is about to analyze them again in an expanded study.

Another study that took advantage of the grounding gave striking evidence of what contrails can do. David Travis of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and two colleagues measured the difference, over those three contrail-free days, between the highest daytime temperature and the lowest nighttime temperature across the continental U.S. They compared those data with the average range in day-night temperatures for the period 1971-2000, again across the contiguous 48 states. Travis’s team discovered that from roughly midday September 11 to midday September 14, the days had become warmer and the nights cooler, with the overall range greater by about two degrees Fahrenheit.

These results suggest that contrails can suppress both daytime highs (by reflecting sunlight back to space) and nighttime lows (by trapping radiated heat). That is, they can be both cooling and warming clouds. But what is the net effect? Do they cool more than they warm, or vice versa? “Well, the assumption is a net warming,” Travis says, “but there is a lot of argument still going on about how much of a warming effect they produce.”


July 2004


July 2006



CBS News, Aired July 29, 2006 2:19 PM

Contrails are lines of exhaust left by planes. It can be fun to watch them as they crisscross the sky. But as Anthony Mason reports, some people think they could spell trouble for the planet.

New research suggests that jet exhaust is four times better at trapping heat than ground emissions with contrails playing a critical role. Contrails form at high altitudes when hot jet engines pass through cold moist air. The clouds spread out trapping heat rising from the surface.

August 2006

Stratospheric sulfur injection to reflect sunlight



2007

George W. Bush mandates “Greenwashing” of the fossil fuel industry and the future of jet fuel gets real weird, chicken fat weird.

1. Greenwashing (a compound word modelled on “whitewash”), or “green sheen,” is a form of spin in which green PR or green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an organization’s products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly.


Research Presentation: Biodiesel from Biodiesel
February 2007
2008
93’000 flights per day, watch this mind blowing animation!
This animation shows all scheduled flights over a 24h period (based on 2008 data). Every day 93’000 flights are starting from approx. 9’000 airports. At all time there are between 8’000 and 13’000 airplanes in the air. This animation was produced to be shown on the high definition 3D-Globe “Orbitarium” in Technorama – The Swiss Science Center in collaboration with Institute of Applied Information Technology InIT, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur.
February 2008


Collaborative Research: On Hurricane Modification by Carbon Black Dispersion: Methods, Risk Mitigation, and Risk Communication – Dr. Moshe Alamaro

This presentation focused on the use of carbon black aerosol (CBA) to selectively heat parts of the atmosphere by dispersion of CBA above a hurricane. This scenario is motivated by the fact that the energy cycle of a hurricane may be represented as a Carnot heat engine, and reducing the contrast between “hot and cold reservoirs” should reduce the power of a hurricane and the CBA will absorb incident solar radiation to warm the “cold reservoir.” Objectives of this study are to demonstrate direct control of the intensity or track of simulated hurricanes; to quantify amounts of CBA needed; to enhance understanding of the web of physical processes that power hurricanes in relation to the overall thermodynamics of hurricanes; to determine optimal dispersion scenarios; to enhance understanding of the radiative and flow properties of CBA; to establish causes, effects, and outcomes of CBA dispersion; and to develop methods to communicate risk to the public of large-scale weather modification efforts. To accomplish all this we will employ a diverse set of tools and methods, including a high-resolution mesoscale numerical weather prediction model to simulate hurricanes and the effect of adding CBA; engineering tools to develop manufacturing, transport, and dispersion strategies; and both semi-structured interviews and structured surveys to capture expert information and lay public perceptions.

April 21, 2008


Use of commuter aircraft with their jet fuels doped with aerosol generators is another possibility. Also the use of UAVs or blimps for aerosol dispersal could be considered. Potential adverse consequences, however, are likely including impacts on precipitation, local cold temperature extremes (which would also impact fossil fuel demands) and the hydrological cycle. …

3.4 Seeding cirrus clouds or making more contrails

On an annual average clouds cover between 55 to 60% of the earth (Matveev 1984) and much of that cloud cover consists of middle and high clouds. It is thought that globally cirrus clouds contribute to warming of the atmosphere owing to their contribution to downward transfer of LW radiation. In other words they are a greenhouse agent. Human activity is already modifying the cirrus clouds through the production of aircraft contrails. Kuhn (1970) found that contrails depleted solar radiation and increased downward LW radiation but during the daytime their shortwave influence dominates and they contribute to a net surface cooling. Kuhn (1970) calculated that if contrails persist over 24h their net effect would be cooling. Others have concluded that they lead to surface warming (Liou et al. 1991; Schumann 1994) but Sassen (1997) notes that the sign of the climatic impact of contrails is dependent upon particle size. Global estimates of the effects of contrails are they contribute to a net warming (Minnis et al. 2004).

It has even been proposed to seed in clear air in the upper troposphere to produce artificial cirrus which would warm the surface enough to reduce cold-season heating demands (Detwiler and Cho 1982). So the prospects for seeding cirrus to contribute to global surface cooling do not seem to be very good.

The only approach that might be feasible is to perform wide-area seeding with soot or carbonaceous aerosols which would absorb solar radiation and warm cirrus layers enough to perhaps dissipate cirrus clouds (a semi-direct effect). This strategy would be similar to that proposed by Watts (1997) and Crutzen (2006) for implementation in the stratosphere. As noted by Crutzen (2006) only 1.7% of the mass of sulfur is needed to produce a similar magnitude of surface cooling. Application at cirrus levels in the upper troposphere would have the double benefit of absorbing solar radiation thus contributing to surface cooling and dissipating cirrus clouds which would increase outgoing longwave radiation. Of course, the soot that becomes attached to ice crystals will reduce the albedo of cirrus thus countering the longwave warming effect to some degree. In addition, there is evidence that soot particles can act as ice nuclei, thus contributing to greater concentrations of ice crystals by heterogeneous nucleation but possibly reduced crystal production by homogeneous nucleation (DeMott et al. 1994; Kärcher et al. 2007). Thus it would be best to engineer carbonaceous aerosol to be ineffective as IN.

The possible adverse consequences of such a procedure can only be conjectured at this time but are mostly likely to impact the hydrological cycle. Complex chemical, cloud-resolving, and global models are required to evaluate the feasibility of this approach and to estimate possible adverse consequences. The feasibility of this approach in terms of implementation strategies is probably comparable to seeding sulfates in the lower stratosphere. The costs would be similar to Crutzen’s estimates for stratospheric seeding.

April 1, 2009


“dissolved or suspended in their jet fuel and later burned with the fuel to create seeding aerosol, or (2) injected into the hot engine exhaust, which should vaporize the seeding material, allowing it to condense as aerosol in the jet contrail”

Greenhouse gases and cirrus clouds regulate outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and cirrus cloud coverage is predicted to be sensitive to the ice fall speed which depends on ice crystal size. The higher the cirrus, the greater their impact is on OLR. Thus by changing ice crystal size in the coldest cirrus, OLR and climate might be modified. Fortunately the coldest cirrus have the highest ice supersaturation due to the dominance of homogeneous freezing nucleation. Seeding such cirrus with very efficient heterogeneous ice nuclei should produce larger ice crystals due to vapor competition effects, thus increasing OLR and surface cooling. Preliminary estimates of this global net cloud forcing are more negative than −2.8Wm−2 and could neutralize the radiative forcing due to a CO2 doubling (3.7Wm−2). A potential delivery mechanism for the seeding material is already in place: the airline industry. Since seeding aerosol residence times in the troposphere are relatively short, the climate might return to its normal state within months after stopping the geoengineering experiment. The main known drawback to this approach is that it would not stop ocean acidification. It does not have many of the drawbacks that stratospheric injection of sulfur species has.

April 7, 2009

IPCC Radiative Forcing estimates do not account for contrails that have fanned out, turning into cirrus clouds. Epic research paper points out the obvious.


AIC [aviation induced cloudiness] RFs for all the 2020 forecast and 2050 scenarios were scaled by fuel usage from the 2005 AIC RF value but are not included in the RF totals presented here. The methods by which the 2050 RFs have been calculated are simplified, particularly for O3, CH4 and contrail impacts. As such, the results presented here are indicative and should be followed up with a larger-scale international multimodel effort. In the case of AIC, we highlight that no process-based model has yet been presented in the literature and there is an urgent need for such modelling.

March 2009


COntrails Spreading Into Cirrus (COSIC) aims to quantify the climate role of line shaped contrails caused by air-traffic that you often see in the sky. In particular, we aim to understand how they can sometimes spread into larger cloud decks. Such spreading contrails could add significantly to the CO2-driven climate impacts of aviation, but estimates of their effect are very uncertain.

COSIC has made direct measurements of spreading contrail using dedicated flights over the UK with the BAe-146-301 large Atmospheric Research Aircraft. These measurements are now being used to incorporate spreading contrails into models of climate change. COSIC also aims to understand various stakeholder needs for aviation-climate science and communicate science results in the most appropriate way to the industry, policy makers and the public.

COSIC is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) sponsored project led by the University of Leeds, collaborating with the Universities of Manchester and Reading, the UK Met Office, the Facility For Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) and the Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, DLR, Germany.


The radiative forcing due to a distinct pattern of persistent contrails that form into contrail-induced cirrus near and over the UK is investigated in detail for a single case study during March 2009. The development of the contrail-induced cirrus is tracked using a number of high-resolution polar orbiting and lower-resolution geostationary satellite instruments and is found to persist for a period of around 18 h, and at its peak, it covers over 50,000 km2. The shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiative forcing of the contrail-induced cirrus is estimated using a combination of geostationary satellite instruments, numerical weather prediction models, and surface observation sites. As expected, the net radiative effect is a relatively small residual of the much stronger but opposing SW and LW effects, locally totaling around 10 W m−2 during daylight hours and 30 W m−2 during nighttime. A simple estimate indicates that this single localized event may have generated a global-mean radiative forcing of around 7% of recent estimates of the persistent contrail radiative forcing due to the entire global aircraft fleet on a diurnally averaged basis. A single aircraft operating in conditions favorable for persistent contrail formation appears to exert a contrail-induced radiative forcing some 5000 times greater (in W m−2 km−1) than recent e