Spraying Dessicants on Our Forests
So what’s making our forests so tinder dry? Human actions, yes, but not driving too many cars. If you want more confirmation of that theory there’s plenty you can find on the internet and mainstream media. I’m not a climate change denier, I just question the concept that it’s entirely human-generated, as do at least 1,500 scientists now. In fact, from the geological deep time perspective, climate change is a constant on this planet. Instead, I want to explore the off-radar components of our impact on the environment that in all likelihood are the elephant in the room that is typically ignored.
The BC Ministry of Forests has been spraying herbicides such as glyphosate—a known carcinogen and dessicant (drying) agent—on Crown land forests, worsening fire risk. This is done for two reasons, ostensibly, to control “invasive species” and to reduce competition for the cash lumber crops by killing off deciduous trees. This was known for decades in BC forestry as the “Free to Grow” policy. My father while he was working for BC Forest Service in the Ft. Nelson forest district in 1989 had been tasked with carrying out one of the early experiments in the “Free to Grow” policy by using brushing crews to cut out aspen and birch stands. (This was prior to the BCFS introduction of glyphosate to do the same job.) After a year of doing so, he found the health of the forest had deteriorated, that even the remaining fir, pine, spruce and hemlock were in worse, not better health. He terminated the project, landing him in hot water with his employer in Victoria. Renowned forest biologist Suzanne Simard, author of the bestselling Finding the Mother Tree, had her own experiences with “Free to Grow” early in her forestry career. She has proven by her research that this is a counter-productive strategy, that the fungal network in the soil shares nutrients not only between trees of the same species but with other species in a stand as well:
“All but one of the treatments would end up failing to improve conifer growth and, no surprise, native plant diversity was lowered. In the case of birch, killing it improved the growth of some of the first but caused even more to die—the opposite of expectations. When the birch roots had become stressed by the hacking and spraying, they had been unable to resist the Armillaria pathogenic fungus living naturally in the soil. The fungus infected the suffering birch roots and from them spread to the roots of the neighbouring conifers.” —Suzanne Simard [1]
As if this policy wasn’t misguided and harmful enough, the BC government is all in with invasive species treatment, as evident by its draft “Invasive Plant Pest Management Plan for Provincial Public Lands in Southern and Coastal British Columbia,” released January 15, 2024. [2] Too often, such plans rely heavily on herbicide spraying that causes a massive backlash from residents in the proposed treatment area, and for good health and environmental reasons. I recall in 2016 when I was sent to cover a Village of Slocan council meeting at which a presentation was scheduled from the Central Kootenay Invasive Species Society. A local “infestation” of Japanese knotweed had been discovered and they hoped to convince council to let them treat it. Then one member of the public during question period asked the obvious question: With what? In a very soft, almost inaudible voice, the CKISS representative responded: With glyphosate.
Although I’d already read a fair amount about the hazards of this chemical, I got busy with research and put together a package of scientific studies linking glyphosate to a host of cancers. This was well before the famous case won by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on behalf of a California man who was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma after a career of using the chemical for groundskeeping. I submitted my research package to Slocan council and wisely, they declined the offer from CKISS. However, in a Skype interview follow-up I did with CKISS manager Jennifer Vogel, when I asked, point blank, “Given all the data suggesting a link between glyphosate spraying and cancer, would you consider suspending any further use of this chemical?” The point blank answer was: NO. Vogel hedged her bets, however, claiming that “according to the network of the 16,000 experts we consult, the consensus is that (invasive species) are a major driver of diversity loss.” [3] But this is nonsense.
In fact, the whole concept of “invasive species” needs a giant rethink. Just as we found with the “follow the science” media meme for Covid-19 and pandemic measures, in reality often the science is flimsy or non-existent. A report released in 2020 on a conference of biologists whose specialty is invasive species provides no firm scientific basis for ringing alarm bells about invasive species: “Sabrina Kumschick (Stellenbosch University) outlined how our collective understanding of invasive species impacts is limited by a lack of data and by the various types of measures used to evaluate these impacts.” Further, conference paper co-author Julie Lockwood “provided evidence that few ecological studies evaluated impacts for more than one year, most involved measurements taken over short durations, and almost no studies indicated the time since the focal species arrived at the site of research. Lockwood also highlighted other key findings such as pronounced biases in the biological scale (genes to ecosystem) at which invasive species impacts are measured, a highly skewed distribution of species and ecosystems that are regularly investigated, and the need to evaluate both ecological and economic impacts.” [4]
If evidence is this poor at this late date, why have we been proceeding for decades with aggressive chemical and other remedial treatments? Is this how science works—we formulate a theory, launch an action plan, and only then do the research to see if it’s supported by evidence? Despite the infamy of such “invasive species” as zebra and quagga mussels, Argentine ants, and non-native tree species, longer-term studies did not tend to support the theory that they are highly destructive to their new habitats. Yet, as another study paper noted, critics of invasive species theory are labelled “naysayers” or “contrarians,” who are sometimes engaging in “science denialism.” Sound familiar? “Such unfortunate labels can be seen as a way to possibly suppress legitimate debates and dismiss or minimize reasonable concerns about some aspects of invasion biology, including the uncertainties about the geographic origins and complex environmental impacts of species, and the control programs against species perceived as ‘invasive.’” [5] Hmmm… exactly as we saw during the pandemic.
As is so often the case, questions as to motive often resolve with the principle, “follow the money.” We’ve seen how the environmental movement has repeatedly been co-opted by corporate and government interests. Timothy Lee Scott, in his book Invasive Plant Medicine, explains:
“The multinational chemical industry companies BASF, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Bayer, and Syngenta have all provided millions of dollars in grants to assist groups over the years, but in order to receive these funds, these recipient organizations must tout the benefits of herbicides.” [6]
Thus you have the terrible irony of NGOs like the Sierra Club promoting a caustic chemical as a means of “saving ecosystems” from invasive species. The close relationship of NGOs and government to these chemical industries originates at the very beginning of the invasive species eradication movement:
“It was not until Executive Order 13112, signed in 1999 by President Clinton, that billion-dollar funds were allocated to promote widespread appeal and greater influence to ‘rapidly respond’ to ‘an alien species, whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm… The federal Invasive Species Advisory Committee, along with eight working groups, provides information and advice to the council to set up the National Management Plan for invasive species. Surprisingly—or not—the working group for control and management is headed by a Monsanto employee, and a representative on the committee hails from BASF chemical corporation…” —Timothy Lee Scott [7]
According to Scott, when his book was published in 2010, the Sierra Club was paid $500 per person to “take them on invasive plants eradication outings,” though this money doesn’t go to the volunteers. [8] Probably with a Freedom of Information Act request we’d find that most of our Canadian invasive species plant NGOs are similarly funded by the chemical industry.
In fact, the science is not at all clear or unequivocal that “invasive species” cause irreparable harm to an ecosystem. On the contrary, they seem to be Nature’s way of healing the damage we do to the environment, like a fever in the body is used to burn off infection:
“Clearly, there is reason and intention behind the settlement of opportunistic plants in damaged and disturbed ecosystems. …It so happens that at the same time, other less adaptive species, with their niche disrupted, are disappearing because they are unable to filter pollutants as the invading plants can. The opportunistic healing plants are filling in the gaps and softening the edges and wounds of roadways, clearcuts, and developments that humans create.” —Timothy Lee Scott [9]
More recently, a peer-reviewed paper concluded:
“I must address what I believe is a red herring introduced by a philosopher (Sagoff 1999) and two ecologists (Slobodkin 2001; Rosenzwei 2001). This is the notion that current concern with introduced species is focussed on all introduced species and founded on the notion that introduced species are generically ‘bad’ and native species ‘good’. Although some extreme adherents of an aesthetic stance favoring native species doubtless hold such a view, invasion biologists do not, and the many recent government and international activities on introduced species explicitly recognize the enormous benefits of some introduced species. (Simberloff 2003, p. 189) [10]
Scott devotes an entire section in his book to research linking the use of invasive species such as kudzu, Japanese knotweed, purple loosestrife, bindweed and 20 other species to therapeutic health benefits. For instance, Japanese knotweed alone has traditionally been used as a treatment for arthritis, traumatic injury, jaundice, urinary disorders, constipation, menstrual disorders, kidney stones, burns, hemorrhoids, carbuncles, skin infections, snakebite and dental caries. Significantly, it’s “the most important herb of choice for treating Lyme disease,” a condition medical science is unable to cure; it is even capable of killing the Lyme bacteria. [11]
By contrast, even a cursory search of medical databases reveals a large body of scientific literature attesting to the destructive effects of atrazine, glyphosate and other herbicides on human health. Remember that glyphosate originated as a defoliant during the Vietnam War, with both American and Vietnamese soldiers as well as civilians contracting disease as a result of exposure, including Type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Hodgkins disease, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, soft-tissue sarcoma, etc., etc. [12] It’s hard to imagine that exposing an ecosystem to these chemicals doesn’t create a similar litany of problems in wild flora and fauna.
Most important of all in the context of our discussion about the “new” super-hot wildfires: glyphosate and other herbicides, but especially glyphosate, are dessicants—drying agents that are also sprayed on grain crops to facilitate fast and even drying. This isn’t about us driving cars but about authorities and NGOs ignoring an increasing body of evidence that the way we’re managing our forests and “invasive species” is actually one factor in making the now annual firestorms worse, far worse.
2. Look Up—What’s That in the Sky?
And then there’s the giant Elephant in the Room—or should I say Elephant in the Skies: chemtrail spraying. Before you scream, “conspiracy theorist!” I refer you to the huge body of research done on this topic, including Peter A. Kirby’s exhaustively researched, 600-page book Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project. (The author himself highly recommends the revised and updated Second Edition. Video interview link here.) Every chapter is extensively annotated with reliable sources, including actual patent numbers for various forms of apparatus used to retrofit aircraft for geoengineering work. He provides a deep history of the research and development of weather modification starting in 1946 with—yes, some of the same scientists who worked on the development of the atom bomb for the original Manhattan Project. Only a few brave souls in the US military have come out of the closet as whistleblowers. Kirby names two, US Air Force Brigadier General Charles E. Jones III and Air Force Major General Richard H. Roellig:
“When people look up into the blue and see white trails paralleling and criss-crossing high in the sky little do they know that they are not seeing aircraft engine contrails, but… a man-made climate engineering crisis facing all air-breathing humans and animals on planet Earth. These white aircraft spray trails consist of scientifically verifiable spraying of aluminum particles and other toxic heavy metals, polymers and chemical components.” —General Charles E. Jones III [13]
What could possibly be the goal, you ask? It’s out in full view, in the doctrine published by the US military known as “full spectrum dominance,” using weather modification as a “force multiplier,” so that, as General Jones explains, “Toxic atmospheric aerosols (are) used to alter weather patterns, creating droughts in some regions, deluges and floods in other locations and even extreme cold under other conditions.” [14] Or as Kirby himself explains:
“You see, what today’s scientific establishment calls ‘SRM (solar radiation management) engineering’ is actually code for the greatest scientific endeavor in human history. This scientific project involves the dispersion of tiny particles from aircraft, which are then manipulated en masse by electromagnetic energy generated by ground-based antennas as well as satellites. In this way, along with the electromagnetic manipulation of the ionosphere and other techniques, the weather can be comprehensively modified and/or controlled.” —Peter A. Kirby [15]
We’ve had the technique of cloud seeding since the 1930s as a means of creating rain in times of drought, but Kirby makes an important distinction: “It is chiefly this use of electromagnetic energy which distinguishes the New Manhattan Project from conventional weather modification activities.” [16] Until just a few years ago, if you alerted anyone to the presence of the HAARP array (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program) in Alaska, you’d instantly be branded a conspiracy theorist and told no such thing exists. Now, this array—built by the US military—has been turned over to the University of Alaska and has its own website. [17] It is what is known as an ionospheric heater, and Kirby’s book features a map that shows the distribution of these facilities around the globe. He can explain better than I how the combination of chemtrails and ionospheric heaters create weather systems.
Lately universities have become more open in their discussions of geoengineering as a potential remedial technology for climate change, as if it were something new or recent. We were told for years that geoengineering was just a theory, not an actual practice, something dedicated researchers and observers have repeatedly proven false over more than two decades of observation. Indeed, research and development by the US military has been ongoing since 1946, and according to Kirby: “Before he died in 1957, the famous Manhattan Project scientist John von Neumann said that, ‘Intervention in atmospheric and climatic matters on any desired scale’ was only decades away.” President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisor said in a 1968 paper:
“Operations producing such conditions might be carried out covertly, since nature’s great irregularity permits storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes and tidal waves to be viewed as unusual but not unexpected. Such a ‘secret war’ need never be declared or even known by the affected populations. It could go on for years with only the security forces involved being aware of it. The years of drought and storm would be attributed to unkindly nature, and only after a nation was thoroughly drained would an armed takeover be attempted.” —Dr. Gordon J.F. MacDonald [18]
“It could go on for years with only the security forces involved being aware of it.” As indeed it has—except for the minority of highly observant individuals who actually look at the skies consistently. Estimates of how long now vary depending on the researcher, but from my own observations it’s safe to say 25 years minimum. Kirby believes the R&D phase was largely completed by the 1980s, at which point they began building the geoengineering aircraft fleet of unmarked military jet airliners and subcontracting private fleets of smaller planes. (All licensed aircraft by law must be marked with identification numbers on their fuselage. If unmarked, they are military. I’ve lost count of how many white unmarked jets I’ve spotted with binoculars spraying chemtrails over the past 25 years.) A friend recently used an air flight tracker application to show me small aircraft producing extremely odd flight patterns in a grid formation over Williams Lake, BC, as just one of probably thousands of examples daily around the world.
The health implications of the elements in the geoengineering sprays—aluminum, barium, strontium, coal flyash, and even mercury, to name the major culprits found in soil and rainwater samples—are ominous. Kirby devotes most of a chapter to the countless diseases these may well be causing to soar in the human population, not least of which is our skyrocketing rates of dementia compared to previous generations. Aluminum is a well-known neurotoxin that has been implicated in dementia spectrum diseases and the only safe exposure rate to it is zero. Yet according to one scientific paper, due to industrial and commercial uses, “human bodies are now over-exposed to aluminum.” [19]
But what about the environmental impacts? Kirby cites wildlife biologist Francis Mangels, who worked for both the US Forest Service and the USDA Soil Conservation Service as a soil conservationist. His sampling is returning worrying results—highly atypical pH levels. Based on Mangels’ testimony, Kirby explains that “when soil pH changes, soil arthropods (a vital link in our ecosystem) start to go away. This type of disruption could have negative effects up and down the food chain. Reports of massive plant and animal die-offs potentially due to chemtrails are widespread. …Although many other factors are in play here, the chemtrails surely don’t help.” [20] How are pH levels, moisture retention and soil health related? A research paper published in Applied and Environmental Soil Science explains:
“In the natural environment, soil pH has an enormous influence on soil biogeochemical processes. Soil pH is, therefore, described as the ‘master soil variable’ that influences myriads of soil biological, chemical, and physical properties and processes that affect plant growth and biomass yield. … The soil is the critical element of life support systems because it delivers several ecosystem goods and services such as carbon storage, water regulation, soil fertility, and food production, which have effects on human well-being.” [21]
The mining and processing of aluminum bauxite requires massive amounts of water and electrical power, leaving behind a huge environmental footprint. According to the website Environment Go!: “According to the EPA, the perfluorocarbons released during the aluminum smelting process are 9,200 times more detrimental to global warming than carbon dioxide. … Combustion byproducts, caustic aerosols, dust from bauxite, limestone, burned lime, alumina, and sodium salt are a few of the particles generated during processing that are known to degrade air quality.” [22] So if the purpose of spraying aluminium particulate as a solar dimming agent to reduce atmospheric warming, one hand is wiping out the other’s efforts. Aluminum leaching into lakes, rivers and water tables causes other serious problems: “Increased aluminum levels in water are largely a result of industrial activity-related acid rain, which lowers the pH of the water and encourages the dissolution of both anthropogenic and natural forms. As a result, aluminum is a constant source of freshwater contamination in both urban and rural areas, having harmful effects on aquatic life and the potential to eventually reach the human food chain.” [23]
Conclusion: A Vast Body of Chemtrails Research
Although I’ve relied primarily on Peter Kirby’s research for this report, other researchers such as Dane Wigington of geoengineeringwatch.org have done similarly extensive research. Wignington has also done field work, taking samples of soil and rainwater, including capturing chemtrail emissions mid-air while flying near geoengineering aircraft. Another authority on the topic is Elana Freeland, in her book Chemtrails, HAARP, and the Full Spectrum Dominance of Planet Earth. Her book examines how chemtrails and ionospheric heaters like HAARP service the military’s full-spectrum dominance strategy. Another credible researcher in geoengineering is Jim Lee of ClimateViewer.com, though he comes to different conclusions as to what’s actually being sprayed, leaning heavily toward a modified jet fuel explanation for the cloud-forming emissions.
We are in the realm of psychopathy, folks. These maniacs need to be stopped, and stopped now, before they destroy our beloved Earth. In fact, the solution to the problems bedeviling the human race now is actually quite simple. It’s not so much about what we need to DO as what we need to STOP DOING:
• STOP spraying our forests and crops with dessicant herbicides
• STOP spraying our skies with weather-modifying chemtrails
• STOP putting chemicals in our food—make it illegal
• STOP injecting people with dangerously experimental vaccines
• STOP soaking the planet in microwave-frequency radiation
• STOP pumping people full of drugs, except for the very few that have long-term, proven benefits, most of them discovered well before the 1980s
• STOP steeping people in virtual reality that divorces them from nature
START respecting our biosphere, our lovely, only Earth and all its creatures, human, animal, insect, plant and bird. Let it be our teacher, as Biomimicry advocates have long been urging. All the best inventions come from Nature’s billion-year-old laboratory, which has had time to engineer things that work harmoniously within their environment, without waste and without poisoning it. We fail to learn from this at our peril.
START the new paradigm of Live and Let Live.
Of course, there are trillions of dollars of vested interests in all the above, so I’m not naïve enough to believe this will happen anytime soon. But I can dream. As John Lennon sang in “Imagine”: “You may call me a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
[1] Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree, Penguin Canada, 2021 (2022 ed.), p. 93.
[2] https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/invasive-species/pest-management/final_draft_pmp_southern_bc_2024-2029.pdf
[3] Author’s interview notes, December 1, 2016.
[4] “Advancing Toward a General Theory of Invasive Species Impacts: How Do Ecological Effects Vary Across Time and Space?” S. Luke Flory, Julie Lockwood, May 6, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1707 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bes2.1707 Emphasis mine.
[5] “Logical fallacies and invasion biology,” Radu Cornel Guiasu, Christopher W. Tindale, September 6, 2018, doi: 10.1007/s10539-018-9644-0 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6133178/ Emphasis mine.
[6] Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine: The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives (Rochester, Vermont; Toronto, Canada; Healing Arts Press, 2010), p. 78.
[7] Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine: The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives ibid., pp. 10, 11.
[8] Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine: The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives ibid., p. 79.
[9] Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine: The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives ibid., p. 107.
[10] “Logical fallacies and invasion biology,” Radu Cornel Guiasu, Christopher W. Tindale, September 6, 2018, doi: 10.1007/s10539-018-9644-0 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6133178/ Emphasis mine.
[11] Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine: The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives ibid., pp. 224–25.
[12] Timothy Lee Scott, Invasive Plant Medicine: The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives ibid., p. 69.
[13] Peter A. Kirby, Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project, second edition, fifth printing, 2020, pp. 40, 41.
[14] Peter A. Kirby, Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project, ibid., p. 40.
[15] Peter A. Kirby, Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project, ibid., p. 21.
[16] Peter A. Kirby, Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project, ibid., p. 21.
[17] University of Alaska/Fairbanks, HAARP website:
https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu
[18] Peter A. Kirby, Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project, ibid., pp. 25, 26.
[19] “Aluminum environmental pollution: the silent killer,” Reema H. Alasfar, Rima J. Isaifan, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-14700-0 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8364537/
[20] Peter A. Kirby, Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project, ibid., pp. 354, 355.
[21] “The Role of Soil pH in Plant Nutrition and Soil Remediation,” Dora Neina, Applied and Environmental Soil Science, Wiley online library, https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/5794869 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2019/5794869 Emphasis mine.
[22] “Top 5 Environmental Impacts of Aluminum,” Providence Amaechi, Environment Go!, December 8, 2022: https://environmentgo.com/environmental-impacts-of-aluminum/
[23] “Top 5 Environmental Impacts of Aluminum,” Providence Amaechi, Environment Go!, ibid.
Brilliant! Great articlicle, very educational and should go viral…important facts to help us change the sad state of our beautiful planet. Thank you Art.
This is so thoroughl in content, well researched, well written one of the better articles read, this is so important, facts, very well done. We thank you.