After DANA (Isolated High Level Depression) passed this week across the south and east of the peninsula, social media was once again filled with misinformation. Hoaxes and theories conspiracy They exploded after October 29. It was the worst day of the storm: The Valencian Community was the most affected areabut territories of Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia were also flooded. It didn’t take long for publications to blame “chemtrails,” “HAARP technology,” “destruction of dams and reservoirs,” or “climate engineering” for the disaster.
The internet was full of people, famous and unknown, complaining about these events. Miguel Bosé was not left out on this occasion either. In recent years, the singer He is one of the great protagonists of these conspiracy theoriesvery close to the extreme right.
Last Thursday, October 31, the artist shared a post on his Instagram profile talking about and denying climate change. “People need to wake up now”he condemned. He also blamed everything that happened on the political class. “They are determined to sell us something that doesn’t exist [cambio climático] and which they provoke themselves to benefit from it.
All these theories are completely falseas several experts from media like X (formerly Twitter) have already stated. Furthermore, it must be emphasized that the rains and storms of recent days did not appear suddenly. The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) had been warning about DANA for days and decreed the red alert level for last Tuesday.
It is also not possible to manage the climate according to the whims of a few, neither with planes nor with antennas, as Diego Ferraz-Castiñeiras, environmentalist, oceanographer and broadcaster on the climate crisis, in a publication on social networks.
HAARP technology
HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. This is a project that studies the ionosphere (an upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere) using a radio transmission system. Those who follow conspiracy theories defend that the antennas used by this technology (with a power of 3.6 megawatts) can be used to affect climate or the weather.
Benito Fuentes, meteorologist at AEMET, dismantled these claims last Wednesday with a 10 nuclear explosions like the one in Hiroshima. “We would need 20 million telephone antennas and 8,300 HAARP antennas.”
The expert repeated the same calculations with a facade and the results are even crazier. In this case, it would be necessary 17 billion cell towers or 7 million HAARP technology.
Another conspiracy argument he denied was the use of this system to create and move anticyclones and thus cause droughts. Something, once again, impossible: “The energy required is 800 times more than that consumed in Spain in 2022.”said in the publication. There is a third hoax about this: they do not create these high pressure atmospheric zones, but move them with what they call “directed energy” to harm the population. Again, this is blatantly false, according to Fuentes. To do this, it would take energy equivalent to that consumed by the entire planet in 22,000 years, he assured.
whore explained in March 2023 that the ionosphere is located between 80 and 600 kilometers from the Earth’s surface. It is located very far from the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere in contact with the Earth and in which almost all meteorological phenomena take place. The radiation waves sent to it to study it therefore have nothing to do with the climate.
Chemtrails
Another recurring argument that has been observed among conspiracy fans is that of chemtrails or chemtrails. Basically, they argue that the trail left by planes when flying at high altitude is a series of chemical or biological agents that they spray. harm the population. One of the goals is once again to influence the climate.
The explanation for this phenomenon is much simpler than the theory that criminalizes it. Airplanes can fly at altitudes where the temperature is below -35ºC. The combustion of fuel in their engines produces water vapor which, under these conditions, crystallizes. “It condenses forming a trail”Maldita.es explained this in an article on the subject last Thursday.
Demolition of dams and reservoirs
Other well-known personalities such as Twitter user Wall Street Wolverine, or Bertrand Ndongo, political activist affiliated with VOX, have also spoken out in recent days. In their case, they blamed the government of Pedro Sánchez for the disaster. for demolishing dams and reservoirs. “Trials will take place,” the first of X even declared in a threatening tone.
The truth is that, despite what the far right claims, Few dams have been demolished in Spain over the last few years. Furthermore, what was done does not influence the flow of rivers or the results of an event like last Tuesday.
Environmentalist Ferraz-Castiñeiras clarified this issue last Thursday on the program Twenty hour rush hour of SER chain. “When there is drought, it is the fault of the demolition of dams and when there are floods, it is also the fault of“, he quipped. What was mainly demolished were dams (constructions to increase the flow of a river) which had no influence on it. “Spain’s capacity to accumulating water has not decreased over the last decade,” he said.
Another article from whore On October 31, he clarified that the demolition of these structures in the province of Valencia was carried out between 2006 and 2017 (with governments of different political parties), but dams and reservoirs remain intact. “Failing to eliminate obsolete or poor weirs leads to a greater risk of flooding as water levels rise in uncontrolled areas,” media report.
The expert also pointed out that these procedures took place mainly in the north of the peninsula, a territory that has not been so punished by DANA in recent years. In this sense, it is the elevator, the area that took the worst.
It is still too early to know whether the power of this latest atmospheric phenomenon is attributable to the climate crisis. What has been shown is that this context “increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events”. Concretely, there has been an increase in torrential rains in the Mediterranean and floods in Europe, explained the oceanographer in the video he shared last Thursday.
