To the editor:

An online commenter responded to my Sept. 13 letter titled “Environmentalism contributes to global warming” with: “The answer isn’t to keep polluting. Air pollution kills people. We need clean air. There is no question about that. Instead, efforts to reduce greenhouse gases need to be redoubled.”

Actually, redoubling our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases will only make matters worse. Satellite data is telling us that the reduction in sulfate and nitrate particle pollution in the atmosphere is causing global warming by reducing the amount of sun energy reflecting back into space.

It’s a tradeoff: more pollution or more heat waves.

You’re never going to have squeaky-clean air. Annual land fires burn an area equivalent to the western U.S., pumping out about 2.2 billion tons of carbon, along with carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, etc. Volcanoes emit up to 25 million tons of sulfur dioxide.

“Climate expert” James Hansen says we may need to use geo-engineering to start lofting sulfates back into the atmosphere to cool things down by increasing solar reflection. I noted that we could probably accomplish the same thing by allowing higher sulfur diesel fuel and dialing down coal-fired power plant scrubbers.

Phil Drietz

Delhi