To the editor:

The Nov. 3,  ‘MIT trains students to resolve clean energy conflicts’ said: “Curbing climate change — and extreme weather for future generations — depends squarely on society’s ability to rapidly build new clean energy infrastructure…”

It’s highly likely that new infrastructure will only exacerbate the problem because phasing out coal fired power plants and requiring low sulfur fuel to be burned  in ocean-going ships is actually contributing to global warming.

 The April 2014 issue of Scientific American said reducing the particles ejected into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants, could result in not enough of the sun’s heating rays being blocked. This has now been verified again: Please note the July 22, 2022 & Aug 8, 2023 issues of AAAS ‘Science’ headlines; “Cleaner air is adding to global warming.” Satellite data  is telling us that the reduction of sulfate and nitrate particles since 2000 is not reflecting as much sunlight back into space, thereby contributing to  global warming.

Even “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.  It seems this is simply  copying  Ma Nature when she blasts sulfates into the atmosphere to cool things down. (Witness the 1816  “year without summer” that followed the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815.)

 Water vapor is the greatest greenhouse gas, comprising 1% to 3% of gasses in the atmosphere. Man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is only 0.0016%, and man-made methane is only about 0.00012% of the atmosphere. Over the last 15 years I have yet see a sensible explanation on how these micro-portions of methane and CO2 can jerk our weather systems around when the oceans contain 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere total and over 1,200 times more CO2 than man-made CO2. Allowing more sunlight to hit the oceans tends to make them release more CO2, thus exacerbating the problem.

 How ironic that the anti-fossil fuel folks end up fueling global warming.

Phil Drietz

Delhi