text: If you read the news stories surrounding a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Boston University?s Robert Kaufmann and three colleagues, you?d say yes, indeed. It?s China?s fault. By dramatically increasing their combustion of coal, they have increased the concentration of fine particles in the atmosphere called sulphate aerosols, which reflect away solar radiation, countering the warming that should be occurring from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.