One of the main contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports has joined forces with Pennsylvania's Democratic lawmakers in an attempt to cut the state's carbon emissions.

Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center joined state Rep. Greg Vitali (D) at a news conference Monday. Vitali is pushing bills to subsidize solar energy and require the state's electric companies to obtain more power from renewable sources. Speaking in support of these bills, Mann said: "One often hears the misleading claim that no single event, regardless of how extreme or unprecedented, can be blamed on climate change. That is like saying that no single roll of a 6 with loaded dice can be blamed on the loading of the dice."

Vitali's bills would set aside $25 million a year to finance solar installations and increase Pennsylvania's alternative energy portfolio standard from 8 to 15 percent by 2023.

Vitali said that though his state is responsible for 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) has failed to "even acknowledge the climate crisis."

But Corbett's energy executive, Patrick Henderson, denied this accusation, citing the governor's support of the state's natural gas industry. Corbett recently backed a multistate initiative to transition government vehicles from gasoline to natural gas.

Last year, carbon dioxide emissions nationally reached the lowest point in 20 years, Henderson noted, and this is partly due to energy generators' increased use of natural gas instead of coal.

"Put simply, one of the best things to happen in addressing climate change emissions is the emergence of the Marcellus Shale and other natural gas plays in the United States," Henderson said via email. Henderson called this "market-based approach" better than Vitali's "approach of mandating and subsidizing select energy sources" (Jon Hurdle, New York Times, Jan. 15). -- EH