Elect a radical leftist governor, get radical leftist policy. The boy mayor who failed to reduce the murder rate in Baltimore now thinks he can reduce an entire state’s carbon emissions.

A proposal to address climate change by adopting the nation’s most ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases went before Maryland lawmakers Tuesday.

The governor lent his backing to the bill, but industry and union officials warned that the plan could hurt the state while doing little to stop climate change.

The bill before lawmakers would require Maryland to slash emissions of carbon-based greenhouse gases 25% by 2020 and 90% by 2050. If adopted, the carbon reductions would be the nation’s steepest.

No state has attempted a 90% carbon reduction, but hardly anyone who will consider this bill now will be alive to see if the goal is met. They also won’t be around to see if the nonexistent technology that the reduction depends on is ever even invented.

Even administration officials behind the bill conceded that they don’t know whether it’s possible to achieve the 90% reduction without the invention of new technology. And they also told senators it would be better if the whole nation, or all nations, took similar measures.

“We’re hearing a lot of questions about whether these goals are realistic,” Environment Secretary Shari Wilson told senators. She concluded the 90% goal is “very realistic” because new technologies will be invented.

Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But there’s one thing Maryland can count on: The curbs this bill would place on manufacturing in the state will drive jobs out of state to Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware.

Maybe that’s how Gov. O’Malley really plans to reduce carbon emissions: Just keep marching to the left until the state’s soaring tax rate and environmental policies drive all manufacturing somewhere else.

Update: Here’s an environmental policy to save the Chesapeake: Just add water (because the ice caps are growing again).