A few weeks ago I described a presentation by well-respected environmental specialist at work in the domestic metalcasting industry. He outlined the ongoing agendas of the current Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency, and the gloom this portends for domestic metalcasting operations. Most dispiriting to me, though, was his characterization of the federal-level debate about the role of manufacturing in “global climate change.”

There is no debate, the expert concluded. With regard to the metalcasting industry, he said, their allies in Congress and the Administration, the lobbyists and attorneys paid to represent them, and even for the most part the manufacturers themselves, are resigned to federal action that will address “the problem” of climate change.

And so, this week, the U.S. Congress will take up discussion of the America's Climate Security Act (S. 2191 / S. 3036), the so-called Lieberman-Warner bill, which is a “cap and trade” scheme offered in the belief that setting limits on carbon emissions will improve the earth’s atmosphere, … improve it, that is, according to standards set by alarmists and idealists who believe humanity itself is a problem to be overcome.

I make no excuses for my “anti-environmentalism.” It is “anti” only in the sense that I refute contentions that human development is a bad thing, and that human enterprises can impact the extraordinary power and diversity of nature.

It’s ludicrous to assume that a law imposing limits on emissions by electric utility, transportation, and manufacturing industries, and paying people with federal funds for the damage these limitations will cause in terms of jobs, income, and opportunities, will have any “benefits” to the nation, or "the Earth."

But this is “the world” that climate-change believers inhabit. And there are lots of believers. The Republican nominee for president proposes capping carbon emissions “incrementally,” so as to return to 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 2020.  The apparent Democrat nominee promises to cut carbon emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, beginning with a mandated return to 1990 emissions levels by 2020.

The game seems to be over, as the expert described, but at least now the AFS and various state cast-metal associations have begun urging members to agitate against Lieberman-Warner. Better late than never, I suppose.

It is never too late to acknowledge truth, which is that “cap and trade” schemes are an impossible gambit to achieve unrealistic goals, and will lead to undesirable consequences. Targeting industry punishes productivity. Paying producers to curtail output rewards idleness. Both efforts, and much more, will fuel calamity in a global economy.