Choking on the Mayor's Rationale

We have been commenting all along now about the hypocrisy involved in the mayor's use of the asthma bogeyman as a method of selling his congestion tax. You simply can't have any credibility on this issue if, on the one hand, you make the linkage between cars and asthma while, on the other hand, you continue to promote shopping centers and box stores in areas where high incidences of the disease are found.

This hypocritical stance is brought out this morning in Andrew Wolf's incisive column in today's NY Sun. Wolf, however, takes the issue a step further by questioning the "junk science" behind the asthma-auto pollution nexus. He rightfully points out that scientists have underscored the fact that the etiology of asthma is found in insect and rodent infestation and not from auto emissions. This doesn't mean that auto-induced pollution is good for you, just that the asthma fear mongering is not something that Dr. Bloomberg should be doing.

But Wolf, taking up our initial point here, also makes the point that Bloomberg's use of this scare tactic contradicts the mayor's economic development efforts-something that Wolf supports unreservedly: "By buying into similar arguments, the mayor undermines his own initiatives." Which only serves to further highlight the degree to which the mayor's new found greenness is pure bunk; and is designed to create an appealing national narrative in the furtherance of Bloomberg's own political ambitions.