New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Thursday that he endorses President Barrack Obama in the upcoming presidential elections of 2012 because he feels Obama's environmental policies will be more effective in curbing global warming.
Bloomberg says that hurricane Sandy was the cause for his decision. The mayor has attributed the largest hurricane in the history of the East Coast as a cause of global warming.
Initially, the registered Independent Bloomberg refused to endorse either candidate, but things have changed since hurricane Sandy.
To Bloomberg, it is not the economic policies on taxes, or Healthcare, or foreign strategies in Afghanistan that was behind his endorsement of the president, but instead it was the Obama administration's environmental policies that earned him the endorsement.
Bloomberg insists global warming is a much-neglected problem, "In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods -- something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable," according to Mayor's editorial in the Bloomberg Business.
"Our climate is changing...we can't do it alone. We need leadership from the White House -- and over the past four years, President Barrack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year."
Bloomberg goes on to add that Romney's policies, those proposed as potential president as well as those executed as governor of Massachusetts, proves he "has a history of tackling with climate change," as reported in Bloomberg Business.
Bloomberg's entire endorsement essay can be read here.
The hurricane rampaged the city over the weekend, claiming the lives of 38 New Yorkers, debilitating the MTA transit system, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and costing the city billions of dollars in repair.
