It seems Mayor Bloomberg, like the rest of us, doesn’t like to get into his car after it sits out in the hot sun for a little bit. Except, like most of us, who just suck it up and wait the five or so minutes for the car’s air condition to cool the car, that’s not good enough for Mayor Mike. Now, the easy solution would be to just let the car idle and leave the AC on, but the mayor can’t do that lest he look foolish to the environmental lobby that he embraces.
No, the mayor is smart. He’s come up with a “better” plan that involves his security detail lugging around an air conditioning unit for a home’s window and fitting it to the side of his SUV. Via the New York Post:
Who’s full of hot air?
Mayor Bloomberg wants to maintain his politically correct credentials on global warming — but hates to get into a hot car when he leaves an air conditioned building.
The solution his aides came up with could easily have doubled as a stunt on David Letterman’s show.
In full view of bemused tourists and other passers-by, workers yesterday performed what looked like a comedy routine: They hoisted a standard room air conditioner to a side window of one of the mayor’s SUVs parked in the City Hall lot to see if it would fit.
If the strange plan gets a green light, the units would be plugged into electrical outlets and cause less pollution than running the vehicles’ own A/Cs on an idling engine.
“This is an experiment to be used on extremely hot days like the types we saw last week,” said mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser.
“Even with the vehicles parked in the shade, the temperatures inside can quickly rise to more than 100 degrees.”
The mayor’s two Chevy Suburbans have been on cooling restriction since July 2009, when reporters spotted them all around town idling with the A/Cs on for several minutes at a time.
Bloomberg quickly apologized for the gaffe and ordered his security detail to obey the city’s three-minute idling restriction.
But, officials said, they still wanted to chill out the vehicles for the mayor, the cops who protect him, and the heavy load of communications equipment they say might otherwise overheat.
“There is far less emissions corresponding to the power of a single air conditioner on the grid than idling a V-8 engine,” Loeser said.
Here’s a picture of the procedure in action:
This is quite possibly a dumber idea than Bloomberg’s visionary, yet architecturally impossible scheme to cover Manhattan building with wind turbines.
And all this from a man who wants to control my salt intake, the size of my frosty beverage, etc. But putting window unit in his car is OK?
The rest here.