Green Options

We’re all pretty jazzed about the Van Jones appointment and look forward to seeing what he can accomplish working from inside government, because we’ve already seen what he can doing working outside of it.

As we witness a reconfiguring the progressive movement, with some of the strongest contingencies in that movement joining forces to push forward a progressive clean energy agenda, we need leaders and critical thinkers that can help us in the cause—and as evidenced by his new book, Van Jones will undoubtedly be one of those.

Green collar jobs are rapidly becoming fashionable. The new trend represents a shift to the mainstream of the good old environmentalist approach to life. But what exactly makes a job green? The experts are far from agreed.

Green collar jobs have a magic lure to them. Not only because the people involved in the sector are supposedly making a conscious effort to salvage what’s left of the earth’s natural resources, but also because they’re hoping to drag the ailing economy out of its current quagmire.

The environmentalist visionary Van Jones, who heads up the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, is drawing massive crowds across the country to his speeches about the green sector. He has helped initiate a green jobs program in Oakland and it is in part due to his work that the Presidential candidates have included green collar jobs in their programs.