Green Options » Van Jones

Oil-Funded Group That Targeted Green Jobs Czar Now After Steven Chu

Susan Kraemer — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:43:07 +0000

The DOE is headed up by Steven Chu, who has totally revamped the Department of Energy from a fossil friendly enterprise to one that moves us swiftly off of oil and coal and towards more home grown renewable power like solar and wind.

The Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute are oil-funded think-tanks dedicated to turning out academic-appearing reports that have successfully confused Americans about global warming. The result has been that oil companies have successfully delayed renewable energy development in this country.

Like Americans For Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which was behind the firing of Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar; these organizations are funded by Exxon and David and Charles Koch (Koch Industries oil empire). Freedom works is currently sponsoring astroturf townhalls to fight energy legislation.

The plot thickens…they now have Steven Chu in their sights.

Read more of this story »

After Van Jones Resigns, His ‘Homeboys’ Keep on ‘Greening the Ghetto’

Joe Walsh — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:09:45 +0000

Even in the midst of the health care fight, the Sunday talk shows devoted some time to the political fallout from the resignation of Van Jones, and with his resignation over the weekend, the former White House green jobs czar has become a national object lesson in partisan politicking. But, outside of the American political media vacuum, Jones’ green-jobs-for -the-urban-poor programming will be his lasting legacy.

For example, take this morning’s BBC feature on Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, a part of the British news radio network’s recent series of features on the US economic downturn and its ground-level impacts in California. The BBC focused on some of the funding problems that Homeboy faces in these times of both declining philanthropy and state budgets.

Still, the organization - devoted to reintegrating former LA-area gangbangers by providing everything from job training to tattoo removal - is finding a productive niche in the green-collar economy. Operating under the slogan “nothing stops a bullet like a job,” Homeboy recently began training former gang members as solar panel installers.

Class members in the solar program attend a two-month course - with the $131 tuition and an $8 hourly stipend paid by Homeboys - and graduate with skills that are helping them land jobs that pay from $15 to upwards of $30 an hour. If programs like Homeboy’s can catch on the way that Jones has envisioned, the average political observer some years hence may remember Jones more for the green-collar economic policies that the BBC highlighted rather than as the political cautionary tale that defined his 15 minutes of fame over one Labor Day weekend.

Illustration of Van Jones “greening the ghetto” by RADillustrates at Flickr.

Mean Joe Green #68: Glenn Beck Hates White People

Joe Mohr — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:13:40 +0000

Glenn Beck recently called President Obama a ‘white racist’ and Van Jones a ‘black nationalist’ and ‘avowed communist’. He’s also compared Al Gore to Hitler, has expressed hatred for Jimmy Carter, and has said he’s thought about killing Michael Moore, among many other wonderfully angry things.

Well Glenn, it’s well known in the world of psychology that what you hate most in others may be the shadow in yourself. Therefore, apparently under that doughy, tough-talking exterior lies a little, angry (still doughy) man who is dying to let out his white-people hating, liberal loving, black nationalist, communist, socialist, Hitler-esque self…

Mean Joe Green Archives (a few more Glenn Beck toons can be found in the archive)

Earth Day Round-Up (the Non-Toxic Kind)

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:53:56 +0000

Even after doing this for years, I still get a little flustered with the requisite Earth Day post. No, it’s not a matter of saying “Screw Earth Day” (though I get that…); rather, it’s a recognition that there’s so much content out there that I’m unsure what I can add. So, rather than taking a feeble stab at something, I’ll make my contribution by sharing some of the good stuff I’ve seen around the web and blogosphere today.

Green Living Ideas points to a couple of new films that may be worth checking out: Disney’s Earth, and A Sea Change.
Cleantechnica profiles a family that’s tweeting its energy use today. Triplepundit covers this one, also.
Speaking of “Screw Earth Day,” Grist wishes all a “Happy F’ing Earth Day!”

Read more of this story »

Welcome To Planet Forward: From Your Lens To The White House Gates

Frank Sesno — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:38:03 +0000

Editor’s Note: This post is a guest contribution by Frank Sesno, Emmy-award winning journalist and former CNN Bureau Chief. ”Planet Forward” is an innovative, viewer-driven program driven by the power of ideas, as citizens make their case for what they think about the nation’s energy future. The show debuts TONIGHT (8pm), in a primetime PBS special. See Frank Sesno’s last post for CleanTechnica here.

What we’re hearing at Planet Forward is rumbles of a revolution.

Some expressions are serious, some are humorous. There are essays and poems and songs. But in almost all cases, if we take this stuff at face value, we’re hearing calls for an overthrow of the old ways we drive, work, travel, get around.

A revolution in technology and green jobs to reduce carbon emissions, deal with climate change and improve our security. A revolution in the energy marketplace to knock the oil-igarchs around the world down a notch. Coincidentally, this is the bottom line of Barack Obama’s hugely ambitious energy program. And it’s what citizens and experts alike weigh in on here at Planet Forward.

This is a place where everyone has the chance to make their case about how we use energy, where our future energy should be, and how we should think about the issue. We’ve heard from scientists and students, CEO’s and cab drivers, defenders of coal and oil as well as advocates of wind and solar. We’ve even got a few politicians making their case! It’s an orchestra of voices.

What makes Planet Forward different is that we connect some of the best ideas – rated by the online community and reviewed by our Planet Forward editorial staff –directly to decision-makers. Some go straight to the White House. We do all this in a prime-time television special on PBS and through follow-on webisodes here at planetforward.org. What’s most striking is how seriously the experts take the ideas and experiences of people out in the ‘real world.’ As they should.

This isn’t the usual television fare – which is either policy wonks talking to themselves or high-decibel hosts shouting at the rest of us. We wanted to do it differently. So we invited President Obama’s top adviser on energy and climate change, Carol Browner, literally to sit down with some Planet Forward contributors who submitted particularly provocative or creative ideas. She tells them what she thinks about their proposals, takes their questions, and considers what she’d take back to the White House as a result of the conversation.

And we’re going to keep the discussion going. We’ve got a web sequel in the works. Submit your video or written essay by May 15th and it’ll be in the running for review and comment by another top White House adviser, Van Jones, the highly acclaimed author of The Green Collar Economy and now Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. We’ll put the exchange online – where you can see it, comment on it and share it with your social network.

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

This energy haul isn’t going to be easy. There is a lot new under the sun (and in the wind) but it’s still very expensive, diffuse and in its infancy. We’re going to be living with coal and oil and gas and nuclear power for a long time. Some of them may have a rebirth as we develop new technologies for them. Which are the winners and which are the losers – and at what cost — are among the questions we confront and must now try to answer.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

Van Jones, Re:visionary

Kelli Peterson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:16:20 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Van Jones is a rising star in the green economy. As the founding President of Green for All, he is a doer. As the author of “The Green Collar Economy” he is a spokesperson and advocate. But he is actually much more than that. He’s actually Innovation 3.0.

Nancy Pelosi calls him a “magnificent disrupter”. If she means that he eloquently navigates new paths (job creation) and connects new ideas (environmental consideration) to age-old issues (populations in poverty), then she is right.

In a recent interview with David Gottfriend, CEO of Regenerative Ventures, Van spoke of the need to revision the way we do things. He spoke of soul level redemption. And he spoke of the need for human recovery. Listening to him you can’t help but be caught up in his articulate passion and belief that there is a better way out of this mess we’re in.

Read more of this story »

Van Jones Wins Aspen Institute Energy and Envrionment Award for Individual Thought Leadership

Tom Schueneman — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:13:06 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Van Jones founder of Green for All and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, has been awarded the Individual Thought Leadership Award by the Aspen Institute at the conclusion of this week’s Environment Forum: Powering the Planet: Energy for the Long Run.

Jones was recently tapped to serve in the Obama administration to serve as Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation.

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

Sustaining the Stimulus–Why Van Jones Should Work With the Small Business Administration

Scott Cooney — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:04:01 +0000

Right-wing criticism of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) largely centers around the short term effect versus the long term cost.

In 2 years the dust will settle and we will have data that will either vindicate the bill as an effective strategic move to really get the economy going, or condemn the action as another in a series of Band-Aids of short term ’symptoms’ strategies that fails to cure the disease.

Barack Obama could lose significant allies in congress in his midterm elections, much like Bill Clinton did in 1994, if this bill does not deliver the kinds of results we hope it will. To avoid this fate, Obama and Van Jones would be wise to work to make green jobs into green businesses and green careers.

Green Jobs are great, don’t get me wrong. We need them now more than ever, and I respect Mr. Jones’ work tremendously. His group managed to convince the city of Oakland to spend resources to get a green jobs training program going by making it a win-win argument: local jobs created, infrastructure updated, kids stay out of jail, and the city saves money in the long run fighting drugs and crime while becoming less dependent on distant and polluting energy sources, keeping more money in the city.

With this approach, Jones will likely have great success with the participants of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which over 500 cities have joined. The agreement states that by 2012, these cities will reduce their carbon emissions to 7% below 1990 levels. These cities will more than likely join the green jobs revolution with Jones in the lead, due to the success he had in Oakland, not to mention the potential for federal dollars for these programs.

But if the ARRA is going to be a success, that is, if it is going to someday be seen as truly more than a short term stimulus package, it MUST create self-sustaining businesses and great green careers. What happens in two years, if a person gets some specific job skills around weatherizing homes, when there are no more homes in his area that need weatherizing? If the person doesn’t have the resources to perhaps branch out into remodeling or carpentry, they’re right back where they were 2 years before, hoping someone will help them get a job.

So I have put together a petition to Karen Mills, Administrator of the Small Business Administration, to encourage her to work with Mr. Jones so that the SBA becomes a green business resource. Please read and sign the petition here. When you are done, please pass it along!

Why is the petition necessary? After browsing the SBA website, I found very little regarding sustainable business practices or green businesses. The SBA provides assistance to small business owners and has an affiliate network of Small Business Development Centers that help countless thousands of entrepreneurs get their start. They don’t review loans directly, but can help someone get their materials organized and business strategies together in order that they might have a better chance of procuring funding. They also provide mentoring, education, and resources for entrepreneurs and managers. But what is an aspiring eco-entrepreneur to do if they need mentoring? And what about all those would-be eco-entrepreneurs who don’t think about green, but would love to hear about it if their local SBA affiliate had materials about it available?

For example, what if someone walks into an office and wants to start a dry cleaner,because his or her parents ran a dry cleaner, and it’s a business they feel comfortable running. They could get all the resources they need and be out the door ready to go in a few hours, ready to type up their business plan. If the SBA had a green business slant, they would have a list of alternatives to just about any kind of business out there, just in case that entrepreneur might be interested in having a perc-free facility. Without that impetus, Mr. Drycleaner would be using perc and buying perc for the next 20 years. Mr. Drycleaner and his employees would be inhaling fumes for years, as would residents, customers, and passers by.

After calling the SBA to inquire about what green resources were available, I was passed from person to person (all of whom were extremely nice and heard me out, but if I had video-phone, I would likely have seen the ‘deer in the headlights’ look several times). Finally, I was able to reach someone in a department they called “Advocacy”, where someone was knowledgeable of environmental affairs. As I asked him about if the SBA had any plans to incorporate green business resources and work with Van Jones to create a program to ensure the best possible long term success of ARRA, there was a bit of a pregnant pause, so I stopped and waited.

“Now who is Van Jones?” he asked.

A mean, green SBA would provide all the resources and tools needed not just for entrepreneurs, but for the network of affiliates associated with the SBA so that each region (there are 1400+ Small Business Development Centers in the country) would be able to hone its message regionally but with support from the parent organization. It could offer webinars, downloadable documents, podcasts, and trainings to SBDC’s, who in turn could offer eco-friendly alternative business plans, mentorship, sustainability consulting, education about efficiency tax credits and other incentives, green business networking with other eco-entrepreneurs, and consulting on applying for and procuring funding.

Giving standardized training to these regions that is sanctioned by the SBA would allow an aspiring eco-entrepreneur as good a chance of getting good help whether they lived in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, or San Francisco. Well, as good a chance as possible.

Scott Cooney is the author of Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur (McGraw-HIll), and looks forward to the day where the green economy is simply referred to as…the economy.

Twitter Scott

Photo credit: www.VanJones.net

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

(Now) It’s Official: Van Jones Tapped as Green Jobs Adviser

Timothy B. Hurst — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:44:32 +0000

White House House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) chairwoman Nancy Sutley has announced that Van Jones will help direct the Obama administration’s efforts to create new green collar jobs.

Jones is the founder of Green for All and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He will reportedly begin work next week as the Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, with a particular focus on “vulnerable communities.”

“Van Jones has been a strong voice for green jobs and we look forward to having him work with departments and agencies to advance the President’s agenda of creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources,” Sutley said in a statement.

When rumors began to swirl around the interwebs on Monday as news broke that Van Jones would likely be named as some sort of “Green Jobs Czar” in the Obama administration, many of us here at Green Options were reminded of David Anderson’s persuasive argument for Van Jones as the next “Secretary of Prosperity.”

I’ve argued before that Van Jones gets what green collar jobs are all about and understands what they mean for the environment and for the economy. Jones’ brand of environmentalism is not so much about the preservation of pristine wilderness areas (though I’m sure that’s part of it), as it is about creating jobs in urban communities in the construction, building efficiency, and renewable energy sectors.

Notwithstanding the fact that there is actually no such thing as a Secretary of Prosperity (yet), we’re 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 it.

Image: Center for American Progress

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

Van Jones is officially confirmed as the Obama Administration’s Green Czar

Reenita Malhotra — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:40:27 +0000

Van Jones and Gavin Newsom at the San Francisco signing of “Green Collar Economy”

OFFICIAL UPDATE 3/10 : The White House has officially confirmed Van Jones as “Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation” at the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Nancy Sutley, Chairwoman of the CEQ, welcomed her new senior adviser:

“Van Jones has been a strong voice for green jobs and we look forward to having him work with departments and agencies to advance the President’s agenda of creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources. Jones will also help to shape and advance the Administration’s energy and climate initiatives with a specific interest in improvements and opportunities for vulnerable communities.”
Read more of this story »

Van Jones as Green Jobs Czar? (or, as we like to call it, Secretary of Prosperity)

Timothy B. Hurst — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:22:58 +0000

David Anderson: Green Options’ Prognosticator Emeritus?

When rumors began swirling around the green blogosphere, first at Greendig, that Van Jones would be named Green Czar (a story they later pulled back from a bit, awaiting an official announcement), then at Grist, and WSJ’s Environmental Capital, I was reminded of what our very own David Anderson, founder of Green Options Media, had to say back in October.

Invoking the spirit and language of FDR in the early days of the New Deal, Anderson suggested that Van Jones should be Obama’s ‘Secretary of Prosperity. Anderson writes:

“Ever since I’ve talked about the potential to draft someone like Jones into a bold new position, people have told me that a Secretary of Prosperity could never happen. My response?

Who cares? Just adding Van’s perspective to the conversation about the need to take bold leadership of the great problems of our time would be a great accomplishment.

Over the last couple years, I’ve watched Jones relentlessly turn years of experience pursuing social justice and shared prosperity into a credible case for the win-win-win green collar economy of the future. I’m a huge fan of solving problems that occur in patterns by addressing their underlying roots, and that’s what his ‘green collar’ approach does.”

Anderson took his little suggestion a step further when he issued an open challenge to Netizens to start a grassroots campaign to ‘Draft Van;’ starting a Facebook group for people to congregate and brainstorm.

>>See also: Van Jones’ Green Collar Manifesto

Apparently, Anderson is having a smooth transition into his new role as Green Options’ Prognosticator Emeritus, only emerging from the inner-workings of the GO Media machine to publish bold political predictions and calls for mobilization that will precipitate substantive improvements in the economy and the environment.

I’m cool with that.

Image: Center for American Progress

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

LOVE WINS

Lucille Chi — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:43:44 +0000

You are invited to attend the Love Wins gala with author and visionary Van Jones, yogi Seane Corn, and activist Julia Butterfly Hill. The event is thrown by the Engage Network, which is a social networking non-profit start-up that helps folks make change by empowering community leaders. To date Engage has launched 35 social change circles in 7 regions training well over 200 leaders.

The gala will be featuring cocktail receptions, organic dinner, music, dancing, and performances.

Event details after the jump:

Read more of this story »

Green Jobs Discussed on San Francisco Mayor’s Radio Show

Natasha Mooney — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:40:24 +0000

On Saturday, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom hosted a discussion on his radio show about the “Green Collar Economy.” Appearing on the show were Van Jones, founder of Green for All and author of a new book on the topic, and Dave Llorens, founder of 1Block Off the Grid.

You can listen to the podcast here: This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post..

Mayor Newsom’s guests had a lot to say about how the new green jobs sector of the economy is bending the corner from “inspiration to implementation”.

Read more of this story »

Top 10 Ecopreneurs of 2008

Reenita Malhotra — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:46:50 +0000

2008 has been a year signifying economic depression culminating in the worst holiday retail season in years. However it has also been a year of entrepreneurs burgeoning a variety of exciting new green businesses. Ecopreneurist has covered many of them over the course of the year. Here is a review of our favorite Ecopreneurs of 2008.

1. Van Jones - Pioneer of the Green Collar Economy

Van Jones is undoubtedly the Ecopreneur of the Year. He has spoken out against our unsustainable economic model that is based on consumption not production, run on debt vs. savings and thrift, and environmental destruction vs. preservation. But he has also shifted the rhetoric to one of hope by building a new economy with clean energy power centers and a clean enemy corps.

Read Jennifer’s post Van Jones’ Ecopreneurial Vision for the full story.

2. Derek McLeish - Transforming Carbon Emissions into Fuel

Carbon Sciences’s CEO Derek McLeish tells us that his company is the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform CO2 into the basic fuel building blocks required to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other portable fuels.

Reenita gives you the full story in her post A Breakthrough Technology to Transform CO2 into Fuel

Read more of this story »

Van Jones Profile: How To Build A Green Collar Economy

Reenita Malhotra — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:30:11 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

I hope that you had the opportunity to read Jennifer Kaplan’s recent post “Van Jones’ Ecopreneurial Vision.” Talk about a man who is working to inspire a nation!

Van Jones has recently surfaced in America’s Shift to Green Living as a strong advocate for the Green Collar Economy. He is the founding president of Green For All, a U.S. organization that promotes green-collar jobs and opportunities for the disadvantaged. He is also the author of The Green Collar Economy, which has been endorsed by Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle and Al Gore.

Read more of this story »

Van Jones’ Ecopreneurial Vision

Jennifer Kaplan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:32:32 +0000

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy, talk about his vision for a green economy at The Center For American Progess.

It was an oversubscribed crowd and Jones sat comfortably on an arm chair on a slightly raised platform, giving the impression of a living room chat. He started by talking about how the floor on America has been torn out, but so has the ceiling and now is the time when we are “free to fall or to fly.” He spoke of our unsustainable economic model that is based on consumption not production, run on debt vs. savings and thrift, and environmental destruction vs. preservation. But soon after the gloom, Jones shifted the rhetoric to one of hope. He spoke of building a new economy with clean energy power centers and a clean enemy corps. An economy where all people, including people often left out of economic expansion such as the poor, people of color, etc…, have a place at the table. He spoke of the low hanging fruit in a new green collar economy: retrofitting. He laid out his vision where out of work construction workers — workers he predicted would be idle for 12, 24, 36 months — are put to work retrofitting existing building across America.

And therein lies the ecopreneurial opportunity. In Jones’ vision, people from all economic strata can start a business that provides retrofitting services or produce the products needed to retrofit. And, retrofitting is just the beginning. Jones went on to say that the days of the environment being a “a box you check off” are over and we have entered an era where environmental impacts are a lens through which all economic activity must be viewed. The result is an economy with a host of ecopreneurial opportunities and where our two worst problems, the economy and climate change, are solved by ecoprenuers. In Van Jones’ world, there never been a better time to be an ecopreneur.

Photo courtesy of Van Jones.

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

Obama Must Be Listening To Van Jones, McCain Not So Much

Taylor Shelton — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:10:17 +0000

Although the cringing from last night’s uninspiring debate is over for the time being, today provides an excellent opportunity to look back at what was the first head-on collision between the two major party presidential candidates and the dual threat posed by global warming and our current economic crisis. This collision was the making of Ingrid Jackson, a student and social services worker from Nashville. In Tuesday’s town hall debate, Jackson asked:

“Sen. McCain…we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do in the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues like climate change and green jobs.”
Read more of this story »

Van Jones’ Green Collar Manifesto

Timothy B. Hurst — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:59:22 +0000

Few people have been able to inspire the kind of critical thinking and political action considered a necessary component of “success” in the modern environmental movement. But if you were to make a list of those few, Van Jones would definitely be on it.

The environmental movement has never spoken with one voice and that will likely remain the case for the foreseeable future. That said, the environmental movement shouldn’t speak with one voice, it should speak with a diversity of them, and Van Jones’ new book, The Green Collar Economy—published by Harper One and released on October 7—does just that.

Read more of this story »

Why Van Jones should be Obama’s Secretary of Prosperity

David Anderson — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:59:39 +0000

In his new book to be released next week, Van Jones lays out a sensible roadmap to solve our long-term economic problems. How? By making sustainability the centerpiece of a national renewal. And, if we justify spending hundreds of billions on an economic solution no one completely understands, why can’t we make it an even greater priority to create a sustainable economy that will last us the next thousand years or more?

Let me start with the obvious: these are some wild times. Since this whole financial mess began to unfold, we’ve learned a lot about what’s possible. Although I knew how much we’ve borrowed to pay for the Iraq war, I never really understood that we could just up and borrow upwards of a trillion dollars in one fell swoop. Ever since I became aware of the possibility, I’ve been telling people that Obama should hit back. “$700B? Why not borrow a trillion and solve our energy dependence, and fix health care to boot?” Of course, that was before the bailout bill failed in the House.

As we face the potential for a new depression, along with the potential stresses caused by global climate change, possibly the greatest immediate need we have is for people to show us Americans the difference between what we know the present looks like and what we know is possible.

Faced with a national hopelessness during the (first?) Great Depression, FDR was masterful at connecting our greatest problems to our greatest opportunities in speeches like his 1933 inaugural address:

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accompanied in part by direct recruiting by the government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our national resources.

Barack Obama has been almost FDR-like at inspiring people to believe at a gut level that in the face of a new depression, a national renewal is possible. However, it’s people on the ground like Van Jones who light the way for exactly how it could happen.

Which is why I’m advocating a campaign to draft Jones into the (hopefully) coming Obama Cabinet, ideally as the new “Secretary of Prosperity.” Hillary Clinton proposed a ‘Poverty Czar’ earlier this year, but I think that’s terrible framing; someone in that position should be creating solutions, not ruling over problems. Ever since I’ve talked about the potential to draft someone like Jones into a bold new position, people have told me that a Secretary of Prosperity could never happen. My response?

Who cares? Just adding Van’s perspective to the conversation about the need to take bold leadership of the great problems of our time would be a great accomplishment.

Over the last couple years, I’ve watched Jones relentlessly turn years of experience pursuing social justice and shared prosperity into a credible case for the win-win-win green collar economy of the future. I’m a huge fan of solving problems that occur in patterns by addressing their underlying roots, and that’s what his ‘green collar’ approach does.

Let’s look at the variables. We have a society with quickening energy and economic insecurity, and flagging international leadership. We have inner cities and rural communities in need of jobs. We have a capital base in need of sustainable returns. And we don’t take no for an answer when we rally around a national imperative. All we need is for someone to take the lead and inspire us to connect the dots.

The “Green Collar Economy” may sound like a grandiose, unachievable vision, especially in a financial situation where capital for any purpose is and will be increasingly hard to come by. But Jones knows how to put these issues in perspective:

There’s no way to get changes big enough to solve these problems without creating pathways out of poverty for millions of new green-collar workers. The renewable economy is more labor-intensive, less capital-intensive; therefore, there should be a net increase in jobs (1).

BONUS CHALLENGE

Jones’ new book is a start, but I’d also like to issue an open challenge to Netizens to start a grassroots campaign to ‘Draft Van.’ I will give the DraftVan.org domain to anyone who wants to take the project on, and have started a Facebook group for people who might be interested to congregate and brainstorm. Do America a favor and get this post out there as widely as possible in the hopes that someone who’s looking for a way to make a difference will take up my challenge. Let’s bring the renewable economy into the national conversation. Trust me, most people don’t even realize that it’s possible.

More background on Van

Image copyright Comedy Central

We invite you to comment on the videos already posted. Raise questions, debate the merits.

Planet Forward is a chance for you to tell the world, and maybe the White House, what you’d do.

Imagine a $700 Billion Bailout for the Environment

Jennifer Lance — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:31:29 +0000

The economic crisis currently facing the nation has caused a flurry of political action. From McCain “suspending” his campaign to massive bailouts, the response has been immediate and serious. Even though the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street was rejected by the House of Representatives, which would have been the largest US government financial market intervention in history, I can’t help but wonder what a $700 billion bailout would do for the environment. What if the US government had responded to the twenty years of dire warnings by James Hansen in the same manner as the current economic crisis? Such an aggressive response may have stopped climate change and saved our economy through green jobs and technology.

Government scientists, like James Hansen, have been muzzled for warning us that the Earth “is nearing… a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences.” Sounds like the sky is falling to me, but when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says it, the government takes note. As Bruce Marks, founder and CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) explains:

Paulson says the sky is falling, we have to bail out Bear Stearns, $30 billion; the sky is falling, we have to bail out Fannie and Freddie, $200 billion; the sky is falling, we have to bail out AIG, $85 billion.
Read more of this story »