Van Jones

GOOD magazine’s profile on the black green activist

What Grist readers might have predicted over a year ago, when David interviewed Van Jones, is quickly becoming reality. In October, Thomas Friedman, in a gushing editorial, called Jones a "rare bird" who "exudes enough energy to light a few buildings on his own." Now he's appeared on the Colbert Report where, despite the always-awkward position of Stephen's interviewees, he managed to land "green jobs" in the mental dictionary of millions of young viewers.

I had the privilege of speaking to Jones last month as he cabbed it from Capitol Hill back to the airport. The profile appears in this month's issue of GOOD magazine, and is now online here. Despite seeming a bit exhausted, he was patient, articulate, and just plain kind. Something I wasn't able to include in the piece, but which he took great joy in telling, was how his grandfather, a bishop in the Methodist Church, was a huge inspiration to him, as were the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Jr. When asked if celebrity, and schmoozing with the big dogs in Washington, might divert his attention from grassroots activity, he responded, "On any given day, I might be in a public high school or in a prison, in D.C. or at a funeral. My life has a lot of sunshine and a lot of shit." On the other hand, he added, "That's what it takes to make a strong plant -- a lot of sunshine and a lot of fertilizer."

Forty years gone: MLK’s dream today would be colored green

The following are my introductory remarks to the Dream Reborn conference, beginning today and running through the weekend in Memphis, Tenn.

Forty years ago today, on April 4, 1968, a sniper assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King had come to Memphis, Tennessee, to aid striking sanitation workers. The preeminent civil rights leader of his time, he was only 39 years old.

Four decades have passed since that fateful day. As of this month, Dr. King has been gone from us longer than he was ever here. As we pass this milestone in history, we gather in Memphis to remind ourselves and the world that a bullet killed the dreamer -- but not the dream.

Dr. King had a vision of an America as good as its promise, and a world at peace with itself. That vision lives on in the hearts of hundreds of millions, including two generations of adults and a rising generation of teenagers, all of whom have been born since Dr. King's passing.

The time has come for us to step forward. We must take full responsibility to advance the cause of justice, opportunity, and peace in a new century.

And yet it must be said that we are stepping onto history's stage at a frightening time -- a time of global warming and global war. A time when "the market" is free and the people are not. A time of mass incarceration of people and mass extinction of species. A time of no rules for the rich and no rights for the poor. A time of increasing profits for the few and decreasing options for the many. A time of buyouts and bailouts for the powerful and convictions and evictions for the powerless.

And yet, inside the United States, the tide has begun to turn.

Van Jones on Colbert Report

Am I the only one who just doesn’t much like the Colbert Report? The interviews, especially. Colbert always comes off like a dickhead — that’s his shtick — but the guests are in a catch-22 as well. They look bad if they play along and bad if they try to play it straight. It just […]

What happened and who was there?

Well, I’m back home from the Good Jobs, Green Jobs national conference last week in Pittsburgh, and I’ve digested the speeches, the workshops, the press conferences, and the two major reports released at the event: “Green Collar Jobs in America’s Cities [PDF]: Building Pathways out of Poverty and Careers in the Clean Energy Economy” and […]

National convergence April 4-6 for green-collar jobs

Hundreds of activists, youths, and dreamers from communities of color around the nation are about to come together for The Dream Reborn in Memphis, and the green-job market is a big reason why. The conference is hosted by Green For All and marks the anniversary of MLK Jr.'s assassination by seeking to deepen relationships and skills in the arena of climate justice and building opportunity for poor communities in the new green economy. Van Jones, Majora Carter, Winona LaDuke, and others are going to lead the conversation, and it's going to be rich.

You probably knew that already. But did you know that they're also looking for a few more sponsors, a couple more green business exhibitors, and also help with giving scholarships to all of those whose presence is most needed at the event?

And if the thrust of this event is your bailiwick, then get registered, because hotel rooms in Memphis are filling up ...

Green-collar jobs mean standing up for people and the planet

For those of us who are a part of the movement for "green-collar jobs," last Sunday's Democratic presidential debate was a real watershed moment.

Clinton, Edwards, and Obama were in the debate of their lives. And all three of them passionately championed the importance of creating good jobs in the clean energy sector. They presented "green-collar jobs" as a way to simultaneously boost the economy and beat global warming.

Their words were like music to our ears. It felt like a victory for all of our organizations, which have been making this argument for some time. So ... hats off to the Apollo Alliance, Ella Baker Center, Workforce Alliance, Center for American Progress, Sustainable South Bronx, Center on Wisconsin Strategy, 1Sky, Energy Action Coalition, Green For All, and many more.

And then yesterday The Washington Post ran a major story on green jobs, Time magazine has taken up the issue, and CNN just featured it on their Situation Room. So it is now official: our demand for "green-collar jobs" has finally broken through!

But before the concept gets watered down by its very popularity, now might be a good time to give a clear and uncompromising answer to this question: What is a green-collar job, anyway?

The latest eco-buzzword

The Washington Post has a good article yesterday on the explosion in the use of the term "green-collar" jobs. You will no doubt be hearing much more of this term since it is a favorite of Clinton and Edwards; Me and the Center for American Progress are on the bandwagon; and even the super trendspotting Tom Friedman has glommed onto it.

No, it's not a perfect term. G-C jobs -- my effort to coin the ultimate eco-buzzword -- won't get you a green uniform and green power-ring like the Green Lantern Corps, although you will, coincidentally enough, be promoting green power. As the Post notes:

... while white-collar and blue-collar bring distinctive images to mind -- the mutual fund manager screaming into his BlackBerry, the coal miner coming home, coughing from a long day -- such iconic imagery is hard to find with the green-collar worker.

Still, the term, popularized by social activists like Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center, does have a powerful ring to it [sorry about that], so I expect it will be around for a while. I will try to limit use to, say, once a month.

Vote for the most heroic eco-hero of 2007

Check out our nominations for the most ass-kicking hero of 2007, then vote at the bottom of this post. (And tell us who we missed.)

Barbara Boxer. Sen. Boxer (D-Calif.) has been pushing for tough climate and energy legislation as chair of the Senate Environment Committee, and going head-to-head with James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on global warming. She's also trying to make Capitol Hill more energy efficient.

Leonardo DiCaprio. This green-leaning actor shined a spotlight on the world's top environmental leaders in his eco-documentary The 11th Hour, plotted a reality TV series about green building, and topped Grist's list of green celebs.

John Edwards. Edwards pushed other Democratic presidential contenders to go greener by coming out first with an aggressive climate plan and environmental platform.

Al Gore. This climate crusader won a Nobel Peace Prize, starred in an Oscar-winning film, and, uh, was named first runner-up for Time magazine's Person of the Year.

James Hansen. Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, has been outspoken and aggressive about the need to fight global warming. He's taken his share of hits, and punched right back.

Van Jones. Jones has been everywhere this year fighting for environmental justice and promoting a green economy. Plus, he's a hottie.

Angela Merkel. German Chancellor Merkel has made fighting climate change a top priority this year. She had hoped to advance her cause at the G8 summit this past summer; unfortunately, the U.S. got in the way.

Nancy Pelosi. The House speaker doggedly pushed through an aggressive energy bill -- though the Senate neutered it before it got to Bush's desk. Pelosi has also kept up demands for action against climate change, called for green-collar jobs, and worked to green the Capitol -- even if she doesn't "carry a big stick."

Kevin Rudd. Elected as Australia's prime minister in November 2007, Rudd followed through on his campaign promise to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on his first day in office, leaving the U.S. all by its lonesome.

Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Governator continues to be California's most pumped-up environmental defender and ambassador. Watch out, Bush, cause he's pissed about the EPA's auto-emissions decision.

Van Jones looks to sustainability for pathways out of poverty

Will the burgeoning "green" economy have a place in it for everyone? To a packed auditorium in Seattle last Wednesday, Van Jones said: It can. And to be successful, it has to.

In the chorus of voices against climate change, his message rings true and clear: "We have a chance to connect the people who most need work with the work that most needs to be done."

Van Jones is a civil-rights lawyer and founder and executive director of an innovative nonprofit working to ensure that low-income, working poor, and minority youth have access to the coming wave of "green-collar" jobs. Jones -- brought to Seattle by Climate Solutions, King County, El Centro de la Raza, Puget Sound Sage, and Earth Ministry -- made a compelling case that social justice is the moral anchor required to fuse the climate movement into a powerful and cohesive force. He sees that the solutions to global warming are the solutions to the biggest social and economic problems in urban and rural America.

His point is this: You can pass all the climate legislation you want, but you have to provide the local workforce to make it happen on the ground. "We have to retrofit a nation," he says. "No magical green fairies are going to come down and put up all those solar panels." This is going to take skilled labor. "We can make a green pathway out of poverty."

And it gets better, he says. These jobs can't be outsourced. "You can't put a building on a barge to Asia and weatherize it on the cheap." This is about kitchen table issues: jobs, industry, manufacturing, health, education.