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The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems
Provocative, personal, and inspirational, The Green Collar Economy is not a dire warning but rather a substantive and viable plan for solving the biggest issues facing the country — the failing economy and our devastated environment. From a distance, it appears that these two problems are separate, but when we look closer, the connection becomes unmistakable.
In The Green Collar Economy, acclaimed activist and political advisor Van Jones delivers a real solution that both rescues our economy and saves the environment. The economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal — all fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources. As supplies disappear, the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring, the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere. As the headlines make clear, total climate chaos looms over us. The bottom line: we cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas.
Instead, Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy. Built by a broad coalition deeply rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, this path has the practical benefit of both cutting energy prices and generating enough work to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral.
Rachel Carson's 1963 landmark book Silent Spring was the pivotal ecological examination of the last century. Now, rising above the impenetrable debate over the environment and the economy, Van Jones's The Green Collar Economy delivers a timely and essential call to action for this new century.
In The Green Collar Economy, acclaimed activist and political advisor Van Jones delivers a real solution that both rescues our economy and saves the environment. The economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal — all fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources. As supplies disappear, the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring, the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere. As the headlines make clear, total climate chaos looms over us. The bottom line: we cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas.
Instead, Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy. Built by a broad coalition deeply rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, this path has the practical benefit of both cutting energy prices and generating enough work to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral.
Rachel Carson's 1963 landmark book Silent Spring was the pivotal ecological examination of the last century. Now, rising above the impenetrable debate over the environment and the economy, Van Jones's The Green Collar Economy delivers a timely and essential call to action for this new century.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Van Jones
18 books139 followersAnthony "Van" Jones is the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Appointed by Barack Obama in March 2009, the newly created position will find Jones working with various "agencies and departments to advance the administration's climate and energy initiatives, with a special focus on improving vulnerable communities."
Jones is an environmental advocate, civil rights activist, attorney and author. He founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, a California NGO working for alternatives to violence. During his tenure as Executive Director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Jones signed a petition for 911Truth.org in 2004; subsequently, he has said the petition "didn't reflect my views now or ever." In 2005, Jones co-founded Color of Change, an advocacy group for African Americans. Formerly based in Oakland, California, Jones founded Green For All in 2007, a national NGO dedicated to "building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." His first book, The Green Collar Economy, was released on October 7, 2008, and reached number 12 on the New York Times bestseller list.
In 2008, Time magazine named Jones one of its "Environmental Heroes." Fast Company called him one of the "12 Most Creative Minds of 2008."
Jones is an environmental advocate, civil rights activist, attorney and author. He founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, a California NGO working for alternatives to violence. During his tenure as Executive Director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Jones signed a petition for 911Truth.org in 2004; subsequently, he has said the petition "didn't reflect my views now or ever." In 2005, Jones co-founded Color of Change, an advocacy group for African Americans. Formerly based in Oakland, California, Jones founded Green For All in 2007, a national NGO dedicated to "building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." His first book, The Green Collar Economy, was released on October 7, 2008, and reached number 12 on the New York Times bestseller list.
In 2008, Time magazine named Jones one of its "Environmental Heroes." Fast Company called him one of the "12 Most Creative Minds of 2008."
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June 30, 2012
Oh, the bias. It hurts.
Make no mistake about what this is: the author is a Democrat who put together ~175 pages of Democratic buzzwords for other Democrats to read, agree with, and feel good about themselves. It is utterly lacking in any in-depth, intelligent analysis. I only made it through the introductory chapter before giving up, and even that was a challenge.
I am not a Republican; I don't identify as either liberal or conservative. In fact, I am currently a graduate student at one of the better-known programs in environmental affairs, so I'm not some climate-change denier or anything like that.
I am, however, someone who knows a moderate amount of information about energy issues, so I couldn't get through a single sentence of this book without cringing at how biased, misleading, inaccurate, improperly sourced, and sensationalist each and every line was.
Do not read if you are looking to actually learn something. If you're just looking to have your pre-conceived notions validated, have at it. (And hey, I'm not judging. I watch the Daily Show religiously for that exact reason. I just know to treat it as a source of entertainment, not fact.)
Make no mistake about what this is: the author is a Democrat who put together ~175 pages of Democratic buzzwords for other Democrats to read, agree with, and feel good about themselves. It is utterly lacking in any in-depth, intelligent analysis. I only made it through the introductory chapter before giving up, and even that was a challenge.
I am not a Republican; I don't identify as either liberal or conservative. In fact, I am currently a graduate student at one of the better-known programs in environmental affairs, so I'm not some climate-change denier or anything like that.
I am, however, someone who knows a moderate amount of information about energy issues, so I couldn't get through a single sentence of this book without cringing at how biased, misleading, inaccurate, improperly sourced, and sensationalist each and every line was.
Do not read if you are looking to actually learn something. If you're just looking to have your pre-conceived notions validated, have at it. (And hey, I'm not judging. I watch the Daily Show religiously for that exact reason. I just know to treat it as a source of entertainment, not fact.)
August 20, 2010
Green Jobs Meets the Solidarity Economy:
A Dynamic Duo for Changing the World
A Review of 'Green Collar Economy:
How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems'
By Van Jones, Harper-Collins, 2008
By Carl Davidson
SolidarityEconomy.Net
It's time to link the newly insurgent U.S. Green Jobs movement with the worldwide efforts for the solidarity economy. Both are answering the call to fight the deepening global recession, and both face common adversaries in the failed 'race to the bottom,' environment-be-damned policies of global neoliberalism.
That's the imperative facing left-progressive organizers with connections to these two important grassroots movements. It's even more important in the wake of the appointment of a key leader of one of these movements, Van Jones of 'Green For All', to a top environmental and urban policy post in the Obama administration.
Jones is a founder of an urban-based campaign focused on low-income young people, multinational and multicultural, that first developed as a progressive response to police repression, gang killings and all-round "criminalization of youth." He saw the exclusion of this sector of the population from living-wage work and other opportunities as a key cause of the violence and destruction. Putting young people to work at low-to-medium skill levels retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency seemed like a no-brainer, so the demand for 'Green Jobs, Not Jails' was raised.
The slogan found deep resonance as it spread across the country. Its all-round implications were spelled out in Jones' widely acclaimed book, "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems." It spells out a string of ingenious, interconnected programs aimed at resolving the savage inequalities of structural unemployment and the global dangers of climate change rooted in carbon-based energies systems.
"Let's be clear," says Jones in the opening pages of his book, "The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. Hundreds of thousands of green collar jobs will be weatherizing and energy-retrofitting every building in the United States."
He doesn't leave the matter there, but makes use of this picture to point out what's "shovel ready," to use the lingo of debate around stimulus spending. Green jobs span the entire range of occupations, with a special focus on high-tech manufacturing in emerging alternative energy industries.
"Green Collar Economy" was instantly a powerful voice in policy circles. It gained a wider and deeper significance in light of the financial crises that hit the fan soon after it reached the bookstores. Just as the voter revolt against Wall Street helped lift Obama to the Oval Office, so too was Van Jones's urban policy monograph raised into a "What Is To Be Done" manifesto for deep structural reforms capable of busting the onset of a major depression.
"The best answer to our ecological crisis also responds to our socio-economic crisis," Jones explains. "The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities are not more police and prisons, but ecologically sound economic development. And that same path can lead us to a new green economy."
How does it connect with the solidarity economy? This parallel movement with even earlier roots is widely known throughout the Global South, especially Latin America, as well as Europe and Quebec. It has been comprised of a range of projects where social capital is partnered with worker, community, consumer and peasant cooperative ownership structures. These were designed to fight back against the economic devastation wrought by neoliberal IMF-imposed "solutions" that left people without a safety net or means of survival. People turned to each other at the grassroots in common efforts, hence the term 'solidarity economy.'
Both the solidarity economy and the green economy are "value centered" schools of economic thought. They are in the classical tradition of political economy, which in turn is rooted in moral philosophy. They are not simply descriptive of supposedly objective economic processes, but are prescriptive. At full throttle, they are organizing principles for shaping the future, locally and globally, via local organization and mass mobilization. For its part, the solidarity economy stresses the values of cooperation and mutual aid, especially in governance structures of productive, consumer or financial units. The green economy emphasizes ongoing sustainability and harmony between people and the eco-system of which they are a part.
The solidarity economy is about how people relate to each other, while the green economy is about how people relate to their wider environment. Naturally, there is considerable overlap between the two. Both see the current order as destructive of people and planet, and are working to turn things around.
"Equal protection of all people, equal opportunity for all people, and reverence for all creation."--these are what Jones terms the "three pillars" of the new green global economy.
Neither economic vision is monolithic. Both schools of thought span a range of views, some of which are in contention. In the Green Jobs movement, for instance, there are debates on nuclear power and "clean coal," and what role, if any, these might have in a low-carbon future. In the solidarity economy movement, there are discussions on the place of markets and government, and whether cooperative structures can use either or both to their advantage. There is also debate over the importance of "high road" allies within the business community, "high road" meaning traditional business structures that bring wider community and environmental responsibility into their business plans, rather than simply short-term shareholder profit.
Where Van Jones' approach to both the green and solidarity economies most compels our attention is that he starts where the need is greatest, the millions of unemployed and underemployed inner city youth. The structural crises of neoliberal capitalism has long ravaged this sector of our society through deindustrialization, environmental racism and a wrecking ball approach to schools in favor of more prisons. To borrow from Marx, these young people are bound with radical chains, and when they break them with the tools suggested in 'Green Collar Economy,' they free not only themselves, but the rest of us are set in a positive direction as well.
"The green economy," Jones explains, reflecting on Hurricane Katrina, "should not be just about reclaiming thrown-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not be just about recycling materials to give things a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance. Formerly incarcerated people deserve a second shot at life-and all obstacles to their being able to find that second chance in the green sector should be removed. Also, our urban youth deserve the opportunity to be part of something promising."
Jones is a strategic thinker who gives definite answers to the question, "Who are our friends, who are our adversaries?" He narrows the target to speculative capital with roots in carbon-based energy industries and the militarism needed to secure their supplies. He seeks close allies in the wider working class of all nationalities, especially in the Blue-Green Alliance formed on the core partnership of the United Steelworkers with the Sierra Club. He also looks for allies among faith communities, environmentalists in the suburbs and rural populations suffering at the hands of anti-ecological agribusiness, offering a vision of wind farms and solar arrays for sustainable rural development. He sees the importance of cutting back defense spending and opposing unjust wars abroad.
Finally, he holds out a hand to green businesses in alternative energies, the current and future manufacturers of clean power:
"Our success and survival as a species are largely and directly tied to the new eco-entrepreneurs-and the success and survival of their enterprises. Since almost all of the needed eco-technologies are likely to come from the private sector, civic leaders and voters should do all that can be done to help green business leaders succeed."
Jones is not talking just about mom and pop operations here, but an important and growing sector of productive capital. These will range from small upstarts to T Boone Pickens-type investors wanting to create giant wind farms and large coastal arrays of wave generators, along with the manufacturing firms that build their equipment. Some on the left who want to see a clean renewable energy future will have to make adjustments in their "anti-corporate" strategies if they want to pursue this goal effectively with these high-road allies. Dan Swinney of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council explains his current project, the Chicago Green Manufacturing Network, as a case in point:
"CMRC is working with the Cleveland-based Great Lakes Wind Network/WireNET and the City of Chicago in building the capacity of local manufacturing companies to become the supply chain for the explosive wind turbine industry. Illinois and other states currently have ambitious Renewable Energy Portfolios that create a huge market for wind turbine companies and others in the renewable energy field. Currently the components for these companies are principally made by European and Asian suppliers. We will rise to the challenge of building the capacity of local companies to supply the high quality components for wind turbines and other renewable energy companies. This will be a means to diversify the markets for some of the 12,000 manufacturing companies in our region and an opportunity to create hundreds if not thousands of new permanent, full-time jobs in manufacturing."
But Green Collar Economy's core mass base remains a united Black and Latino community in close alliance with organized labor, the same engine of change that put Obama in the White House. And by asserting the interests and needs of that base, the green jobs and infrastructure proposals in Obama's stimulus package serve to drive the entire recovery effort in a progressive direction.
"We want to build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty," says Jones, 'We want this green wave to lift all boats…In the wake of Katrina, we reject the idea of 'free market' evacuation plans. Families should not be left behind to drown because they lack a functioning car or credit card…In an age of floods, we reject the ideology that says we must let our neighbors 'sink or swim'."
The nature of the Green New Deal's adversaries--the carbon-based energy speculators and the military industries defending them--is the key reason Jones' strategy requires a massive mobilized base. The structural reforms needed to dislodge and displace them are going to require a great deal of popular power from below. The petroleum-coal industrial nexus alone is subsidized to the tune of $1 trillion annually, according to Congressman Robert Kennedy Jr. in his foreword to Jones' book. Some are outright opposed to any "New Deal," green or otherwise, as the GOP in Congress reveal with their votes against the Recovery Act. The Green Jobs components were often cited by the right as "pork" or "the road to socialism." Others want to destroy the Green New Deal from within, via "greenwashing." These are politicians who take their lead from some corporations that have become skilled at changing their ads to "green" but continue producing toxics and other waste from the polluter's agenda.
Jones singles out Newt Gingrich, the GOP's neoliberal-in-chief, as particularly devious: "He has skillfully used rising fuel prices to stoke public support for climate-destroying measures…Their new tactic is to spread confusion about the real solutions by deliberately blurring distinctions between themselves and the champions of genuine answers." Jones has to take the battle into the government and electoral arenas. The resources of state power are required to bring the green economy to scale, even if it requires a gut-wrenching struggle with polluters who have a good number of politicians on their payrolls and with revenue streams long fused to the public trough.
The solidarity economy faces these battles as well. For the most part, it overlaps with the green economy at the grassroots. Its mission can be summarized as generating new wealth in a green way, but with a worker-community ownership or control component built into a project's agenda from the start. As a major finance capitalist and former oilman who wants to invest in wind farms in a major way, T Boone Pickens is clearly part of the green economy, but not part of the solidarity economy. A wind farm on an Indian reservation cooperatively owned by the tribe and employing its members and selling power both locally and regionally would be very much part of the solidarity economy.
But the picture is more complex. "Stakeholder" solutions are not quite as clear-cut. For instance, GAMESA, a Spanish high-tech firm and a leading European manufacturer of wind turbines, recently opened a plant in Bucks County, PA. To do so, it formed stakeholder partnerships with the county and state governments, getting tax allowances and land-use easements to refit and old closed steel mill. The United Steel Workers union was brought in as a partner: 1000 new union jobs were created, hiring many of the unemployed steelworkers. The "solidarity" here is between high-road capital, the USW, local government and the unemployed of the area, but it's a stretch for some who might want to reserve 'solidarity' strictly to cooperative ownership structures.
The stakeholder solidarity offers practical flexibility in the wider struggle to bring both movements to scale. Cooperative structures that evolve out of deeper structural reforms have the quality of altering the relations of power in production and local governance. Even if on a small scale, they can point to a future of wider economic democracy, acting as a bridge to new socialist relations.
In any case, a powerful high-road alliance opens the door to those on its left wing who want to take it farther. Van Jones himself has no problem with either form; his book celebrates the stakeholder green jobs alliances implemented by the Green Party mayor of Richmond, CA, as well as the Green Worker Cooperatives in building salvaging businesses in the South Bronx, NY.
At one point in his book, Jones uses a metaphor of two ships to sum up the current crossroads facing the American people, the Amistad and the Titanic. The latter carried the wealthy elite indulging in idle pleasures, and a proletarian crew labored below in an unsound structure. The former had been taken over by insurgent slaves, taken to safe harbor, but still lacked wider resources for the crew's future. The folly of reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic has long been a metaphor for doomed tinkering at reforms in a closed system. The Amistad, however, offers a more open future. Those familiar with the story know it involves further complex struggles, with new allies, high born and low, against a dying system. But it offers hope and change, both of which are in high regard these days.
[Carl Davidson is a member of the coordinating committee of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, and a national committee member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and currently webmaster for 'Progressives for Obama.' He is co-author of 'CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age,' and co-editor of 'Solidarity Economy: Building Alternatives for People and Planet,' both available at http://lulu.com/stores/changemaker. If you like this article, go to http://progressivesforobama.net and make use of the PayPal button.]
A Dynamic Duo for Changing the World
A Review of 'Green Collar Economy:
How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems'
By Van Jones, Harper-Collins, 2008
By Carl Davidson
SolidarityEconomy.Net
It's time to link the newly insurgent U.S. Green Jobs movement with the worldwide efforts for the solidarity economy. Both are answering the call to fight the deepening global recession, and both face common adversaries in the failed 'race to the bottom,' environment-be-damned policies of global neoliberalism.
That's the imperative facing left-progressive organizers with connections to these two important grassroots movements. It's even more important in the wake of the appointment of a key leader of one of these movements, Van Jones of 'Green For All', to a top environmental and urban policy post in the Obama administration.
Jones is a founder of an urban-based campaign focused on low-income young people, multinational and multicultural, that first developed as a progressive response to police repression, gang killings and all-round "criminalization of youth." He saw the exclusion of this sector of the population from living-wage work and other opportunities as a key cause of the violence and destruction. Putting young people to work at low-to-medium skill levels retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency seemed like a no-brainer, so the demand for 'Green Jobs, Not Jails' was raised.
The slogan found deep resonance as it spread across the country. Its all-round implications were spelled out in Jones' widely acclaimed book, "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems." It spells out a string of ingenious, interconnected programs aimed at resolving the savage inequalities of structural unemployment and the global dangers of climate change rooted in carbon-based energies systems.
"Let's be clear," says Jones in the opening pages of his book, "The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. Hundreds of thousands of green collar jobs will be weatherizing and energy-retrofitting every building in the United States."
He doesn't leave the matter there, but makes use of this picture to point out what's "shovel ready," to use the lingo of debate around stimulus spending. Green jobs span the entire range of occupations, with a special focus on high-tech manufacturing in emerging alternative energy industries.
"Green Collar Economy" was instantly a powerful voice in policy circles. It gained a wider and deeper significance in light of the financial crises that hit the fan soon after it reached the bookstores. Just as the voter revolt against Wall Street helped lift Obama to the Oval Office, so too was Van Jones's urban policy monograph raised into a "What Is To Be Done" manifesto for deep structural reforms capable of busting the onset of a major depression.
"The best answer to our ecological crisis also responds to our socio-economic crisis," Jones explains. "The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities are not more police and prisons, but ecologically sound economic development. And that same path can lead us to a new green economy."
How does it connect with the solidarity economy? This parallel movement with even earlier roots is widely known throughout the Global South, especially Latin America, as well as Europe and Quebec. It has been comprised of a range of projects where social capital is partnered with worker, community, consumer and peasant cooperative ownership structures. These were designed to fight back against the economic devastation wrought by neoliberal IMF-imposed "solutions" that left people without a safety net or means of survival. People turned to each other at the grassroots in common efforts, hence the term 'solidarity economy.'
Both the solidarity economy and the green economy are "value centered" schools of economic thought. They are in the classical tradition of political economy, which in turn is rooted in moral philosophy. They are not simply descriptive of supposedly objective economic processes, but are prescriptive. At full throttle, they are organizing principles for shaping the future, locally and globally, via local organization and mass mobilization. For its part, the solidarity economy stresses the values of cooperation and mutual aid, especially in governance structures of productive, consumer or financial units. The green economy emphasizes ongoing sustainability and harmony between people and the eco-system of which they are a part.
The solidarity economy is about how people relate to each other, while the green economy is about how people relate to their wider environment. Naturally, there is considerable overlap between the two. Both see the current order as destructive of people and planet, and are working to turn things around.
"Equal protection of all people, equal opportunity for all people, and reverence for all creation."--these are what Jones terms the "three pillars" of the new green global economy.
Neither economic vision is monolithic. Both schools of thought span a range of views, some of which are in contention. In the Green Jobs movement, for instance, there are debates on nuclear power and "clean coal," and what role, if any, these might have in a low-carbon future. In the solidarity economy movement, there are discussions on the place of markets and government, and whether cooperative structures can use either or both to their advantage. There is also debate over the importance of "high road" allies within the business community, "high road" meaning traditional business structures that bring wider community and environmental responsibility into their business plans, rather than simply short-term shareholder profit.
Where Van Jones' approach to both the green and solidarity economies most compels our attention is that he starts where the need is greatest, the millions of unemployed and underemployed inner city youth. The structural crises of neoliberal capitalism has long ravaged this sector of our society through deindustrialization, environmental racism and a wrecking ball approach to schools in favor of more prisons. To borrow from Marx, these young people are bound with radical chains, and when they break them with the tools suggested in 'Green Collar Economy,' they free not only themselves, but the rest of us are set in a positive direction as well.
"The green economy," Jones explains, reflecting on Hurricane Katrina, "should not be just about reclaiming thrown-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not be just about recycling materials to give things a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance. Formerly incarcerated people deserve a second shot at life-and all obstacles to their being able to find that second chance in the green sector should be removed. Also, our urban youth deserve the opportunity to be part of something promising."
Jones is a strategic thinker who gives definite answers to the question, "Who are our friends, who are our adversaries?" He narrows the target to speculative capital with roots in carbon-based energy industries and the militarism needed to secure their supplies. He seeks close allies in the wider working class of all nationalities, especially in the Blue-Green Alliance formed on the core partnership of the United Steelworkers with the Sierra Club. He also looks for allies among faith communities, environmentalists in the suburbs and rural populations suffering at the hands of anti-ecological agribusiness, offering a vision of wind farms and solar arrays for sustainable rural development. He sees the importance of cutting back defense spending and opposing unjust wars abroad.
Finally, he holds out a hand to green businesses in alternative energies, the current and future manufacturers of clean power:
"Our success and survival as a species are largely and directly tied to the new eco-entrepreneurs-and the success and survival of their enterprises. Since almost all of the needed eco-technologies are likely to come from the private sector, civic leaders and voters should do all that can be done to help green business leaders succeed."
Jones is not talking just about mom and pop operations here, but an important and growing sector of productive capital. These will range from small upstarts to T Boone Pickens-type investors wanting to create giant wind farms and large coastal arrays of wave generators, along with the manufacturing firms that build their equipment. Some on the left who want to see a clean renewable energy future will have to make adjustments in their "anti-corporate" strategies if they want to pursue this goal effectively with these high-road allies. Dan Swinney of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council explains his current project, the Chicago Green Manufacturing Network, as a case in point:
"CMRC is working with the Cleveland-based Great Lakes Wind Network/WireNET and the City of Chicago in building the capacity of local manufacturing companies to become the supply chain for the explosive wind turbine industry. Illinois and other states currently have ambitious Renewable Energy Portfolios that create a huge market for wind turbine companies and others in the renewable energy field. Currently the components for these companies are principally made by European and Asian suppliers. We will rise to the challenge of building the capacity of local companies to supply the high quality components for wind turbines and other renewable energy companies. This will be a means to diversify the markets for some of the 12,000 manufacturing companies in our region and an opportunity to create hundreds if not thousands of new permanent, full-time jobs in manufacturing."
But Green Collar Economy's core mass base remains a united Black and Latino community in close alliance with organized labor, the same engine of change that put Obama in the White House. And by asserting the interests and needs of that base, the green jobs and infrastructure proposals in Obama's stimulus package serve to drive the entire recovery effort in a progressive direction.
"We want to build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty," says Jones, 'We want this green wave to lift all boats…In the wake of Katrina, we reject the idea of 'free market' evacuation plans. Families should not be left behind to drown because they lack a functioning car or credit card…In an age of floods, we reject the ideology that says we must let our neighbors 'sink or swim'."
The nature of the Green New Deal's adversaries--the carbon-based energy speculators and the military industries defending them--is the key reason Jones' strategy requires a massive mobilized base. The structural reforms needed to dislodge and displace them are going to require a great deal of popular power from below. The petroleum-coal industrial nexus alone is subsidized to the tune of $1 trillion annually, according to Congressman Robert Kennedy Jr. in his foreword to Jones' book. Some are outright opposed to any "New Deal," green or otherwise, as the GOP in Congress reveal with their votes against the Recovery Act. The Green Jobs components were often cited by the right as "pork" or "the road to socialism." Others want to destroy the Green New Deal from within, via "greenwashing." These are politicians who take their lead from some corporations that have become skilled at changing their ads to "green" but continue producing toxics and other waste from the polluter's agenda.
Jones singles out Newt Gingrich, the GOP's neoliberal-in-chief, as particularly devious: "He has skillfully used rising fuel prices to stoke public support for climate-destroying measures…Their new tactic is to spread confusion about the real solutions by deliberately blurring distinctions between themselves and the champions of genuine answers." Jones has to take the battle into the government and electoral arenas. The resources of state power are required to bring the green economy to scale, even if it requires a gut-wrenching struggle with polluters who have a good number of politicians on their payrolls and with revenue streams long fused to the public trough.
The solidarity economy faces these battles as well. For the most part, it overlaps with the green economy at the grassroots. Its mission can be summarized as generating new wealth in a green way, but with a worker-community ownership or control component built into a project's agenda from the start. As a major finance capitalist and former oilman who wants to invest in wind farms in a major way, T Boone Pickens is clearly part of the green economy, but not part of the solidarity economy. A wind farm on an Indian reservation cooperatively owned by the tribe and employing its members and selling power both locally and regionally would be very much part of the solidarity economy.
But the picture is more complex. "Stakeholder" solutions are not quite as clear-cut. For instance, GAMESA, a Spanish high-tech firm and a leading European manufacturer of wind turbines, recently opened a plant in Bucks County, PA. To do so, it formed stakeholder partnerships with the county and state governments, getting tax allowances and land-use easements to refit and old closed steel mill. The United Steel Workers union was brought in as a partner: 1000 new union jobs were created, hiring many of the unemployed steelworkers. The "solidarity" here is between high-road capital, the USW, local government and the unemployed of the area, but it's a stretch for some who might want to reserve 'solidarity' strictly to cooperative ownership structures.
The stakeholder solidarity offers practical flexibility in the wider struggle to bring both movements to scale. Cooperative structures that evolve out of deeper structural reforms have the quality of altering the relations of power in production and local governance. Even if on a small scale, they can point to a future of wider economic democracy, acting as a bridge to new socialist relations.
In any case, a powerful high-road alliance opens the door to those on its left wing who want to take it farther. Van Jones himself has no problem with either form; his book celebrates the stakeholder green jobs alliances implemented by the Green Party mayor of Richmond, CA, as well as the Green Worker Cooperatives in building salvaging businesses in the South Bronx, NY.
At one point in his book, Jones uses a metaphor of two ships to sum up the current crossroads facing the American people, the Amistad and the Titanic. The latter carried the wealthy elite indulging in idle pleasures, and a proletarian crew labored below in an unsound structure. The former had been taken over by insurgent slaves, taken to safe harbor, but still lacked wider resources for the crew's future. The folly of reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic has long been a metaphor for doomed tinkering at reforms in a closed system. The Amistad, however, offers a more open future. Those familiar with the story know it involves further complex struggles, with new allies, high born and low, against a dying system. But it offers hope and change, both of which are in high regard these days.
[Carl Davidson is a member of the coordinating committee of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, and a national committee member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and currently webmaster for 'Progressives for Obama.' He is co-author of 'CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age,' and co-editor of 'Solidarity Economy: Building Alternatives for People and Planet,' both available at http://lulu.com/stores/changemaker. If you like this article, go to http://progressivesforobama.net and make use of the PayPal button.]
March 8, 2016
Bill Maher recommended this book on an episode of his Real Time with Bill Maher show on HBO. It's a very informative book. I wish more energy companies would embrace a greener method to extract/create energy.
June 23, 2009
Review of The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones
By Bill McKibben
Van Jones is, beyond any doubt, one of the rising stars of the American environmental movement and the American civil rights movement. He’s fused the two of them in a new way, and in so doing constructed a powerful political argument for how we might move forward with the twin challenges of preparing the country to fight global warming and pulling our economy out of its dangerous current weakness.
The longtime head of the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, and now of the Green For All campaign, Jones took advantage of the odd politics of the Bay Area to reach a vital epiphany. He saw the very real environmental passion, and very real wealth, of folks in San Francisco, the Berkeley Hills, and the coastlines of Marin County, and he saw as well the abysmal poverty of the flatlands along the East Bay. How did they need each other? Well, in a practical way, and in a political one.
Practically speaking, the task of actually making all those affluent homes “green” would require lots of workers. Workers that could, and should, come from the communities passed over by prosperity in years past—“green-collar workers” who would need to go past high school but perhaps not to a four-year college to learn the real skills required to make American energy-efficient. “Let’s be clear,” he writes. “The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. . . . Another bit of high-tech green technology is the clipboard . . . used by energy auditors as they point out energy-saving opportunities to homeowners and renters. . . . Other green-collar workers can then follow up with other tasks for building owners: wrapping hot-water heaters with blankets, blowing insulation, plugging holes, repairing cracks.” The point, he insists, is that when we think “green future” the image that should spring to mind is not George Jetson with a jet pack but “Joe Sixpack with a hard hat.”
And one of the best features of this kind of work is, it simply can’t be outsourced—no one is going to ship their house to China for new insulation.
The investment in real training for real jobs for people in real need would pay all kinds of dividends for traditional environmentalists, he insists. Recounting the sad tale of California’s Prop. 87, when the oil companies managed to manipulate black voters into helping turn down a tax that would have brought their communities huge gains, Jones concludes that “the eco-elite cannot win major change alone, not even in the Golden State.” (By the way, for those interested in the political futures market, I’ve heard more than one person murmuring about the possibility of Jones making a strong bid for the California Senate seat now held by Dianne Feinstein. He is a sparkling orator, with a mirthful soul and a commanding presence—this book would have been even better with a DVD insert of one of his speeches.)
Jones includes a number of examples of this budding coalition, including the quite inspiring story of how entrepreneurs in the poor and violent California city of Richmond managed to build a powerful solar business in short order, meeting the fast-growing demand for solar panel installation with local hires. He tells local food stories from Chicago’s inner city, and tales of innovative water, trash, and transport projects. But he’s canny enough to know that data is not the plural of anecdote: For real action, we’ll need much stronger involvement from the federal government. If there’s one sadness to reading this book in the weeks after its publication, it’s that the federal bailout of our pasteboard suburban home-mortgage crisis has likely eaten much of the money necessary for this work. But if a like-minded new president was looking for a plan, it’s spelled out in enough detail here to let him get down to work: Jones proposes everything from a new Clean Energy Corps to a serious effort to address the “Greenhouse Development Rights” of poor countries around the world.
This book could be read quite profitably next to Tom Friedman’s new tome,Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Jones takes Friedman’s high-octane account of the next green revolution and brings it right down to earth, which is where it needs to be. This is an important contribution to the environmental debate, from an important environmentalist, one who’s redefining the meaning of that word.
To learn more, visit The Progressive Book Club: http://www.progressivebookclub.com/bl...
By Bill McKibben
Van Jones is, beyond any doubt, one of the rising stars of the American environmental movement and the American civil rights movement. He’s fused the two of them in a new way, and in so doing constructed a powerful political argument for how we might move forward with the twin challenges of preparing the country to fight global warming and pulling our economy out of its dangerous current weakness.
The longtime head of the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, and now of the Green For All campaign, Jones took advantage of the odd politics of the Bay Area to reach a vital epiphany. He saw the very real environmental passion, and very real wealth, of folks in San Francisco, the Berkeley Hills, and the coastlines of Marin County, and he saw as well the abysmal poverty of the flatlands along the East Bay. How did they need each other? Well, in a practical way, and in a political one.
Practically speaking, the task of actually making all those affluent homes “green” would require lots of workers. Workers that could, and should, come from the communities passed over by prosperity in years past—“green-collar workers” who would need to go past high school but perhaps not to a four-year college to learn the real skills required to make American energy-efficient. “Let’s be clear,” he writes. “The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. . . . Another bit of high-tech green technology is the clipboard . . . used by energy auditors as they point out energy-saving opportunities to homeowners and renters. . . . Other green-collar workers can then follow up with other tasks for building owners: wrapping hot-water heaters with blankets, blowing insulation, plugging holes, repairing cracks.” The point, he insists, is that when we think “green future” the image that should spring to mind is not George Jetson with a jet pack but “Joe Sixpack with a hard hat.”
And one of the best features of this kind of work is, it simply can’t be outsourced—no one is going to ship their house to China for new insulation.
The investment in real training for real jobs for people in real need would pay all kinds of dividends for traditional environmentalists, he insists. Recounting the sad tale of California’s Prop. 87, when the oil companies managed to manipulate black voters into helping turn down a tax that would have brought their communities huge gains, Jones concludes that “the eco-elite cannot win major change alone, not even in the Golden State.” (By the way, for those interested in the political futures market, I’ve heard more than one person murmuring about the possibility of Jones making a strong bid for the California Senate seat now held by Dianne Feinstein. He is a sparkling orator, with a mirthful soul and a commanding presence—this book would have been even better with a DVD insert of one of his speeches.)
Jones includes a number of examples of this budding coalition, including the quite inspiring story of how entrepreneurs in the poor and violent California city of Richmond managed to build a powerful solar business in short order, meeting the fast-growing demand for solar panel installation with local hires. He tells local food stories from Chicago’s inner city, and tales of innovative water, trash, and transport projects. But he’s canny enough to know that data is not the plural of anecdote: For real action, we’ll need much stronger involvement from the federal government. If there’s one sadness to reading this book in the weeks after its publication, it’s that the federal bailout of our pasteboard suburban home-mortgage crisis has likely eaten much of the money necessary for this work. But if a like-minded new president was looking for a plan, it’s spelled out in enough detail here to let him get down to work: Jones proposes everything from a new Clean Energy Corps to a serious effort to address the “Greenhouse Development Rights” of poor countries around the world.
This book could be read quite profitably next to Tom Friedman’s new tome,Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Jones takes Friedman’s high-octane account of the next green revolution and brings it right down to earth, which is where it needs to be. This is an important contribution to the environmental debate, from an important environmentalist, one who’s redefining the meaning of that word.
To learn more, visit The Progressive Book Club: http://www.progressivebookclub.com/bl...
February 26, 2009
Van Jones describes the two crises he feels threaten the country: environmental destruction and socio-economic inequality. He feels the solution lies in creating a “green economy” where good blue-collar jobs with a family wage are replaced by an expanding sector of family wage “green-collar” jobs that extend economic opportunities to people of color and those returning from prison. One of his favorite slogans is “Green Jobs, Not Jails.”
Van Jones believes the environmental crisis is so bad that to survive we will have to build a green economy. However, he highlights the failed opportunities of the environmental movement in the past to expand such a transformation to social justice issues. This is the moment, he believes, that a broad coalition of civil rights activists, labor unions, and environmental organizations can push for a transformation to a eco-friendly socially just economy. Writing at the end of the Bush administration and before the election of Obama, he calls for the next administration to implement a green New Deal.
At the center of Van Jones's vision are entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will use inventiveness and creativity to come up with the technologies that will green our way of living. The rich who buy these products and services today are fueling the innovation. The coalition he envisions should push for wide-spread government investment in these innovations to create the green collar jobs to implement them and to allow such services (from organic food to solar panels) to be accessible for all people, not just the rich.
This book is well-written. It is direct. It is clear. The prose is sometimes cliché, but always functional. His metaphor of the four quadrants and the amistad/titanic are particularly useful (you’ll have to read the book for his explanations of these). The book attempts to speak to multiple audiences while offending none. He talks about the need for environmentalists to reframe their issues to address the concerns of poor denizens and non-white denizens in particularly useful ways.
However, I found the discussion of Native America to be lacking depth. The heterogeneity of Native America is ignored and instead the vision is of Native Americans as spiritual guides. While the rich have the resources to care about the fate of polar-bears and the poor must focus on bread and butter issues and those that directly affect them like air pollution (he wants us to rename clean air campaigns as campaigns against asthma), Native Americans somehow transcend this and due to their spirituality care about the polar bears despite their poverty.
Moreover, while Jones’s vision of partnership rather than confrontation is sometimes useful in advising social movements, I also think it neglects the true power relations of society (where power concedes nothing without demand). Yet it fits his vision of economic and environmental justice as part of a “sustainable” “natural” capitalism. Those who agree with Paul Hawkins might not share this critique of Jones.
I found the book’s alliance with Paul Hawkins, and focus on entrepreneurship as the linchpin of a blue-green coalition distributing. The author separates himself from what he calls the “far left.” I do not believe the capitalism is sustainable, even altered slightly with massive government regulation. On a practical level, I have no objections to his suggestions. I think any of plans implemented would be a huge leap forward to an economically and environmentally most just world. However, taking advantage of these opportunities will not lead to a racially-just, economically-just ecotopia. Moreover, the role of the labor unions in this coalition and relationship to green-collar work needs to be more fleshed out. I do not see how the plans in the book fundamentally alters the class relations of U.S. capitalist society.
Van Jones believes the environmental crisis is so bad that to survive we will have to build a green economy. However, he highlights the failed opportunities of the environmental movement in the past to expand such a transformation to social justice issues. This is the moment, he believes, that a broad coalition of civil rights activists, labor unions, and environmental organizations can push for a transformation to a eco-friendly socially just economy. Writing at the end of the Bush administration and before the election of Obama, he calls for the next administration to implement a green New Deal.
At the center of Van Jones's vision are entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will use inventiveness and creativity to come up with the technologies that will green our way of living. The rich who buy these products and services today are fueling the innovation. The coalition he envisions should push for wide-spread government investment in these innovations to create the green collar jobs to implement them and to allow such services (from organic food to solar panels) to be accessible for all people, not just the rich.
This book is well-written. It is direct. It is clear. The prose is sometimes cliché, but always functional. His metaphor of the four quadrants and the amistad/titanic are particularly useful (you’ll have to read the book for his explanations of these). The book attempts to speak to multiple audiences while offending none. He talks about the need for environmentalists to reframe their issues to address the concerns of poor denizens and non-white denizens in particularly useful ways.
However, I found the discussion of Native America to be lacking depth. The heterogeneity of Native America is ignored and instead the vision is of Native Americans as spiritual guides. While the rich have the resources to care about the fate of polar-bears and the poor must focus on bread and butter issues and those that directly affect them like air pollution (he wants us to rename clean air campaigns as campaigns against asthma), Native Americans somehow transcend this and due to their spirituality care about the polar bears despite their poverty.
Moreover, while Jones’s vision of partnership rather than confrontation is sometimes useful in advising social movements, I also think it neglects the true power relations of society (where power concedes nothing without demand). Yet it fits his vision of economic and environmental justice as part of a “sustainable” “natural” capitalism. Those who agree with Paul Hawkins might not share this critique of Jones.
I found the book’s alliance with Paul Hawkins, and focus on entrepreneurship as the linchpin of a blue-green coalition distributing. The author separates himself from what he calls the “far left.” I do not believe the capitalism is sustainable, even altered slightly with massive government regulation. On a practical level, I have no objections to his suggestions. I think any of plans implemented would be a huge leap forward to an economically and environmentally most just world. However, taking advantage of these opportunities will not lead to a racially-just, economically-just ecotopia. Moreover, the role of the labor unions in this coalition and relationship to green-collar work needs to be more fleshed out. I do not see how the plans in the book fundamentally alters the class relations of U.S. capitalist society.
August 10, 2010
So: Van Jones. Mr. Jones was appointed to be the "Green Jobs Czar" in the Obama administration, then was forced to resign when it came out that he was a professed communist and a 'truther.' He lasted about six months. Bye-bye, Van.
I am a Green dude myself, so I listened to Mr. Jones give a speech about a month back, and I was impressed. He is smart, funny, and seems like a nice man who cares a great deal about the environment and the poor, so we have that in common. I picked up his book from the library yesterday, read half, and returned it today. Here is why:
In 1997, I read Hillary Clinton's book It Takes a Village. The book was full of great ideas for helping children--especilly poor children. Clinton worked for Marion Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund way back in the day, and her policy expertise, as well as her passion to help poor children, were obvious. There were programs, and programs, and more programs all aimed at helping poor families, and poor children, become successful. It was heart-warming.
And it will never happen, for the same reason that Van Jones's Green Collar ideas will never take off on a national scale: both authors depend almost entirely on the federal government to initiate, fund, and maintain their programs. There is simply no political will to create more massive federal spending programs. Even now, in the midst of the Great Recession, with the offical unemployment rate at 9.5% (but it's really higher if you take into account those who have stopped looking for work, or those who are just now entering the workforce), we can't muster the political will to pass unemployment insurance extentions without bruising political battles. People are, quite literally, wiping food banks out; food stamp enrollment is at an all time high; millions upon millions have been forced out of their homes...and we can't extend unemployment insurance. That's how rotten our poltics has become. That's how dysfunctional Washington is.
There is plenty of blame to go around for this state of affairs, but suffice it to say that we are in no danger of launching a "Green jobs New Deal." Mr. Jones has some excellent ideas, made some great points, and certainly gives food for thought, but ultimately he is preaching to a choir that left the old New Deal Coalition in 1980 and hasn't returned. Our political environment has changed, and the taste for big government is gone, even when big government may actually be the solution to a specific problem.
With all that in mind, I read half the book then put it back on the shelf. No point in continuing. If the Social-Democrats (and I think that's where Mr. Jones would fall on the political spectrum)can't make much progress with the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate under their control, and with (what was) a very popular, young, new president, it's fairly pointless to write detailed plans for a program that's never going to see the light of day.
Perhaps Mr. Jones could pitch his very good ideas to states instead of Washington. Vermont, for example, would be all in for this sort of thing, as would (I think) Massachusetts and Maine and New Hampshire. "Great strokes fell mighty oaks," and all that. But save the "Only Washington Can Do It" slogans, dude. No one is listening.
I am a Green dude myself, so I listened to Mr. Jones give a speech about a month back, and I was impressed. He is smart, funny, and seems like a nice man who cares a great deal about the environment and the poor, so we have that in common. I picked up his book from the library yesterday, read half, and returned it today. Here is why:
In 1997, I read Hillary Clinton's book It Takes a Village. The book was full of great ideas for helping children--especilly poor children. Clinton worked for Marion Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund way back in the day, and her policy expertise, as well as her passion to help poor children, were obvious. There were programs, and programs, and more programs all aimed at helping poor families, and poor children, become successful. It was heart-warming.
And it will never happen, for the same reason that Van Jones's Green Collar ideas will never take off on a national scale: both authors depend almost entirely on the federal government to initiate, fund, and maintain their programs. There is simply no political will to create more massive federal spending programs. Even now, in the midst of the Great Recession, with the offical unemployment rate at 9.5% (but it's really higher if you take into account those who have stopped looking for work, or those who are just now entering the workforce), we can't muster the political will to pass unemployment insurance extentions without bruising political battles. People are, quite literally, wiping food banks out; food stamp enrollment is at an all time high; millions upon millions have been forced out of their homes...and we can't extend unemployment insurance. That's how rotten our poltics has become. That's how dysfunctional Washington is.
There is plenty of blame to go around for this state of affairs, but suffice it to say that we are in no danger of launching a "Green jobs New Deal." Mr. Jones has some excellent ideas, made some great points, and certainly gives food for thought, but ultimately he is preaching to a choir that left the old New Deal Coalition in 1980 and hasn't returned. Our political environment has changed, and the taste for big government is gone, even when big government may actually be the solution to a specific problem.
With all that in mind, I read half the book then put it back on the shelf. No point in continuing. If the Social-Democrats (and I think that's where Mr. Jones would fall on the political spectrum)can't make much progress with the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate under their control, and with (what was) a very popular, young, new president, it's fairly pointless to write detailed plans for a program that's never going to see the light of day.
Perhaps Mr. Jones could pitch his very good ideas to states instead of Washington. Vermont, for example, would be all in for this sort of thing, as would (I think) Massachusetts and Maine and New Hampshire. "Great strokes fell mighty oaks," and all that. But save the "Only Washington Can Do It" slogans, dude. No one is listening.
May 27, 2009
I first heard about this book while listening to NPR a few months ago. Van Jones sounded like he had devised one of the greatest solutions to poverty and racial equality that can be adopted by all Americans with the benefit of generating wealth for everyone. Then he said that the bravest thing he had ever seen in his life was Nancy Polosi standing up to Big Oil and "drill, baby, drill" in the summer of 2008. After the nausea subsided, I still decided that I should give the book a chance. The jacket is plastered with many liberal leaning quotes about the book and Van Jones. I only make reference to my experience before reading the book to point out the disappointed that I have in the press and advertisement of the book when the message contained in the book is all-inclusive and about what everyone brings to the table to make a Green Collar economy work.
Van Jones elegantly outlines his vision of a Green Collar worker ("blue collar employment that has been upgraded to better respect the environment) and the economy that supports this worker. He also spends a great deal of time in the book outlining the challenges and solutions to overcome the problems of retooling an economy. He gives a very good overview of the history and specifics of the problems he would like to address, proper ways to engage the movement and other people, solutions that already exist in energy production, transportation, waste management, and water management, and an outline for what the President needs to prioritize in his first 100 days. Critical takeaways for me were: any solutions for a societal issue like the environment, poverty, or urban development should provide ways to include everyone, that we must be honest with ourselves and that hanging onto our egos, faults, shortcomings, and coping mechanisms will never allow the honesty and cooperation that is needed to tackle these big issues, understanding the planet we live on should be the first step of any "eco" project, and that solutions already exist to remove foreign oil from the American economy forever.
Resources can be found at http://www.greenforall.org/. Movements start with individuals and Van Jones website outlines many of the ways that individuals can get involved.
The biggest issue that is not addressed directly in the book is the negatives related to the huge involvement of all levels of government that Van Jones relies upon to get the ball rolling. While the Government is responsible for most of the regulation of the energy and transportation industries, that does not mean that it is their job to drive the green revolution. I agree with Van Jones that as a large consumer of energy and an employer of many Americans, all levels of Government should find ways to embrace the Green Collar economy. However, I firmly believe that the expansion of power the Government amassed in the 20th century is coming to end and that any Green solution that involves the Government making an upfront investment must have an exit strategy that allows a community or private institution to take over the administration of the program from the Government. We live in communities that need our involvement to survive and a bloated and bureaucratic governmental program is never the way to go.
Van Jones elegantly outlines his vision of a Green Collar worker ("blue collar employment that has been upgraded to better respect the environment) and the economy that supports this worker. He also spends a great deal of time in the book outlining the challenges and solutions to overcome the problems of retooling an economy. He gives a very good overview of the history and specifics of the problems he would like to address, proper ways to engage the movement and other people, solutions that already exist in energy production, transportation, waste management, and water management, and an outline for what the President needs to prioritize in his first 100 days. Critical takeaways for me were: any solutions for a societal issue like the environment, poverty, or urban development should provide ways to include everyone, that we must be honest with ourselves and that hanging onto our egos, faults, shortcomings, and coping mechanisms will never allow the honesty and cooperation that is needed to tackle these big issues, understanding the planet we live on should be the first step of any "eco" project, and that solutions already exist to remove foreign oil from the American economy forever.
Resources can be found at http://www.greenforall.org/. Movements start with individuals and Van Jones website outlines many of the ways that individuals can get involved.
The biggest issue that is not addressed directly in the book is the negatives related to the huge involvement of all levels of government that Van Jones relies upon to get the ball rolling. While the Government is responsible for most of the regulation of the energy and transportation industries, that does not mean that it is their job to drive the green revolution. I agree with Van Jones that as a large consumer of energy and an employer of many Americans, all levels of Government should find ways to embrace the Green Collar economy. However, I firmly believe that the expansion of power the Government amassed in the 20th century is coming to end and that any Green solution that involves the Government making an upfront investment must have an exit strategy that allows a community or private institution to take over the administration of the program from the Government. We live in communities that need our involvement to survive and a bloated and bureaucratic governmental program is never the way to go.
November 11, 2008
Van Jones is an environmental and social justice activist. He argues that for too long environmentalists have ignored social justice issues, and have in some cases made the lives of the poor worse by driving polluters into low income areas. The result has been that the poor, and their advocates, have sometimes stood with the polluters in opposing environmental protection.
He believes that we can change this, and that the road to a green collar economy is the way to do it. 'Green collar' means 'blue collar' applied to environmentally sound projects. For example, making existing homes and businesses more energy efficient by caulking windows and seams, adding insulation, etc. On a larger scale, we should ensure that new manufacturing jobs are not only created here in the US, but that emphasis should be placed on ensuring that those most in need of jobs, and job training, have access to those jobs.
He believes that we can change this, and that the road to a green collar economy is the way to do it. 'Green collar' means 'blue collar' applied to environmentally sound projects. For example, making existing homes and businesses more energy efficient by caulking windows and seams, adding insulation, etc. On a larger scale, we should ensure that new manufacturing jobs are not only created here in the US, but that emphasis should be placed on ensuring that those most in need of jobs, and job training, have access to those jobs.
October 1, 2009
Another book I read because it was one of the titles the committee I'm on is considering to be our "One Campus, One Book" title, I found the book an easy read that made some great points. I really would like to see us put our resources into a greener economy-in my mind an "Green Deal" could really change things. Unfortunately, the book was very much "date stamped" as being before the 2008 election and reading it is reading a list of things that *could* happen that are already not happening. I felt, too, that while Van Jones' core argument is very good, he spends a lot of time delivering wishy-washy platitudes designed to sell the book to various constituencies. An interesting read of a policy that could be but fast seems to be becoming "what could have been".
March 27, 2018
Nothing new here. Some books stand the test of time, this is not one of those books. Everything detailed in the book is fairly introductory to the green movement, especially on the political left. The people interested in the topic hopefully know this content by now (10 years later). Needless to say, do not waste time or money reading this book. It might be okay for middle schoolers who are becoming politically active and have an interest in the environment but beyond that, it has little to contribute as far as stimulating ideas go.
Best quote: "The original Americans knew and tried to teach their conquerors: We don't inherit the Earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children. The Earth doesn't belong to us; we belong to the Earth."
Best quote: "The original Americans knew and tried to teach their conquerors: We don't inherit the Earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children. The Earth doesn't belong to us; we belong to the Earth."
November 25, 2008
look for this book to play a part in upcoming policy changes. jones spells out the "how to" part of becoming a more sustainable society in a way that i find very very helpful - for everyone. his critiques of existing structures are helpful and progressive and don't wallow in the negative - rather, the critiques are eye-opening and tend towards finding answers and opportunities.
March 6, 2009
Well written and well researched, The Green Collar Economy outlines a course of action which will save our environment and our economy. Encompassing a sweeping scope of the historical and cultural, this is by far the best articulated and most detailed blueprint for sustainability I have seen. Read it!
February 25, 2016
A concise book addressing the two biggest problems facing America, those of social justice and the environment, and how to solve them both with a "green collar" economy, which is an economy with well-paying blue collar jobs that are good for the environment and for people. For instance jobs installing solar panels, jobs maintaining wind farms, jobs retrofitting old houses with better insulation, and jobs growing organic food in cities. It hit just the right note of urgency and hope; he included some depressing statistics but he put forth a lot of great ideas for solving the problems he talked about and also wasn't overly optimistic, so that the reader felt that there was a big problem but it could be solved with a lot of hard work and determination, as well as lots of collaboration.
He was direct and to the point in his writing. I felt that at no point was he rambling on. It is a quick read and not a very long book because he was able to say what needed to be said in the shortest amount of words possible.
This was published before the election of 2008, an interesting turning point in the nation. I feel that if someone spoke to him today he would say he was disappointed with the last eight years because while there may be some growth in the green economy, it is nothing like what the world was hoping for before that election. I am hoping that the new election will be a different story and I feel that this book is an important one to read as we are preparing to elect officials once again. The environment is an even bigger issue today as we are now eight years further down the road, yet I feel that it was addressed more by candidates in 2008 than today. Sanders is the only candidate who has said he is against fracking, pro-labeling of GMOs, and puts the environment and jobs first. I hope he has read this book.
He makes a lot of good points about organizing as well - he points out that we need to focus on the solutions more than the problems especially when talking to people about the issues we care about, and since the environment is such a global issue we need to look for partners and allies rather than looking for enemies to take down. It also made a distinction in how people address those who are struggling financially when talking about the environment - it is important to talk about the financial incentives and improvements of lifestyle that would come with a more sustainable way of life rather than focusing on the horrible crises which will occur if we don't do anything, because people who are used to dealing with a lot of crises don't want to hear about more of them and feel even more burdened.
HIGHLY recommended. It is only about 200 pages so it doesn't take long to read and it is very well-written. It has a lot of great ideas and I am sure you will be inspired by reading it.
He was direct and to the point in his writing. I felt that at no point was he rambling on. It is a quick read and not a very long book because he was able to say what needed to be said in the shortest amount of words possible.
This was published before the election of 2008, an interesting turning point in the nation. I feel that if someone spoke to him today he would say he was disappointed with the last eight years because while there may be some growth in the green economy, it is nothing like what the world was hoping for before that election. I am hoping that the new election will be a different story and I feel that this book is an important one to read as we are preparing to elect officials once again. The environment is an even bigger issue today as we are now eight years further down the road, yet I feel that it was addressed more by candidates in 2008 than today. Sanders is the only candidate who has said he is against fracking, pro-labeling of GMOs, and puts the environment and jobs first. I hope he has read this book.
He makes a lot of good points about organizing as well - he points out that we need to focus on the solutions more than the problems especially when talking to people about the issues we care about, and since the environment is such a global issue we need to look for partners and allies rather than looking for enemies to take down. It also made a distinction in how people address those who are struggling financially when talking about the environment - it is important to talk about the financial incentives and improvements of lifestyle that would come with a more sustainable way of life rather than focusing on the horrible crises which will occur if we don't do anything, because people who are used to dealing with a lot of crises don't want to hear about more of them and feel even more burdened.
HIGHLY recommended. It is only about 200 pages so it doesn't take long to read and it is very well-written. It has a lot of great ideas and I am sure you will be inspired by reading it.
August 6, 2012
Author Jones offers a realistic and logical call to arms regarding the rapidly closing window of time left for humanity to solve global warming. Additionally, he lays out a detailed plan of action which if implemented in the U.S., would serve a multi purposeful solution; to the U.S. economy, its long term energy needs and push back substantially against global warming. The Green Collar Economy is really a inclusive manifesto meant to move the country away from its present course of eco-disaster. As in Jared Diamond's "Collapse", Jones dissects the current ravages of modern societies upon the planet and graphically illustrates our fate if these conditions are not eliminated or dramatically altered. Both authors clearly sound the alarm warning humanity that the planet is rapidly approaching the point of being unable to sustain life as we know it. Both authors look to the American people and their government to spearhead the necessary corrective policies which will globally impact and reverse the coming eco-armagedon.
I certainly agree with 95% of Jones's arguments and solutions contained in the book, and I do wish him god speed in his work. Unfortunately, I believe the political malfunctioning condition of both the American electorate and the American Federal government make any meaningful change in the status quo recommended in The Green Collar Economy virtually impossible. The book's initial optimism draws from the results of the 2008 election and the ascendancy of Barrack Obama to the White House, and all its corresponding "green" initiatives his administration would bring. The subsequent political "push-back" and the rise of the regressive Tea Party resulting in the loss of Congress in 2010, stands as the prime indicator that the USA is collectively incapable of dealing with ANY serious crisis; global warming notwithstanding. As of this writing unbelievably,POTUS Obama is being seriously challenged by plutocratic poster boy Mitt Romney, representing a European style of economic austerity and old world corporate status quo. A Romney presidency would empower the exact polar opposite of what leadership is needed to remotely address the eco-crisis Sadly I believe the necessary eco-inititives will ultimately have to come from outside the incapable borders of the U.S. as a malfunctioning impotent Washington fails to act on this ever growing calamity. The book itself is very well intentioned and offers both solid and philosophical solutions to an already dire ecological situation....however when cast upon the contemporary political realities within the U.S. it is another edition to be filed alongside Harry Potter and other works of fiction.
I certainly agree with 95% of Jones's arguments and solutions contained in the book, and I do wish him god speed in his work. Unfortunately, I believe the political malfunctioning condition of both the American electorate and the American Federal government make any meaningful change in the status quo recommended in The Green Collar Economy virtually impossible. The book's initial optimism draws from the results of the 2008 election and the ascendancy of Barrack Obama to the White House, and all its corresponding "green" initiatives his administration would bring. The subsequent political "push-back" and the rise of the regressive Tea Party resulting in the loss of Congress in 2010, stands as the prime indicator that the USA is collectively incapable of dealing with ANY serious crisis; global warming notwithstanding. As of this writing unbelievably,POTUS Obama is being seriously challenged by plutocratic poster boy Mitt Romney, representing a European style of economic austerity and old world corporate status quo. A Romney presidency would empower the exact polar opposite of what leadership is needed to remotely address the eco-crisis Sadly I believe the necessary eco-inititives will ultimately have to come from outside the incapable borders of the U.S. as a malfunctioning impotent Washington fails to act on this ever growing calamity. The book itself is very well intentioned and offers both solid and philosophical solutions to an already dire ecological situation....however when cast upon the contemporary political realities within the U.S. it is another edition to be filed alongside Harry Potter and other works of fiction.
October 27, 2008
A "green-collar economy" might sound appealing at first. After all, environmentalists have been fighting for years against reactionaries who claim that measures to protect people and ecology from pollution would cost lots of jobs. But this book is not just an argument that the right kinds of environmental programs can help people of color and the poor. Its main argument is for a "New Deal 2.0." In the process, Van Jones rewrites history to support an argument for class collaboration. He speaks glowingly of the New Deal without ever mentioning that it won ruling class support as a way to stave off revolution by workers, which was a real possibility in the Great Depression. Revolution is left out of his rewriting of history, except as redefined to mean only a technological revolution, not social revolution. Accordingly, while he praises the environmental justice movement, he marginalizes it in the history of the environmental movements, whose roots he sees only in the conservation movement of 100 years ago. Robert Gottlieb's Forcing the Spring brings to light the radical and working-class-based elements of that history, which Jones leaves out, including the movement's roots in movements for public health and sanitation. Leaving out revolution and the more radical elements of the movement's history allows Jones to shape an argument that people of color and the working class should collaborate with the ruling class and pretend that its government is potentially class-neutral and can be trusted (with the right "leadership") to drive the economy in a green direction supporting human rights and international partnerships. This book could only serve as a drag on the movement just at a time when revolutionary potential is rearing its head. Putting our faith in government is like committing suicide.
June 8, 2009
I hate not finishing a book, but I really couldn't choke through another page of this. I feel like the title is a bit misleading: it is about a potential green collar economy, but what it doesn't tell you (or any of the glowing reviews on the back cover, which in hindsight didn't reference the book at all) is the huge bitter, racial undercurrent that underlies the narrative.
Perhaps I'm being too flippant, because race and environmental responsibility is a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed (why I gave the book two stars instead of the .05 I want to give it), but in this Obama day and age - full disclosure, I am on the kool-aid - I feel like the rhetoric of race needs to be different in order for it to be effective. Not to mention that the author doesn't really provide any kind of substance to back up his claims, other than a loose association with Katrina. (Yes, Katrina was really bad and the last administration totally botched that up, but what does that have to do with establishing a solid energy policy independent of foreign oil? No firm association was provided, that I could see anyway.)
I got through around 70 pages of the book, and for anyone who finishes it and/or wants to convince me otherwise of how wrong I am on this, I will gladly listen.
Perhaps I'm being too flippant, because race and environmental responsibility is a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed (why I gave the book two stars instead of the .05 I want to give it), but in this Obama day and age - full disclosure, I am on the kool-aid - I feel like the rhetoric of race needs to be different in order for it to be effective. Not to mention that the author doesn't really provide any kind of substance to back up his claims, other than a loose association with Katrina. (Yes, Katrina was really bad and the last administration totally botched that up, but what does that have to do with establishing a solid energy policy independent of foreign oil? No firm association was provided, that I could see anyway.)
I got through around 70 pages of the book, and for anyone who finishes it and/or wants to convince me otherwise of how wrong I am on this, I will gladly listen.
November 1, 2010
The author is a little bit odd and doesn't plan anything more than two weeks in advance (my school tried to get him to come and speak), but he does have some good points. He really wrote this more for people who have blue collar type jobs, not those of us in environmental academia.
Really what he's saying is the same thing other economists such as Thomas L. Friedman are saying: go back to school, diversity your skills, etc. Except he sticks the word green in and talks about new green technologies that need assembling. I'm not convinced all these green technologies are what we need, they allow us to keep consuming at the same rate. What we need to do is reduce consumption and send kids to school to be creative and come up with more efficient ways to do things and wean people away from the current fossil fuel applications. While we do need blue/green collar workers in America, we should also be encouraging bright, young Americans to go to college, and I don't think he does a good job of doing that.
Van Jones has some good points, but he comes across as dogmatic at times, and bitter at others, so occasionally his good points are lost, especially if you aren't his target audience. I don't think I would have read this book if it were not required for a class.
Really what he's saying is the same thing other economists such as Thomas L. Friedman are saying: go back to school, diversity your skills, etc. Except he sticks the word green in and talks about new green technologies that need assembling. I'm not convinced all these green technologies are what we need, they allow us to keep consuming at the same rate. What we need to do is reduce consumption and send kids to school to be creative and come up with more efficient ways to do things and wean people away from the current fossil fuel applications. While we do need blue/green collar workers in America, we should also be encouraging bright, young Americans to go to college, and I don't think he does a good job of doing that.
Van Jones has some good points, but he comes across as dogmatic at times, and bitter at others, so occasionally his good points are lost, especially if you aren't his target audience. I don't think I would have read this book if it were not required for a class.
February 15, 2009
More engaging as a speaker than as a writer, but still an interesting overview on his perspective re potential government and private initiatives to promote economic development in an environmentally friendly manner. Most of the book paints with a broad brush regarding gov't. (especially Bush administration) favoritism toward "problem creators" [fossil fuel burning systems; prison/industrial complex), but eventually he gets around to describing specific examples of (mostly small, local) initiatives that seem to be working in the direction he suggests--support for local/organic foods, putting ex-prisoners to work in jobs with potential for advancement in clean/green programs (weatherizing old buildings, etc.).
Some of the suggestions are embedded in stimulus bill that just passed Congress, so it would be interesting to come back in a couple years and evaluate the effects, costs, etc. As it stands, a lot of the book felt like the "more research is needed" section at the end of journal articles -- ok, sounds good, I hope someone either does this or counterargues convincingly why it shouldn't be done.........
Some of the suggestions are embedded in stimulus bill that just passed Congress, so it would be interesting to come back in a couple years and evaluate the effects, costs, etc. As it stands, a lot of the book felt like the "more research is needed" section at the end of journal articles -- ok, sounds good, I hope someone either does this or counterargues convincingly why it shouldn't be done.........
May 30, 2009
Great ideas happening here, but not as implementable as I wish they were or as universal as the author believes them to be.
I wonder about his views on education...
I would recommend it to lots of academics however who sometimes forget to make the connection between revolutionary ideals and the people who cannot always afford to understand or interact with those ideals (throughout western history revolution has always come from the middle class). I appreciated the acknowledgment that we cannot assume all people have certain resources to work with (money the "green" their homes and neighborhoods, safe soil to plant gardens) and respect the ambitions of this book. I would've like more specifics though, as some ideas get ridiculous in practical human terms (like his idea of food sustainability which would basically require us to stop consuming coffee and other foreign foods). I expect that Jones has fleshed out these ideas but this book is something he wanted to be reader-friendly (at which he greatly succeeds) so I think things might've gotten a bit watered down...
Definitely written for Americans.
I wonder about his views on education...
I would recommend it to lots of academics however who sometimes forget to make the connection between revolutionary ideals and the people who cannot always afford to understand or interact with those ideals (throughout western history revolution has always come from the middle class). I appreciated the acknowledgment that we cannot assume all people have certain resources to work with (money the "green" their homes and neighborhoods, safe soil to plant gardens) and respect the ambitions of this book. I would've like more specifics though, as some ideas get ridiculous in practical human terms (like his idea of food sustainability which would basically require us to stop consuming coffee and other foreign foods). I expect that Jones has fleshed out these ideas but this book is something he wanted to be reader-friendly (at which he greatly succeeds) so I think things might've gotten a bit watered down...
Definitely written for Americans.
July 15, 2009
I was unpleasantly surprised after reading this book. The title is extremely misleading. The book centers around two problems, the deteriorating American economy, and the state of the environment. The solution presented is the developing green collar job sector and the industry built around it.
Most of the book is filled with the author lamenting the current condition of the country/economy.
Unfortunately the author never delves into exactly how to apply the stated solution to the stated problems. Any solutions proposed are broad ranged and limited in explanation. Jones brings up the transfer of industry tax incentives from the oil industry to the green sector..... and not much is offered past that.
If the author bothered to expand his offered solutions into more detail then I would have given the book another star. If he actually presented solutions that drilled down to an implimentation level showing a vertically integrated breakdown of action items ..... the book would have been worth the money I paid for it.
Most of the book is filled with the author lamenting the current condition of the country/economy.
Unfortunately the author never delves into exactly how to apply the stated solution to the stated problems. Any solutions proposed are broad ranged and limited in explanation. Jones brings up the transfer of industry tax incentives from the oil industry to the green sector..... and not much is offered past that.
If the author bothered to expand his offered solutions into more detail then I would have given the book another star. If he actually presented solutions that drilled down to an implimentation level showing a vertically integrated breakdown of action items ..... the book would have been worth the money I paid for it.
January 21, 2010
It's disappointing Van Jones was forced to resign from his position as Special Advisor for Green Jobs in the Obama administration because it seems clear to me, after reading The Green Collar Economy, that he has a strong vision for how to implement policies to encourage both job creation and improved environmental quality. While he is sketchy on some of the details, he takes a very holistic approach to solving some of the most pernicious problems of our day, and identifies successful case studies that can help pave the future.
This book is very readable and accessible for a broad audience. However, because of the way it was written, it is quite dated, and a number of his proposals have already fallen by the wayside with the current administration. It's interesting to read a suggestion for the 'next administration's' first 100 days when Obama has been in office for a year now. Nonetheless, it is an informative and enlightened perspective containing many good ideas related to public policy.
This book is very readable and accessible for a broad audience. However, because of the way it was written, it is quite dated, and a number of his proposals have already fallen by the wayside with the current administration. It's interesting to read a suggestion for the 'next administration's' first 100 days when Obama has been in office for a year now. Nonetheless, it is an informative and enlightened perspective containing many good ideas related to public policy.
March 3, 2010
What Jones really nails in this book is the need for a new social contract in America, which has to come from a holistic unity between the environmental stewardship and economic justice camps. Many got this already, but after Jones there is no excuse for not getting it. Put another way, Jones does much to position the socially-blind environmentalist and polluter-dependent jobs advocate as behind the times in the contemporary discourse on the nation's challenges.
The book was not written for the academy and doesn't quite prove anything about specific policies or solutions. But the progressive cause needs more works like this, because it does speak to the common American and it actually can serve as a basic guide to grass-roots organizing at the local level (the level that matters most). In this, Jones' rhetoric is often brilliant, if at times overbearing.
The book was not written for the academy and doesn't quite prove anything about specific policies or solutions. But the progressive cause needs more works like this, because it does speak to the common American and it actually can serve as a basic guide to grass-roots organizing at the local level (the level that matters most). In this, Jones' rhetoric is often brilliant, if at times overbearing.
May 11, 2010
Perhaps Jones suffers from being too successful, or tapping into a meme that spread faster than publication, as I found the ideas in this book to be pretty obvious. Still, the message is important. We cannot focus on saving the planet without also focusing on saving the people of the planet, especially the poor and minorities who suffer most. Working with minority groups, environmentalists can help create jobs and improve health in these communities. Jobs in the environmental sector, green collar jobs, will bring work to the poor and middle class.
Jones did predict the backlash that we are now seeing, the poor siding with rich polluters who have convinced them that what is good for the environment is bad for the poor and middle class.
The only way to fight this misguided partnership is to get out there and prove it wrong. Create the green jobs and prove that everyone benefits.
Jones did predict the backlash that we are now seeing, the poor siding with rich polluters who have convinced them that what is good for the environment is bad for the poor and middle class.
The only way to fight this misguided partnership is to get out there and prove it wrong. Create the green jobs and prove that everyone benefits.
August 27, 2023
This guy resigned from Obama's cabinet. No surprise now that Obama has betrayed the Green Collar Economy. So much for America leading the Green Technology revolution. It was a nice idea Van... greening things would have saved the economy for the middle and lower classes too, but I guess financial capital didn't care because their profits are still going up.
Anyhow, the green revolution is pretty much the last breath of capitalism, when it inevitably and finally happens. Why? Because 'environmentally-friendly' and 'capitalism' are about as big a contradiction as one can think up. Financial capital is delaying 'green capitalism' as long as they can...Curiously, Van Jones quotes Machiavelli at the end of the book, perhaps revealing a hidden motivation, that'the ends justify the means'. Is he trying to save capitalism or sink it?
Anyhow, the green revolution is pretty much the last breath of capitalism, when it inevitably and finally happens. Why? Because 'environmentally-friendly' and 'capitalism' are about as big a contradiction as one can think up. Financial capital is delaying 'green capitalism' as long as they can...Curiously, Van Jones quotes Machiavelli at the end of the book, perhaps revealing a hidden motivation, that'the ends justify the means'. Is he trying to save capitalism or sink it?
August 13, 2012
The words green and economy drew me to Van Jones book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. The book addresses two monumental issues facing our country—global warming and unemployment. The author suggests that green-collar jobs can go a long way towards solving both problems. It's a compelling and thought provoking book.
The Bottom Line
The Green Collar Economy looks at the environment and economy from a different perspective than many “green” business / economy books I’ve read. The book makes it real. Along with people laid off from their jobs, are veterans returning to civilian life, people returning home from prison, and underemployed people looking for a chance to learn useful skills and make a living.
Read the whole review at: http://greengroundswell.com/the-green...
The Bottom Line
The Green Collar Economy looks at the environment and economy from a different perspective than many “green” business / economy books I’ve read. The book makes it real. Along with people laid off from their jobs, are veterans returning to civilian life, people returning home from prison, and underemployed people looking for a chance to learn useful skills and make a living.
Read the whole review at: http://greengroundswell.com/the-green...
October 31, 2008
Just started reading this gem on the train ride home yesterday. its fascinating - takes a huge global mess, gives important backstory and puts solutions into simple and concrete terms.
Van's inscription in my book says it all:
"Regine - Our kids will look back and marvel at their birth year - the mushrooming of problems, the multiplicaiton of crises, and the final blossoming of hope. Thank you for all you do to move humanity forward. By the time Mia is old enough to read this book thoroughly, i hope that she will see it as a silly book, from a silly time, before the human family became itsself...before the people woke up, honored the creator & healed the land. I hope she finds the book obvious & useless." :) Van Jones
Van's inscription in my book says it all:
"Regine - Our kids will look back and marvel at their birth year - the mushrooming of problems, the multiplicaiton of crises, and the final blossoming of hope. Thank you for all you do to move humanity forward. By the time Mia is old enough to read this book thoroughly, i hope that she will see it as a silly book, from a silly time, before the human family became itsself...before the people woke up, honored the creator & healed the land. I hope she finds the book obvious & useless." :) Van Jones
January 31, 2009
Van Jones talks a lot about the need for invention and investment (by both individuals and the government) to stimulate the economy through the creation of environmental jobs. He also explains the importance of changing the way communities think about environmentalism so that all races and classes are brought into the discussion and are aware of how they can participate. There are some excellent ideas for sustainable change in this book, but a lot of populist ranting is also thrown into the mix. The discussion could have been just as effectively condensed and conveyed in another format... and as a friend of mine pointed out, the title could be misleading if you're expecting to read about the economy, as explained by an economist, using economic theories and statistics.
February 16, 2009
Very well written, very timely, and well balanced. When Van Jones says "Green Collar", he means a lot more than a lot of people assume. Far from just talking about the environmental impact of the job, he covers what a good wage means to people, how important it is to ensure that such jobs help out a broad spectrum of society, and how to help solve other issues such as the high incarceration rate all in one go. His history lesson is an important refresher on many past issues reminds us why his broad inclusion is so important. The book is an important rejoinder to many of the books written from with the depths of the environmental community that take a very narrow view of problems and solutions.
August 13, 2013
Easy to read and just brilliant.... I bought this when it was released, but hadn't read it until the summer of 2013. Which made me depressed. Van Jones, brilliantly lays out the problems and solutions facing the United States and explains the necessary steps Obama needs to make. But in hindsight, nothing has been done. Instead the warning against Biofuels and Shale Natural Gas that Van Jones writes about is being pursued. In 2008 this book would be inspiring, in 2013... pretty depressing... but still if you want an easy common sense read introducing yourself the all the arguments put forward by environmentalists, this is a good choice then.
January 16, 2019
Focus more on solutions
Chapters 4 and 5 are incredible, solid pragmatic policies and programs that you could pick up and run with anywhere. I wish the author had expanded on this and not spent so much time scene setting in chapters 1-3. The book is well worth an update now it would be really interesting to see how many of the programs have fared and indeed what new initiatives have sprung up, especially in the face of the Trump / Oil and Coal industry backlash.
Chapters 4 and 5 are incredible, solid pragmatic policies and programs that you could pick up and run with anywhere. I wish the author had expanded on this and not spent so much time scene setting in chapters 1-3. The book is well worth an update now it would be really interesting to see how many of the programs have fared and indeed what new initiatives have sprung up, especially in the face of the Trump / Oil and Coal industry backlash.
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