• Van Jones

    Reclaiming the Future

    “Try this experiment. Go knock on someone’s door in West Oakland, Watts or Newark and say: ‘We gotta really big problem!’ They say: ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta really big problem!’ ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta save the polar bears! You may not make it out of this neighborhood alive, but we gotta save the polar bears!’ ”

    If this key communication disconnect continues, Jones, a visionary Oakland-based activist, explains, we will never find solutions to either social inequality or environmental destruction. Instead, we need a “green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.” Green For All, based out of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, seeks to bring “green collar” jobs to urban areas. If young people of color start installing solar panels now, explains, Jones, they’ll become managers in five years, owners in ten, and eventually inventors.

    The publicity this initiative has been enjoying the past week (New York Times and The Nation) speaks to the revolutionary nature of the program, and a revolution people have been waiting for. Van Jones believes these two movements have been separated for too long, and his passion is contagious. The fight to curb climate change has literally been a fight to maintain the environmental status quo, a conservative approach that turns off many people who do not benefit from the way things are. Van Jones’ environmental revolution provides hope for both sides of the double helix—-hope for a more inclusive, diverse environmental movement, and hope to lift people of color out of poverty.