Quote of the Day: Van Jones on the Green-Collar Solution
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 10.18.07
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!’
We need a different on-ramp for people from disadvantaged communities The leaders of the climate establishment came in through one door and now they want to squeeze everyone through that same door. It’s not going to work. If we want to have a broad-based environmental movement, we need more entry points. ...
You can’t take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back. So we are going to have to put people to work in this country—weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college.
Remember, a big chunk of the African-American community is economically stranded. The blue-collar, stepping-stone, manufacturing jobs are leaving. And they’re not being replaced by anything. So you have this whole generation of young blacks who are basically in economic free fall.
If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they’ll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors. The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country."
—Van Jones, as told to Thomas Friedman in the Oct. 17, 2007 issue of The New York Times
Brilliant words from Van Jones. I hope people listen to him --- he's really got it.
This is very hopeful to see: socially, economically and environmentally. Thanks for highlighting it.
"We need a different on-ramp for people from disadvantaged communities." Preparing people for job opportunities is a great idea, but how about this as an on-ramp: We are the polar bears. Hurricane Katrina showed us that people of color, especially poor people, are already being impacted by climate change, and have fewer resources to fall back on than middle class and wealthy people. If we don't act now, in a few years we will be the ones swimming from rooftop to rooftop, looking for food and shelter, wondering what happened to our world.
I feel compelled to agree with Van's comments. Though, I fear that labor wages will go through a cycle similar to the manufacturing industry but not exactly the same. As Van notes, one will not be able to export green jobs overseas but in order for the green living to go mainstream some part of the expenses will have to decrease--usually labor. Imagine if green collar jobs pay as much as McDonald's. I'm not discouraging the idea, I would love to see it come to Philadelphia, once a large manufacturing city but I do caution that this idea needs to be coupled with other development programs to ensure progression of workers.
i completely agree with Van. we neee these jobs, they can save the environment and provide jobs for everyone, lowering the poverty rate. there seems to be practiccally no downside to this idea. we need to get around to creating more of these joba soon, for the sake of our environment.