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 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
This green movement and healthcare for all are top priorities for action. And on parallel track, stopping further raids on treasury, resources and other countries. Get the troops home from 700+ bases around the world (and occupied countries) and open farmland to veterans. (The prisons could be next). Stop the destruction, begin the healing.
Portrait by Robert Shetterly in his Americans Who Tell the Truth project.
Hat tip Treehugger
Update 11/2/08: Common Dreams article today by Van Jones is a great read.
Update 11/3/08 Well, it is clear I have no traffic or lurkers simply laugh at me and leave. The typo in the title is cringeworthy. Will fix now . . .
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