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The news made heavy rounds starting on Saturday, when Karl Burkart at GreenDig issued an unconfirmed rumor that the posting was about to happen. By Monday bloggers were at a fever pitch, and last night the AP filed an exceedingly short brief confirming the appointment.
Van Jones has long been a top pick for the job; he is the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, Calif., which advocates for juvenile justice reform, police reform, youth violence prevention and green-collar jobs. He is also the founding president of Green For All, whose mission is to build an inclusive, green economy strong enough to resolve the ecological crisis and lift millions of people out of poverty.
As a long-time advocate for both environmental issues and bringing high-quality work to urban areas, Jones' green collar vision finally found an audience last year as the economy tanked, concerns about the environment continued to grow, and he published his New York Times best-selling book, The Green Collar Economy.
The book explores at great depth the ways that providing training for workers in energy efficiency, renewable energy and other green solutions can help both the environment and the economy. In an interview with Leslie Guevarra on GreenBiz Radio late last year, Jones laid out part of his vision:
"[..I]n terms of game changing opportunities, the first thing is when people hear the term "green job," they often think about Buck Rogers or George Jetson, you know, some sci-fi job. But the real, probably the most important, tool for greening the economy -- the high-tech tool -- is a caulk gun and a clipboard to begin to weatherize buildings and retrofit them so that we leak less energy. Well, that's your big carbon reduction opportunity right there. You don't have to come up with any new technologies for that, but you could put a lot of people to work, so here's an opportunity.We were lucky to have one of Jones' colleagues from the Ella Baker Center on a panel at the State of Green Business Forum; you can watch a video of Ella Baker's Ian Kim, myself, and two other distinguished panelists on GreenBiz.com.
Speaking of videos, a post earlier today on the White House blog offers up the following video from the first official meeting of the Middle Class Task Force; the video features Van Jones alongside Vice President Joe Biden, Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp, and John Podesta from the Center for American Progress. Van Jones' portion of the panel begins at 11:30.
Middle Class Task Force
People have pointed out the the Middle Class Task Force has no one from the middle class on it. The lowest salary of any of the participants is $170,000 per year.
I had to laugh when I saw John Podesta presenting. Podesta is a very recent convert to the green movement. Up to a year or two ago, Podesta's big push was to get government UFO documents unclassified. I guess Podesta sees more future in the green movement than the UFO movement right now.
As for Van Jones, what a curious mix of green and social class politics. Jones had the Middle Class Task Force believing that this green revolution could be the silver bullet that solves our poverty problems once and for all. He painted the spectacle of disadvantaged youths rising from the 'hood wearing safety glasses and clipboards, helping others to weatherize their homes.
Of course, the reward for all this socialist clap trap is a plum position in the Obama ministry.
I would recommend Van Jones go visit India or Africa and see what real poverty looks like. In comparison, our country gives the most opportunities to our inhabitants than any other country in the world. Yes, we have problems like anyone else, but our country has a reputation of it's inhabitants rising above adversity.
The last thing we need is socialist equal opportunity programs painted with green features. No thanks.
Van Jones has it wrong
Van Jones suggests the most fiscally responsible thing the government should do is invest in the green economy.
I personally do not believe that the government should be making any investments in the green industry at all.
The government's role is to protect our life and liberty, not to be some sort of new green hedge fund. This will only result in wasteful spending and distortion of the green economy.
Van Jones backs the idea that the Government should borrow 1/2 a trillion dollars - backing this idea and not that one. I think private industry and private investors will do a much better job of raising capital and determining which idea and which person is a good bet. It's not the government's job to micromanage these opportunities.
Van Jones also suggests it's a moral imperative to provide green "equity" opportunities for the poor and certain races.
More and more, Americans are not interested in creating "equity" quotas and handicaps for races or classes in the hiring process. Americans are interested in providing opportunities regardless of race or social class.
We should be looking to entrepreneurs who will attack problems in a cost effective way and strongly hire when in need. America has always been great because of it's private citizens who work and invest in the country. I believe the private sector will find the right way forward. This has always been the recipe for success in the past and should be so in the future.