Creating Greener Future for Urban Youth
One Attorney Is Getting Inner City Youth Off the Streets and On Track for Green Jobs
Van Jones, a Yale law school graduate from rural Tennessee, spent years trying to help troubled inner-city youths get out of jail and into the real world, but he was repeatedly disheartened when kids wound up back in prison because they couldn’t find jobs.
“On a personal level I just got burned out,” said Jones, who founded the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, Calif., a nonprofit that advocates social justice. “You put your face to the furnace all the time, going to a lot of funerals, a lot of court hearings, things not working out the way you wanted them to.”
And then it clicked for Jones. As the United States pursues renewable energy technologies and becomes more environmentally responsible, there will be a need for workers with green skills.
“I just had this epiphany in mind and said, you know, these kids in America need green jobs, not jails, that’s what they need,” he said. “We want to lift a quarter million people out of poverty into the green economy by creating green-collared job training, employer incentives and entrepreneur opportunities.”
In this “green-collared” world that Jones envisions, inner-city youth would climb out of poverty by installing solar panels, retrofitting buildings to become more sustainable and taking on green construction jobs with hefty pay checks. He said this could all be achieved through training in high schools and community colleges, giving disadvantaged young people a “pathway out of poverty.”
“If you teach a young person how to put up solar panels, that kid is on their way to becoming an electrical engineer,” he said. “They could join the United Electrical Workers Union. If you teach a kid how to weatherize a building, double-pane the glass so that it doesn’t leak so much energy, that kid is on his way to becoming a glazer that can join a union.”
Launching the Campaign
Because Jones knew setting his plan in motion would be a huge undertaking, he reached out to other environmental groups to build a green coalition.
The Green for All Campaign, along with its strategic partners Sustainable South Bronx, 1 Sky, Color of Change, Apollo Alliance, Center for American Progress, Workforce Alliance, Applied Research Center, Solar Richmond, COWS/Center of Wisconsin Strategy, Center for State Innovation and Energy Action Coalition, works to educate everyday Americans about the “work, health, and wealth benefits” of a “green economy.”
“The next step in the green movement is about social uplift in environmentalism & that is less about the Birkenstocks and tofu,” he said. “It’s more about our hard hat and our lunch bucket, roll up our sleeves, get a little dirt under our fingernails and let’s fix America kind of environmentalism.”
The campaign continued to spread its message and gained an influential ally, former President Bill Clinton.
On Sept. 26, 2007, the Green for All Campaign was officially launched at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
“He highlighted our initiative,” Jones said. “I am very happy and proud I’ve got Bill Clinton’s signature on a piece of paper. He put his arms around us & I would have never thought that would happen, but it did and it just shows that miracles are possible.”
Poverty, Pollution and Politics
But Green for All did not stop there: It took its message to Congress.
In 2007, the United States Senate and House of Representatives approved the Green Jobs Act (H.R. 2847) and in December, President George W. Bush signed the bill into law. It gives $125 million to workforce training programs that target veterans, displaced workers, at-risk youth and individual families who fall 200 percent under the poverty line. Jones’ Green for All campaign will receive part of that funding.
“We can save the polar bears and we can save these low income kids with green-collared jobs,” Jones said. “We can put a whole generation to work & and save this country for the future.”
Carrie McGourty contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
This is the stuff that really matters — it both brings and makes beauty of life.
If all these coalitions actually got together, they might get somewhere. There is no question that we can create green collar jobs, but who is going to pay for it?
If it is just government buildings that are doing this and paying for it with tax dollars, then that is just another form of work fare. I think that would be worth doing, but if you want it on a larger scale, you have to think it through further.
Bush would never start anything like this because he is for oil. He does not care about black youth and if he did he might fail and look bad. At the core, he is a coward.
“There is no question that we can create green collar jobs, but who is going to pay for it?”
EXACTLY! For years, I’ve been calling for a Greenpeace version of FDR’s New Deal, but the only way we the people can afford it is if the rich are taxed and the military budget is slashed. Kucinich and Nader would get the job done, but unfortunately, everyone’s caught Obama mania — even though that overrated pretty boy doesn’t have it in him ideologically to go after the rich/powerful. Seeing as how he just might win, I hope/wish/pray his high yella ass proves me wrong, but given what I’ve seen of him thus far …
… I’m already hearing excuses being made for Obama — that supposedly, he’ll have to spend the next eight years correcting the damage of the Bush administration, and as a result, he’ll be too busy for a Greenpeace version of FDR’s New Deal. How convenient for the rich/powerful …
It’s just as Michael Moore said on Donahue (before his show was censored): “If we lived in a society that said our first goal was employment at a livable wage for everyone, if the person living next door to you — if that person’s making $40,000 a year, what’s the chance they’re going to come in and steal your TV or harm you on the street? Absolutely none.”
To me, there is no question that money in politics muddies the water more than a bit. It is a reality in America at the present time. I have long advocated “public money for public office”. It would be the best $5 every tax payer ever spent every year to keep the politicians paying attention to the tax payers and voters.
Since the Supreme Court has ruled that corporate campaign contributes are a form of free speech, you can not ban them. You can however reduce the influence of those corporate dollars with $500 million taxpayer dollars every year.
ADM routinely donates $1 million to both parties every year and gets a lot of access for that money. $1 million would be nothing compared to $500 million from tax payers. We could actually have a “people’s lobby” that represented what the people want for once.
I love this! Kudos to Van Jones for a brilliant idea and to the many it takes to make this a reality all across America. In addition to green jobs it would be beautiful to bring back community gardens - on every block. I look forward to doing my part towards this kind of future. for all of our kids.
Paying taxes is not the problem, we are pretty used to that by now. What is a problem is when all that money leaves your neighborhood - never to return.
Many states like California pay more into the Federal government than they get back. Some states get back more than they pay in. This seems good for the country when poor states can not afford roads nor schools, but we make the investments because they are needed.
It is when we spend $500 billion on the Pentagon, more than the whole rest of the world combined spends on defense and what do we get for it? Could we be getting better value for our dollar there? I think that we could. The fact that they have not passed an accounting audit in years and billions of dollars routinely go unaccounted for says a lot.
This sounds tremendous. I want to sign up.
A brief excerpt from a PBS Nova segement (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3406_solar.html)
“And Germany’s support of renewable energy has had a surprising impact on the economy. The country now boasts a thriving solar industry that has become the darling of investors the world over.
This one plant in Germany’s Solar Valley, produces almost a million solar cells a week. In just a few years, Germany has become the world leader in solar cell production.
The industry has created 170,000 new jobs and mass production is dropping the retail price of solar panels lower and lower.”
Green collar jobs make economic sense. Cloudy Germany plans to generate 20% of its electricity from photovoltaics by 2020. Interesting too that Frankfort, Germany is the same latitude as Winnipeg.
The Greens had a big part in changing things in Germany. They had a working arrangement with another party which added legitimacy. You can see that this had to happen at a central government level, the private sector did not go into action until the government made the laws and stuck to them.
This is one of the criticisms in the U.S. Business can not count on the longevity of programs. The Democrats start the programs and then the Republicans gain power and eliminate them. Maybe if the Democrats can gain seats in the Congress and get the White House, we can make progress once again.
Jones is right, this whole damn country needs retro-fitting and if there is a future at all, it’s there. Also, to hell with the stinking service economy and hight-tech IT. Nothing is more valuable than a hands on productive trade that serves basic needs. I’m talking craft like plumbing, electricians, engineering, construction, welding and mechanics. These are the skills that guarantee a real income and that give one a sense of actually accomplishing something you can put your hands on. I wish I had been trained in something more practical!
SJC: There is no question that we can create green collar jobs, but who is going to pay for it?
I don’t understand your question.. who “pays” for job creation now? Who “pays” for IBM, or GE, Ford, or whichever companies to create jobs? You throwing the word “work fare” into your post is some kind of racist code word. You should be glad that Van is coming up with a SOLUTION instead of being part of the problem.
When’s the last time YOU created work, alleviated poverty in a disenfranchised community, and also helped stem carbon pollution?
I do not think that personal attacks are ever warranted on this site. Debating ideas is a more constructive form of dialog.
Job creation, for lack of a better term, can be done by corporations trying to fill a market demand through expansion by issuing bonds for plant and equipment. Without those facilities it would be useless to employ people, they would be unproductive.
In the case of solar power, it costs a lot to buy and install the panels. Without subsidies, the panels might take 40-50 years to pay back in energy savings and the panels might only have a life of 30 years. This is a case where the right thing to do for the country and environment is not economic.
So, the government says that we will pay for some of the solar panel installation, because we use less fossil fuels and everyone benefits. It is seen as a public good that everyone benefits from.
I would suggest that if they want to use the tax dollars from everyone for this that they make the case for how it benefits everyone. I agree that this is a good idea and should be attempted, but the realities of “no new taxes” keeps coming up and we would like to see this program actually succeed.
“I do not think that personal attacks are ever warranted on this site. Debating ideas is a more constructive form of dialog.”
It’s easy to be polite when you’re spoiled by this evil system, and as a result, have nothing to lose. I’ve been unemployed since my award-winning newspaper column fell victim to corporate censorship in 2005, hence my righteous rage. As the great black author James Baldwin once said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” And on August 26, 2001, John Leland interviewed the award-winning musician and Civil Rights legend, Harry Belafonte …
Leland: You once described yourself as being in a constant state of rebellion, fueled by anger. How is your anger different at 74 than at 34?
Belafonte: The anger hasn’t changed. I’ve got to be a part of whatever the rebellion is that tries to change all this. The anger is a necessary fuel. Rebellion is healthy.
“Job creation, for lack of a better term, can be done by corporations trying to fill a market demand through expansion by issuing bonds for plant and equipment. Without those facilities it would be useless to employ people, they would be unproductive. In the case of solar power, it costs a lot to buy and install the panels. Without subsidies, the panels might take 40-50 years to pay back in energy savings and the panels might only have a life of 30 years. This is a case where the right thing to do for the country and environment is not economic.”
Corporations do “unproductive” things all the time, but let’s table that for now. If “subsidies” are needed, then demand them! Which leads me to my next point …
“I agree that this is a good idea and should be attempted, but the realities of ‘no new taxes’ keeps coming up.”
This is why whenever I hear how Ron Paul is The Chosen One I wanna puke. Libertarians like Paul are against new taxes, subsidies and the like because, well, they’re insane. Spoiled, mainly — and since they’ve never missed a meal, they assume no one else has either …
… in 1961, New Jersey’s poet laureate Amiri Baraka authored an anthology called Home. Jones referred to “that uniquely American sickness called ‘identification.’ This is a disease wherein the victim somehow thinks that he receives monies or other fringe benefits from Standard Oil, Coca-Cola, Dupont, U.S. Steel, etc., and feels genuinely hurt if some of ‘their properties’ are expropriated. ‘They’re taking our oil and our Coca-Cola.’” This identification is still the single biggest Jedi Mind Trick that the elite uses on the masses. If one percent of the population owns almost half of the country’s wealth, you gotta brain fuck folks some kind of way to keep them from minding all the suffering they’re unnecessarily enduring …
… they usually don’t come any more respectable than actor/author Gore Vidal. And in his latest book, Dreaming War: Blood For Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, my homie breaks it down most succinctly. Listen to the man: “I was in Guatemala when the CIA was preparing its attack on the Arbenz government [in 1954]. Arbenz, who was a democratically elected president, [was] mildly socialist. His state had no revenues; its biggest income maker was United Fruit Company. So Arbenz put the tiniest of taxes on bananas, and Henry Cabot Lodge got up in the Senate and said the Communists have taken over Guatemala and we must act. … We installed a military dictator, and there’s been nothing but bloodshed ever since. Now, if I were a Guatemalan and I had the means to drop something on somebody in Washington, or anywhere Americans were, I would be tempted to do it. Especially if I had lost my entire family and seen my country blown to bits because United Fruit didn’t want to pay taxes.”
A bit closer to the present, the front page of the Oct. 9, 1998 issue of the Socialist Worker read: “According to the U.N., it would take $40 billion to fund basic education, health care and safe water for everyone in the world who lacks it. Bill Gates could pick up the tab and still be a billionaire 18 times over. … If the Forbes 400 richest Americans pitched in, they could pay for enough AIDS drugs to treat the sick in sub-Saharan Africa for two years — and still have more than $100 billion left over.”
… and since many of the rich have gotten richer since 1998, there’s even less of an excuse today not to do right …
… I will go to my grave demanding that the rich be taxed and the military budget be cut. NO MANSIONS, NO HOMELESS!
Hello,
I live in Wisconsin and work for GreenHome Solar, based in Viroqua. I stumbled upon an article on this bill and have been surfing around looking to find out where all of the governments “sponsored” money for it is going. What are the requirements for training? Do you have to live in a certain state? If anyone has a link, or knows more about the applicable side of this bill, please..
sincerely gracias,
Gabriel