It’s Getting Hot In Here

I know we should all have a bone to pick with Mr. Friedman over at the New York Times for his comments on the “quiet” youth movement. But I just wanted to point out that today’s Op-Ed piece, titled “The Green-Collar Solution,” is on Green for All, and Founder Van Jones’ push for green jobs. It’s pretty informational, laying out the birth of the idea and the basic development of the campaign. Friedman also manages to drop the Apollo Alliance and Sustainable South Bronx–two key players and close partners of Green For All–into the conversation as well.

Here’s an interesting snippet from the article:

One thing spurring [Jones] in this project, he explained, was the way that the big oil companies bought ads in black-owned newspapers in California in 2006 showing an African-American woman filling her gas tank with a horrified look at the pump price. The ads were used to help bring out black votes to defeat Proposition 87. That ballot initiative proposed a tax on oil companies drilling in California, the money from which would have gone to develop alternative energy projects. The oil companies tried to scare African-Americans into thinking that the tax on the companies would be passed on at the pump.

It’s important to point out that by playing on communities’ daily worries and concerns, media, policymakers, businesses, etc. have been misinforming people of color about their role in the environmental movement. But now these new initiatives of green jobs are a way of integrating all communities into the economic possibilities of a safe and clean earth. It’s empowering to see these ideas and actions emerging within the framework of an inclusive environmental movement.

Read more of the Op Ed here.

On behalf of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, I am honored to bring you this exciting news:

Green For All has officially launched.

Last Wednesday, Van Jones, President and Co-Founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, got on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative and announced Green For All’s commitment to securing one billion dollars by 2012 to create “green pathways out of poverty” for 250,000 people in the United States. (Green For All is spinning off as its own separate national organization, while the Ella Baker Center continues to run its “Green-Collar Jobs Campaign” regionally and statewide in California.)

These goals may seem ambitious, but they are very necessary, and very possible. The realities of the environmental issues we face are clear, as can be seen through dwindling resources, detrimental health effects, and natural catastrophes. Therefore, we will need everyone, all communities, all people, involved in the solutions that are coming in the following years. Green For All will work to ensure everyone understands that what’s good for the environment can also be good for the economic well being of all people.

Continue reading ‘Green For All has Launched!’