Van Jones
Van JonesFounderGreen for All
Van Jones is determined to engineer a "Green New Deal" for the United States that will result in a clean-energy economy with less poverty and more opportunity. Since 1996, when he co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, CA, Van has championed civil rights, promoted alternative strategies to combat violence, and advocated to decrease incarceration rates among African Americans. Recently, he has bridged that work with a movement to promote green solutions to poverty, advocating for "green jobs, not jails." In 2007, Van helped push for the passage of the Green Jobs Act in the House of Representatives. The measure allocated $125 million for a federal green jobs-training program, including $25 million earmarked for "pathways out of poverty" programs. Van believes a green economy is necessary to change our impact on the environment: "We’re not going to solve global warming just with expensive consumer choices like buying hybrid cars and shopping for organic food. People need to realize that you don’t have to be white or wealthy to benefit from going green." In order to find social and ecological solutions that are effective on a national scale, Van recognizes Americans must undergo political, economic, ecological, spiritual, and cultural transformations. In spite of this challenge, Van believes his bold ten-year vision of "a nation that will have turned the corner toward a more robust, locally-rooted economy with fuller employment and a positive impact on the Earth's living systems" is within reach.
At the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative, Van founded Green for All, a national campaign that aims to secure $1 billion in funding for green-collar job training and lift 250,000 people out of poverty. The campaign grew out of a program of the Ella Baker Center, where Van was executive director from 1996 to 2007. He remains the president of that organization. In 2000, Van was one of the first four Americans to be selected for an Ashoka Fellowship, awarded to leading social entrepreneurs. He has served on the boards of numerous environmental and activist organizations, including 1Sky, the Tipping Point Network, the Circle of Life Foundation, the Witness Project, and Social Ventures Network. Van earned a law degree from Yale Law School and a bachelor’s degree in communications and political science from the University of Tennessee.
For more on Van Jones:
Working Together for a Green New Deal
By Van Jones, The Nation
November 17, 2008
Van Jones on "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems"
Democracy Now!
October 28, 2008
Activist Says Green Needs to Touch Blue Collar
By Kelly Zito, San Francisco Chronicle
October 27, 2008
Van Jones Q&A About His New Book "The Green Collar Economy"
By Dave Burdick and Nicholas Sabloff, Huffington Post
October 22, 2008
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