Word has it that environmental advocate Van Jones is going to be offered a position in Obama’s cabinet. Not sure yet exactly what it’ll be; some say green jobs czar, but Grist’s source says that’s “an overstatement.”
Title aside, Jones has the necessary chops: He founded the green jobs nonprofit Green for All, and what with all his recent speaking gigs, book tours, and buzz, he’s got the connections. When we interviewed Jones last year, he talked about government’s role in creating a green economy:
MJ: How do we get to the tipping point where the rules change. Does it have to come from the very highest levels?
VJ: The change has got to be top down, bottom up, and inside out. The federal government has to get off the bench. Or frankly the federal government has to put down its pompoms for the polluters and put on the cleats and get on the side of our team trying to solve this problem. That’s critical. Otherwise, we’re going to have patchwork solutions, every state, every city going its own way. We’re not going to win with that. We also have to have bottom-up solutions in terms of communities, cities, mayors, community colleges, local labor unions, local business councils, all in their own ways beginning to move to a cleaner, greener, more sustainable economy.
