Campus Events
Former Obama aide says future of US economy lies in ‘green’ jobs
The country’s recent set of hardships raises an important question: How do we fix our economy?
Van Jones—environmental advocate, civil rights activist, best-selling author, attorney and one-time White House employee—claims to have the answer: green jobs.
Jones came to Washington University on Tuesday to discuss his plans for a green and prosperous future.
He suggested that the future of the American economy is in the newly emerging “green industry,” which is focused on environmental agendas, such as the use of clean forms of energy like wind and solar power.
The idea first came to Jones while working in Oakland, Calif.
At the time, California had passed several new laws supporting the solar energy industry, which led to an increased demand from homeowners for solar panels on their homes. But the panels weren’t being installed because there were no workers to install them.
Around the same time, while working with troubled youth in the Oakland area, Jones realized that the reason these kids couldn’t stay out of jail was that they didn’t have jobs or the education or means to find employment.
Jones had the idea to help raise youth out of poverty by integrating them into the budding solar energy market by providing training that would enable them to find jobs and grow along with the industry.
“They need work, and you need workers,” Jones said. “We can fight pollution and poverty at the same time and make a difference.”
According to Jones, the many unemployed autoworkers in states like Ohio, Indiana and Michigan can also benefit from the green industry.
“It’s common sense—why should our workers be sitting there if they know how to make cars?” Jones said. “We’ve got more degrees in here than a thermostat, and you can’t make a car!”
Jones suggested that unemployed auto and steel workers and idle manufacturers be put to work in the production of clean energy tools such as wind turbines and solar panels.
In closing, Jones stressed the problems inherent in our economy’s dependency on fossil fuels, which are finite in supply.
Though the coal-mining industry currently provides jobs to 80,000 Americans, the growing popularity of mountaintop removal coal mining (a highly mechanized process that uses huge machinery that can do the work of 100 men) will cut the number of jobs in half by the next decade, according to Jones.
On the other hand, says Jones, you could quadruple the number of jobs in the solar and wind industries and still have room to grow. The solar industry already provides 46,000 jobs, and the wind industry employs the same number as the coal industry.
Jones insists that green jobs are the clear and logical choice to bring our country out of its economic crisis.
“You can be the generation that beats global warming, beats the global recession and makes America not a global superpower but a moral superpower,” said Jones. “The hateful people who want to fight it will fade to the background.”