Van Jones Quotations

You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them!

I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, by Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, and no one else trying to hurt America.

Back in 2007, I met this white guy [director Peter Byck] with a lot of hair and a video camera, at a conference that I happened to be attending for the launch of an organization called Blacks in Green. I had never heard of him and Peter had never heard of me. We just started talking; he liked what I had to say, so he asked me if I'd be willing to be in this documentary he was doing about carbon pollution. I said, "Sure!" It was kind of a no-brainer.

Nobody wants a nanny state, where the government is stamping out initiative and telling us what to do, but the idea that the only alternative to that is to throw the American people overboard into a global economy with no protections to cushion us from some of these blows is absurd on its face. That's why I think there's been a concerted effort to distort my message. When you hear me speak beyond the sound bites taken out of context, I think I make a lot of sense to people, even those in Red States like the one where I grew up.

I'm the guy that's trying to break up that monopoly to introduce free enterprise and competition to the energy sector.

Right now, when you go and hit the light switch in your house, you're participating in a state-protected monopoly. You're being forced to accept dirty power from a single producer.

I'm not calling for redistributing wealth; I'm calling for reinvigorating our stuck energy sector, so some new entrepreneurs can create some new wealth.

I'm not asking for more entitlement programs; I'm asking for more enterprise.

As champions of green jobs, we're asking questions that progressives should like, like "How are we going to avoid baking the planet," and "How are we going to create jobs for ordinary Americans?" Meanwhile, we're offering solutions that conservative should like. I'm not calling for more welfare; I'm calling for more work.

I used to be called the "Green Jack Kemp" because of my promotion of entrepreneurial and work-based solutions for poor people.

The prospects of green economic opportunity is going to be determined to a great extent by politicians arriving at some sort of bi-partisan resolution.

I'm only 42, and I've got a lot more tricks up my sleeve.

Asia is rising economically - and is thirsty for oil. The price pressures on oil and oil price shocks, due to Asia's economic rise, mean that all steps made now to reduce oil dependence will protect us from pain and volatility later.

If we do nothing, the ensuing climate catastrophe will wreck our economy - including wreaking havoc on our food production systems. All credible scientists agree on this point.

The more we deploy the technologies to capture wind and solar power, the cheaper those technologies become.

There's the God within and the God without, and you have to attend to the alignment of the two of them.

I've never launched any initiative or campaign that people thought was a slam dunk.

We're just trying to end illegitimate government support for a single technology, which is un-American. We should be leading the world in the next generation of technological innovation. But we can't unleash private capital because of what the government is doing to stifle innovation and to choke competition.

The government built the grid to favor one industry over others. But I don't hear any conservatives screaming about that. Folks don't understand that the elite economic interests that are holding them down are also feeding them a bunch of lies.

I'm saying you should have the right not only to be an energy consumer but an energy producer. Follow the money to understand why my message keeps getting drowned out. Big oil and big coal are terrified by the green jobs message.

I think there's going to be a tug of war in this country over who are the real patriots because at a time of national crisis, economic collapse and calamity, ecological peril and social dislocation, the American people deserve to be a partner to the American government.

Environmentalists and clean energy champions should stop telling people that we are working for "sustainability," which nobody understands.

Little kids sing a song called "America the Beautiful." They sing a song called "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land." To me, those songs are not just nice little ditties. They are marching orders. They are commandments that we must protect America's beauty from the clear-cutters, the strip-miners, the oil spillers. They are pledges we have made. They are promises to keep.

We should stop calling ourselves environmentalists - and just call ourselves patriots.

I would argue that we have a patriotic duty to move toward energy independence and clean energy. It is a matter of national security - energy security, climate security, economic security, job security, everything.

Though the rampant racial injustices throughout the criminal justice system were offensive to me and to millions of other people, I've never drawn a tight circle around the black community to define the limits of my moral concern. But that narrative tends to get imposed on you, if you're an African-American activist.

There are about 46,000 jobs supported by the solar industry right now. That's fewer than it should be, too. And you have a whole other set of jobs in energy-efficiency in buildings and in creating the "Smart Grid," as we call it.

Clean energy independence should be an area of common ground.

The dirty energy crowd can be offset only by the power of the rising clean energy sector and the American people, aroused across party lines.

There would be a cost for dumping carbon into our atmosphere and a cap on total emissions. The government must make a clear and firm decision - terminating the idea in our society it is free to pump infinite amounts of carbon into the air. Once that happens, private capital will flow even more aggressively into developing and deploying the alternative, less-polluting technologies.

Too often we think about the green economy as an elite market niche, one in which affluent people spend more money to consume greener and cleaner products.

We tend to overlook the fact that a mature clean energy economy in fact will give an opportunity to ordinary people to earn more money as clean energy workers/entrepreneurs - and save more money, through conservation and energy efficiency.

There are some cities that are doing good stuff, but there aren't enough of them. If you don't fight for what you want, then you deserve what you get. And in politics, if you don't ask, you don't get at all.

A green jobs bill would include both job creation and job training.

We need a national renewable energy goal. Such a goal, sometimes called a renewable energy standard (RES), would spell out what percentage of our power America plans to get from renewable sources.

I don't like to comment on a specific local issue because there are plenty of people already working on the problem who know a lot more about it than I do.

I think we were naive during the first two years of the [Barack] Obama Administration because the Republicans didn't fight us on this point during the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama and McCain both ran on a clean energy platform. But now, uncontested lies have eroded hard-won public understanding. So, we have to go back and make the case again.

It is extremely disappointing to me to see that even now when leading Democrats and even military veterans try to make our energy future an area of common ground and not a battleground, they are still being rebuffed by dirty energy devotees in both parties and undermined overall by the polluter lobby.

The main obstacle is the entrenched power of the legacy polluters.

Trust your intuition and be resilient. If you have real breakout ideas, even your friends will laugh at you secretly until you can prove their viability.

Unfortunately, we have a 50% unemployment rate among our urban youth of color. It's not about making green jobs more attractive. It's about making them more available. And that requires Congress passing legislation that will give a real break to the people who want to introduce new technologies to the American marketplace.

There's no higher honor, in my estimation, than being asked to serve in the White House.

I learned more in those six months [ in the White House] than in the prior six years. I don't think that anybody who has had the privilege to serve the country at that level should walk out and behave like a crybaby. And I plan to continue to serve the country in other capacities.

People in red states and blue states can agree that if we can fight pollution and poverty at the same time, letting people work their way out of poverty without undermining community health, we have a moral obligation to do so.

People forget: solar panels don't put themselves up. Wind turbines don't manufacture themselves. Businesses don't retrofit themselves to waste less energy and water, nor do homes weatherize themselves.

We know that urban farms require less fuel for tractors and transport, but community gardens don't plant themselves.

To green our country, regular people will have to put on hard hats and work boots, roll up their sleeves - and get to work.

In other words: we can fight pollution and poverty at the same time, with the same method. We can beat global warming and the global recession at the same time, with the same method. We can do this by putting people to work re-powering America with clean energy.

We are trying to reinvigorate our stagnant energy sector, to create avenues for new wealth. Clean energy innovation, job creation and energy independence should be common ground for all Americans.

Progressives always like clean energy ideas. But conservatives should like this agenda, too.

After all, we are not promoting welfare. We are promoting work. We are not pushing for more entitlement programs. We are pushing for more enterprise. We are not trying re-distribute existing wealth.

We should tell people we are working to protect our country. We are working to make America stronger for the long run.

I hope everybody's getting smarter.

We have the water, food and other industries which are also experiencing some redirection.

There are 80,000 jobs in the wind energy industry right now. And you can quadruple that number, if you have the right policy in place to promote clean energy.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we did create Color of Change, an organization which focused on African-Americans in particular, because we felt that there was a big gap there in terms of online advocacy which had left the black community particularly vulnerable.

I had this radical idea that the police should obey the law. My view was that any human system without adequate checks and balances will tend towards corruption and abuse. That's why you have meat inspectors. Not because you hate butchers, but because of an understanding of human nature.

I saw in the Nineties that we were increasing police power with get tough policies and 3 strikes laws, but without additional oversights.

Fighting for and defending the values from the pulpit is critical. You can't love the Creator, and disrespect the creation.

We need to aim high - in the area of 20-25 percent - to create the urgent demand for new technologies, manufacturing plants and green jobs.

We are talking about capital-intensive enterprises, so market certainty is the key. Investors and entrepreneurs have to know that there will be a guaranteed U.S. renewable energy market in which they can compete. Otherwise, they will create the next generation of green companies and green jobs in Asia, not here.

We need to invest in job training programs, especially those that include child care, transit stipends and paid apprenticeships and internships.

To make sure we aren't training people for jobs that don't exist, the government should provide companies with loans or loan guarantees. And the government should also directly employ people to do things like coastal restoration, land restoration, reforestation and similar programs that absorb carbon and protect America's beauty.

Higher energy costs are unavoidable in all future scenarios.

We've have to heed our Biblical obligation to be good stewards of the Earth after leaving the Garden of Eden.

It's time to start bringing the congregations down to City Hall and to ask the mayors, the city councils and the school boards, "What's the plan? What's the local government going to do for us?"

In addition, black folks need to attend green conferences, too. We just self-segregate and don't go. They might even waive your fee if you apply on a diversity basis, because they'd be so shocked to see somebody from a different background wanting to be a part of the green movement.

All humans have fear, and those of us who are fortunate have faith.

[I wish no one ever asked me ] "Did you sign that petition implicating the Bush Administration in 9/11?" Because I never signed it, and I hate being vilified for a controversial idea I never espoused.

I am sharing my faith with my sons. I pray, meditate and read devotionally. But let me be clear: I am a "person of faith" not because I am a saint, but because I am a sinner.

I don't put myself above anyone, and I have as many shortcomings as any non-believer. I just choose to turn to a higher power to help me gain wisdom and, I hope, improve over time.

"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others.

In a two-year period, all my dreams came true: the birth of a son... publishing a best-selling book... launching a successful organization... joining the [Barack] Obama Administration... And then all my nightmares came true.

That we could live in a country with no rules for the rich, no rights for the poor, and no middle class to speak of, is wrong; it's a crime against the next generation and we've got to do something about it.

If you look at my career over the past twenty years, I've always been trying to look around corners for low-income communities of color.

I'm excited about our rising generation.

To the God in myself is probably the most honest answer. I think everybody has a divine destiny.

Government-mandated and -subsidized ethanol from corn will go down in history as the "Iraq War" of environmental solutions: ill-considered, costly, and disastrous.

Former brownfields, depressed urban areas, and hard-hit rural towns blossom as eco-industrial parks, green enterprise zones, and eco-villages. Farmers' markets, community co-ops, and mobile markets get fresh, organic produce to the people who can't afford to shop at health-food stores.

In the fourth quadrant (lower right), working-class people are motivated to take on green-collar jobs and start green businesses.

I want to be remembered as one of the great innovators among social justice advocates of the 21st Century.

The first few feet of sea-level rise alone will displace more than 100 million people worldwide and turn all our major Gulf and Atlantic coast cities into preKatrina New Orleans - below sea level and facing super-hurricanes. - Joseph Romm210. The generations living today get to retrofit, reboot, and reenergize a nation. We get to rescue and reinvent the U.S. economy.

The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun.

The time has come for a public-private community partnership to fix this country and put it back to work.

The question is: do we pay a little bit more now? Or do we pay a whole lot later? For the equivalent of a postage stamp a day for each American, we can put a price on carbon today that will send a signal to private capital to invest in the clean technologies of tomorrow. Taking a vast portfolio of new energy solutions to scale will ultimately drive down costs through competition.

We just want government to be a smart, supportive, reliable partner to the forces that are working for good in this country.

Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?

Dr. King didn't get famous giving a speech that said,"I have a complaint."

Dirty energy is a finite resource; the more of it we use, the scarcer it becomes.

Let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, by Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, and no one else trying to hurt America.

No one is above the law, and no one is beneath the law.

Even if we can solve the carbon problem for coal, it is still a non-renewable resource. At some point, coal supplies will drop.

Now we stand at our own crossroads, looking out upon two futures: one with rising temperatures, rising oceans, and rising violence on a hot and strip-mined planet and another with expanding organic harvests, growing solar arrays, and deepening global partnerships on a green and thriving Earth.

We should use the transition to a better energy strategy as an opportunity to create a better economy and a better country all around.

If we keep pulling death from the ground, we will reap death from the skies.

To solve the new century's mounting social and environmental problems, people of color activist and white activists need to be able to join forces. But all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration. The Challenging White Supremacy Workshop is the most powerful tool that I have seen for removing the barriers to true partnerships between people of color and white folks. If the CWS trainings were mandatory for all white activists, the progressive movement in the United States would be unstoppable.

The end of the occupation. The right of return of the Palestinian people. These are critical dividing lines in human rights. We have to be here. No American would put up with an Israeli-style occupation of their hometown for 53 days let alone 54 years. U.S. tax dollars are funding violence against people of color inside the U.S. borders and outside the U.S. borders.

People in red states and blue states can agree that we are a nation blessed with extraordinary natural wealth and beauty, which we would be foolish to waste; therefore conservation and efficiency are values we all can share.

The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails.