Green For All

The Clinton Global Initiative is an interesting non-profit coalition of policy makers and others who are committed to designing and implementing plans of action regarding climate change, education, global health and poverty alleviation. The group is worth looking up - but I was particularly intrigued by one of the programs the group launched recently, called Green For All. Although I generally don't think about race and class issues when I think about environmentalism - I should. Historically (and in this country) environmentalism has been a white and largely upper-class pass-time. There are certainly exceptions, particularly on the local level; however, a legitimate criticism of the national environmentalist movement is that it has not focused on combining environmental goals with other local goods, such as improving health or bringing in new jobs.

Green For All attempts to do something really worthwhile, something which (if it succeeds) may help our country mitigate and adapt to climate change in an integrated way. The group is co-founded Van Jones, and its goal is to bring "green collar" jobs into New York City - thus creating jobs for working class members. The idea is to exploit the opportunities in the growing green industry by stimulating the creation of new jobs.

Van Jones, is quoted on their website as saying:
“It’s time the African American community had a part in the discussion on climate change,” said Jones. “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.”

I could not agree more.

Check out
http://www.greenforall.org/