Van Jones

The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.

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

We have the chance to build this new energy economy in ways that reflect our deepest values of inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity for everyone.

Will the new environmental leaders fight for eco-equity in this new "green economy" they are birthing?

Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things.

We pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.

When you take the people who most need work and connect them with the work that most needs doing, you save. You save that young person’s life, you save a whole bunch of money, and you save the soul of this country when you invest and give people a chance, give people hope, give people opportunity.

Most people walking around in a mall or on a college campus are carrying on them better technology than the entire U.S. government had when it put a man on the moon. Each one of us is a walking technological superpower.

Each and every one of us should stop playing small and license ourselves to become one of the giants of the new century. We will need champions by the truckload.

The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance.

If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will NEVER be built.

It's in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.