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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of creating an energy economy that embodies values of inclusion and equality.
Van Jones highlights the opportunity we have to shape a new energy economy that not only addresses environmental concerns but also prioritizes social values like inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity. It calls for a collective effort to ensure that the transition to sustainable energy benefits all members of society, promoting equity in economic growth and opportunities.
In practice
In a speech on renewable energy policy, one might quote Van Jones to emphasize the need for equitable practices.
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.
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 personβs 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.
Change the story and you change perception; change perception and you change the world.
If we don't change from a world society that worships money and power to one that worships compassion and generosity, I think we'll be extinct by mid-century. I don't say that as an alarmist or as a pessimist.
The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.
There's no miracle formula but we have to move towards a lower carbon economy. We don't have any other choice.
The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit.
One day, I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change - not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.
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