You know about white- and blue-collar workers, but now there is a new color to add to the spectrum – green collar workers. Green collar jobs are a bit like blue collar jobs, except there is the intent to improve the environment. Van Jones, award winning human rights advocate, saw the opportunity that a clean energy economy would create for the blue collar workforce, and
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Van Jones
With the resignation of White House CEQ member and “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones over Labor Day weekend, the movement toward a green tech economy took more than just a symbolic hit. Take these three lessons from Jones’ resignation as signals that the Senate’s lift on energy/climate change legislation in the coming weeks may be even tougher than predicted:
Green as Granola…or Worse? We have seen time and again this year that in spite of further entrenchment with skeptics, the green movement is still not resonant in red state America. In fact, they see climate change and energy reform as hippie holdover hokum. The Jones resignation proves that in at least one way, the movement is still way too far out on the fringe. The idea that a White House-level official with Jones stature and profile could possibly have been affiliated with a 9/11-truth group — even in a peripheral way — demonstrates that a lot of the movement’s leadership comes from well outside the political mainstream.
The week before last was the culmination of a labor of love for Sunil Paul and Claire Tomkins with the launch of the Gigaton Throwdown in DC after 18 months of hard work, researching and – as I witnessed first hand – coralling the efforts of other researchers.
What is the Gigaton Throwdown?
The Gigaton Throwdown Study was launched as a Clinton Global Initiative in 2007. It was started as a project to educate and inspire entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers to think big about solving the climate crisis. It was an effort to answer Sunil’s question, “What does it take to make a difference with clean energy technology?”
Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), yesterday answered questions from Facebook and the White House website about President Obama’s vision for a clean energy economy.
If you missed the live chat, here’s the video of the event.
CleanTech firms hiring! New jobs at SolarWorld, SunPower, and other renewable energy providers worldwide
written by Ceylan Thomson
Obama promised to create new jobs by supporting clean technologies and renewable energies, and he’s been pushing hard. Last week, he appointed activist and author Van Jones as special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation – a smart move given his popularity by the public, his visibility in the media and his ability to “bring people together like no other,” according to Ian who spoke to him at Berkeley last month. The new administration also just announced plans to channel $8 billion in weatherization and energy efficiency efforts promising to create 87,000 new jobs this way. Time will tell how effective these decisions are.
While the economy doesn’t seem to be anything close to recovery (yet!), career sites like CleanTechies have plenty of openings in cleantech and renewable energy. Here are some of the exciting opportunities featured on the CleanTechies Job Board as of today – for more jobs, visit our website:
45 minutes of engaging discourse – last night Van Jones, president and founder of “Green For All”, had his audience, made up largely of members of the greater Berkeley community, enthralled. In an age of public relations, spin and hype we had before us one of the rare respites of integrity, in a man that gets the (positive) credit he deserves. If you’ve not yet heard him speak, check out the clip below, you will hear a very compelling and articulate argument to invest in our capacity by developing our workforce.
As I looked around the room there were students, faculty, venture capitalists, social workers, community activists, environmentalists, non-profit organizers and reporters; Van can bring people together like no other, but being on a university campus brought an even more diverse group of people to the event. I thought back to the countless symposiums (symposia?) I have been to over the years – without fail it has been those organized by the universities have brought the most diverse audiences of participants together – and in that mix, the magic of cross pollination happens.