Jones: Energy, jobs are linked

“If you pull death out of the ground,” Jones said, referring to fossil fuels like oil, “you would eventually get death from the skies and death from the seas.”

America requires a new approach to energy policy that also diversifies the country’s workforce, Jones argued in his first public address as a visiting fellow on Monday afternoon.

In his speech, titled “Beyond Green Jobs: The Next American Economy and The Politics of Hope,” Jones said that the United States should strike a balance between government regulation and business innovation in its energy plans, focusing on renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

“If you want to see the future, look up — look at the skies, look at the wind. We have a Saudi Arabia of wind power in our country,” said Jones, addressing roughly 200 students, faculty and community members in McCosh 50.

Jones argued that a green economy can provide much-needed domestic jobs.

“We could connect the people who most need work with the work that most needs to be done and fight pollution and poverty at the same time,” Jones said. “There are some of the best workers in the world, [and] they’re sitting idle right now. They could be building the wind turbines that we need.”

The end goal, he said, is “to move us from this hyper-consumptive, casino-based ecologically reckless economy to one that is productive, that is thrifty and that respects the earth.”

He challenged audience members to critically assess the kind of capitalism the country should operate under, looking especially at the level of regulation needed to address current energy challenges. Referring to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and failed environmental legislation, Jones said that America needs a “sane, smart climate policy.”

He also challenged the environmental community’s moral focus, asking, “How can we have an environmental movement that is morally concerned about the future of an aluminum can ... but then live in a country where we have to throw away children in orphanages?”

A green economy, Jones said, would encourage the unemployed trouble-making youths to “put down the handgun and pick up the caulking gun,” used to seal houses to provide effective insulation. Jones highlighted the importance of workforce diversity, saying “we should have a green economy that Dr. [Martin Luther] King would be proud of.”

The greater the increase in diversity in America, the greater the potential for conflict if the nation’s economy does not catch up, Jones argued.

“You are in danger of finding yourself living in a country that is getting more and more racially diverse, more and more ethnically diverse, but less and less economically prosperous,” he said. “That is not a recipe for a common ground. That is a recipe ... for a battleground.”

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Jones also spoke about his introduction to activism as a student at Yale Law School, where he witnessed the disparity between the legal treatment of two groups of drug users: Yale students and poor residents of New Haven, Conn. Students were sent to rehabilitation, while poor residents were sent to jail, he said.

Jones then became a “big crusader against the mass incarceration of young black and brown kids,” until he eventually “burned out,” he said.

Audience members said they appreciated Jones’ candor in talking about environmental issues.

“I thought it was a wonderful talk,” African American studies professor Cornel West GS ’80 said. It was a “fusion of acute analysis and warm personality.”

Eddie Glaude GS ’97, a religion professor and chair of the Center for African American Studies, agreed. “The lecture in so many ways provides insights into how he is thinking about the future,” Glaude said.

Danny Growald ’11, chairman of Students United for a Responsible Global Environment, said the address was “simple and compelling.”

“I think everyone who actually agrees with the fundamental values that this country was [founded] on has no reason to disagree with the vast majority [of] what Van Jones said,” Growald said. “Van Jones said very little which is legitimately controversial.”

Controversy surrounding Jones’ appointment to the University extends beyond his environmental views. Jones left the White House in September 2009, following controversy when his name appeared on a petition that demanded an investigation into whether President George W. Bush’s administration “may have deliberately allowed” the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to happen as a “pretext for war.” Following a media firestorm, Jones responded that he does “not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.”

Jones — who holds a one-year joint appointment at the Center for African American Studies and the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Wilson School — will teach a yet-to-be announced course in the spring semester.

Editor's Note: Additional context has been added to clarify the scope of Van Jones' quote, “put down the handgun and pick up the caulking gun.”