In reverse:
I've been reading the entries at Worldchanging.com on the regular. In a word, I find them visionary. The June 5, entry was particularly so:
The connection between social inequality and environmental destruction isn’t one made easily by most environmentalists. Sure, they may see a connection between a perceived lack of concern among politicians and corporations about both people and the planet. But that’s usually about it.
Van Jones tells another story. For him, the two are inextricably linked. “Both problems are reaching crisis points,” he writes in the Summer 2005 issue of Yes! magazine. “We act as if they are separate. But they are linked -- economically, politically, and morally. The solutions and strategies for each must, therefore, be one.”
Last week, during the World Environment Day festivities in San Francisco, the Ella Baker Center, the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit Jones heads, launched an initiative that attempts to link the two: Reclaim the Future. RTF is envisioned as a think tank and advocacy group representing and empowering ecologically sound, urban entrepreneurs and their local communities. According to the Ella Baker site:
Our goal is to push for public-private-community partnerships endorsing clean, healthy, and economically developed urban environments. The project is devoted to fostering the creation of dignified, clean-energy job opportunities for de-incarcerated individuals and those at risk of encountering the punishment industry.
Or, as Jones puts it: “Green Jobs, Not Jails.”
More
here.