Van Jones� book The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems couldn�t be timelier. The two crises to which Van Jones is referring are the economy and global warming and unlike many economists, Van Jones is eminently readable. One metaphor he uses for what we as Americans need to do with oil is �break-up,� as in the song �Breaking up is hard to do.�

One thing I find very appealing about Van Jones� book is his emphasis on inclusion. In developing a green collar economy, we have the opportunity to get it right and include those that have been marginalized in our society and that, in fact, their participation will enhance the products and services of the green economic revolution.

The book also includes a very solution specific and thoughtful foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Action Items and lots of Resources if you want to learn about organizations and companies already making headway in the green economy.

Terry Soto
BuzzFlash.com

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"The baton is passed to climate advocate Van Jones who clearly sees that our future must be green and must include everyone. His powerful new book �The Green Collar Economy� shows us how to accomplish it." -- Laurie David

"This book illustrates the link between the struggle to restore the environment and the need to revive the US economy. Van Jones demonstrates conclusively that the best solutions for the survivability of our planet are also the best solutions for everyday Americans." -- Al Gore

"Van Jones has a unique ability to inspire people of all colors, classes and generations to uplift vulnerable people, while protecting our vulnerable planet. His sparkling intelligence, powerful vision and deep empathy are all on full display in The Green-Collar Economy." -- Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives

Book Description:

Provocative, personal, and inspirational, The Green Collar Economy is not a dire warning but rather a substantive and viable plan for solving the biggest issues facing the country�the failing economy and our devastated environment. From a distance, it appears that these two problems are separate, but when we look closer, the connection becomes unmistakable.

In The Green Collar Economy, acclaimed activist and political advisor Van Jones delivers a real solution that both rescues our economy and saves the environment. The economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal�all fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources. As supplies disappear, the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring, the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere. As the headlines make clear, total climate chaos looms over us. The bottom line: we cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas.

Instead, Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy. Built by a broad coalition deeply rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, this path has the practical benefit of both cutting energy prices and generating enough work to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral.

Rachel Carson's 1963 landmark book Silent Spring was the pivotal ecological examination of the last century. Now, rising above the impenetrable debate over the environment and the economy, Van Jones's The Green Collar Economy delivers a timely and essential call to action for this new century.


About the Author

Van Jones is the founder and president of Green for All. An internationally acclaimed and award-winning activist, Jones is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. In addition, Jones is a board member of 1Sky, the Apollo Alliance, and a Fellow with the Institute of Noetic Sciences. A Yale Law graduate, Van Jones is living in Oakland with his wife and two sons.