Van Jones Quotes About Energy
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The dirty energy crowd can be offset only by the power of the rising clean energy sector and the American people, aroused across party lines.
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On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide. I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
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Higher energy costs are unavoidable in all future scenarios.
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We need to send hundreds of millions of dollars down to our public high schools, vocational colleges, and community colleges to begin training people in the green-collar work of the future - things like solar-panel installation, retrofitting buildings that are leaking energy, wastewater reclamation, organic food, materials reuse and recycling.
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It is extremely disappointing to me to see that even now when leading Democrats and even military veterans try to make our energy future an area of common ground and not a battleground, they are still being rebuffed by dirty energy devotees in both parties and undermined overall by the polluter lobby.
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People forget: solar panels don't put themselves up. Wind turbines don't manufacture themselves. Businesses don't retrofit themselves to waste less energy and water, nor do homes weatherize themselves.
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Clean energy is hippy power. But its also cowboy power, it's rancher power, it's Appalachian power.
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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.
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We should use the transition to a better energy strategy as an opportunity to create a better economy and a better country all around.
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I think we were naive during the first two years of the [Barack] Obama Administration because the Republicans didn't fight us on this point during the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama and McCain both ran on a clean energy platform. But now, uncontested lies have eroded hard-won public understanding. So, we have to go back and make the case again.
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In other words: we can fight pollution and poverty at the same time, with the same method. We can beat global warming and the global recession at the same time, with the same method. We can do this by putting people to work re-powering America with clean energy.
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I'm not calling for redistributing wealth; I'm calling for reinvigorating our stuck energy sector, so some new entrepreneurs can create some new wealth.
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People in red states and blue states can agree that clean air is better than dirty air; therefore we should use clean energy where we can.
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There are about 46,000 jobs supported by the solar industry right now. That's fewer than it should be, too. And you have a whole other set of jobs in energy-efficiency in buildings and in creating the "Smart Grid," as we call it.
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We are trying to reinvigorate our stagnant energy sector, to create avenues for new wealth. Clean energy innovation, job creation and energy independence should be common ground for all Americans.
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We need a national renewable energy goal. Such a goal, sometimes called a renewable energy standard (RES), would spell out what percentage of our power America plans to get from renewable sources.
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To shift America (and the world) to a cleaner energy economy, millions of people will have to go to work in new industries. This necessary shift opens up tremendous new opportunities for work and wealth creation.
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We tend to overlook the fact that a mature clean energy economy in fact will give an opportunity to ordinary people to earn more money as clean energy workers/entrepreneurs - and save more money, through conservation and energy efficiency.
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The question is: do we pay a little bit more now? Or do we pay a whole lot later? For the equivalent of a postage stamp a day for each American, we can put a price on carbon today that will send a signal to private capital to invest in the clean technologies of tomorrow. Taking a vast portfolio of new energy solutions to scale will ultimately drive down costs through competition.
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Mr. Vice President, the most fiscally conservative thing this government has ever done, is to invest massively in the green part of the recovery. Because those green dollars are the hardest working dollars in the history of American politics. That same dollar that is being used to cut energy bills, is also cutting global warming gas emissions, is also cutting unemployment, is also cutting poverty, through retrofits it's also raising the value of homes, is also by cleaning the air, cutting asthma rates.
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Clean energy independence should be an area of common ground.
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We are talking about capital-intensive enterprises, so market certainty is the key. Investors and entrepreneurs have to know that there will be a guaranteed U.S. renewable energy market in which they can compete. Otherwise, they will create the next generation of green companies and green jobs in Asia, not here.
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Dirty energy is a finite resource; the more of it we use, the scarcer it becomes.
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The government also has to get the public rules right. That means putting a price on carbon, so the cleaner forms of energy become more competitive. As soon as that happens, a tidal wave of new capital, innovation and entrepreneurship will flood into the clean energy space - creating new jobs and opportunities for Americans of all walks of life. We did that for the internet, with public investments in the basic system through the Pentagon, followed by rules that encouraged innovation and competition. And that is why the internet took off in the United States first.
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I'm saying you should have the right not only to be an energy consumer but an energy producer. Follow the money to understand why my message keeps getting drowned out. Big oil and big coal are terrified by the green jobs message.
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I would argue that we have a patriotic duty to move toward energy independence and clean energy. It is a matter of national security - energy security, climate security, economic security, job security, everything.
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I'm the guy that's trying to break up that monopoly to introduce free enterprise and competition to the energy sector.
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Environmentalists and clean energy champions should stop telling people that we are working for "sustainability," which nobody understands.
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I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
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There are 80,000 jobs in the wind energy industry right now. And you can quadruple that number, if you have the right policy in place to promote clean energy.
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