Van Jones Quotes

“You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them!”

— Van Jones

“If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will NEVER be built.”

— Van Jones

“It's in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.”

— Van Jones

“I'm excited about our rising generation.”

— Van Jones

“In a democracy, you won't always get to have your way. But you should always get to have your say.”

— Van Jones

“I'm willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”

— Van Jones

“Any successful long-term strategy will require that the green wave fully and passionately embrace the principles of eco-equity.”

— Van Jones

“That we could live in a country with no rules for the rich, no rights for the poor, and no middle class to speak of, is wrong; it's a crime against the next generation and we've got to do something about it.”

— Van Jones

“The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.”

— Van Jones

“Barack Obama volunteered to be the Captain of the Titanic AFTER it hit the iceberg”

— Van Jones

“America should be leading the world in green and clean solutions, and human rights. We shouldn't be leading the world in wars and incarceration rates and pollution. We can be a better country. I think we're going to be a better country.”

— Van Jones

“If we stand for change, we can spark a popular movement with power, influence, magic and genius.”

— Van Jones

“When it gets harder to love, love harder.”

— Van Jones

“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.”

— Van Jones

“If you look at my career over the past twenty years, I've always been trying to look around corners for low-income communities of color.”

— Van Jones

“Right now, the government is spending billions of dollars supporting the problem-makers in the U.S. economy - the polluters, despoilers, incarcerators, and warmongers.”

— Van Jones

“Americans need to see people who are honestly trying to learn from each other, even as we make our own points powerfully and fight for our own values and policies.”

— Van Jones

“Rather than continuing to base our economy on a finite supply of dead things, we can base it on sources that are practically infinite and eternal: the sun, the moon, and the Earth's inner fire.”

— Van Jones

Reversing global warming will take a World War II level of mobilization. It is the work of tens of millions, not hundreds of thousands.

— Van Jones

“Most people walking around in a mall or on a college campus are carrying on them better technology than the entire U.S. government had when it put a man on the moon. Each one of us is a walking technological superpower.”

— Van Jones

“There are only two ways to have a middle class in your country: either you have highly skilled manufacturing jobs, or you have a highly skilled, well trained, knowledge-based workforce. In other words, college.”

— Van Jones

Most green-collar jobs are middle-skill jobs. That means they require more education that a high-school diploma, but less than a four-year degree.

— Van Jones

“Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things.”

— Van Jones

“All the big ideas for getting us onto a lower carbon trajectory involve a lot of people doing a lot of work, and that's been missing from the conversation. This is a great time to go to the next step and ask, well, who's going to do the work? Who's going to invest in the new technologies? What are ways to get communities wealth, improved health, and expanded job opportunities out of this improved transition?”

— Van Jones

“In the fourth quadrant (lower right), working-class people are motivated to take on green-collar jobs and start green businesses.”

— Van Jones

“We just want government to be a smart, supportive, reliable partner to the forces that are working for good in this country.”

— Van Jones

“Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?”

— Van Jones

Government-mandated and -subsidized ethanol from corn will go down in history as the "Iraq War" of environmental solutions: ill-considered, costly, and disastrous.

— Van Jones

Former brownfields, depressed urban areas, and hard-hit rural towns blossom as eco-industrial parks, green enterprise zones, and eco-villages. Farmers' markets, community co-ops, and mobile markets get fresh, organic produce to the people who can't afford to shop at health-food stores.

— Van Jones

“The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails.”

— Van Jones

“A green economy begins to replace some of the clunking and chugging of ugly machines with the wise effort of beautiful, skilled people. That means more jobs.”

— Van Jones

That's one component: rather than creating job-training pipelines that put these kids at the back of the line for the last century's pollution-based jobs, we need to be creating opportunities for them to be at the front of the line for the new clean and green jobs.

— Van Jones

“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.”

— Van Jones

“A family-friendly "eco-populism" can mobilize and unite millions who, at this point, would be turned off by a more extreme set of demands. The momentum will build, through these early efforts, for more comprehensive solutions.”

— Van Jones

“To solve the new century's mounting social and environmental problems, people of color activist and white activists need to be able to join forces. But all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration. The Challenging White Supremacy Workshop is the most powerful tool that I have seen for removing the barriers to true partnerships between people of color and white folks. If the CWS trainings were mandatory for all white activists, the progressive movement in the United States would be unstoppable.”

— Van Jones

We should use the transition to a better energy strategy as an opportunity to create a better economy and a better country all around.

— Van Jones

“We seem to forget that everything that is good for the environment is a job. Solar panels don't put themselves up. Wind turbines don't manufacture themselves. Houses don't retrofit themselves and put in their own new boilers and furnaces and better-fitting windows and doors. Advanced biofuel crops don't plant themselves. Community gardens don't tend themselves. Farmers' markets don't run themselves. Every single thing that is good for the environment is actually a job, a contract, or an entrepreneurial opportunity.”

— Van Jones

“Ocean's remarkable stories, depth of commitment, and eloquent communication make him a fantastic resource for conferences, universities, and indeed everyone who wants a potent dose of grounded inspiration.”

— Van Jones

“Dr. King didn't get famous giving a speech that said,"I have a complaint."”

— Van Jones

“We pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.”

— Van Jones

“Even if we can solve the carbon problem for coal, it is still a non-renewable resource. At some point, coal supplies will drop.”

— Van Jones

Now we stand at our own crossroads, looking out upon two futures: one with rising temperatures, rising oceans, and rising violence on a hot and strip-mined planet and another with expanding organic harvests, growing solar arrays, and deepening global partnerships on a green and thriving Earth.

— Van Jones

“Will the new environmental leaders fight for eco-equity in this new "green economy" they are birthing?”

— Van Jones

“No one is above the law, and no one is beneath the law.”

— Van Jones

“By kicking its carbon addiction, America will increase its national wealth and generate millions of jobs that can't be outsourced.”

— Van Jones

“We need a much deeper understanding of exactly what it is our industrial society, in its present creation, is jeopardizing. We need a more profound perception of what is at stake.”

— Van Jones

“The Whitehouse is talking different because we are walking different”

— Van Jones

“We're going to be in an economic slowdown for a couple of years. So to take three months, four months, six months to spend this money the right way-we're not going to get a chance to spend a trillion dollars again! Ever. So let's do it the right way.”

— Van Jones

“"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others.”

— Van Jones

“I am sharing my faith with my sons. I pray, meditate and read devotionally. But let me be clear: I am a "person of faith" not because I am a saint, but because I am a sinner.”

— Van Jones