Van Jones Quotes
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Ordinary Americans can't pollute for free. You can't dump your trash on the sidewalk or throw all your refuse into your neighbor's yard. I don't understand why corporate polluters should be allowed to dump megatons of carbon, the most dangerous pollution in the history of the world, into our thin shell of an atmosphere, and not pay a penny to do it.
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Unfortunately, we have a 50% unemployment rate among our urban youth of color. It's not about making green jobs more attractive. It's about making them more available. And that requires Congress passing legislation that will give a real break to the people who want to introduce new technologies to the American marketplace.
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Basically, we all just had to live in the Trump reality television show, and now we're kind of stuck there for at least four years. Maybe eight.
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This [2016] election was lost because a total of 70,000 people - out of 120-130 million votes - in the Rust belt, but as a result America is in the calamity.
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There's the God within and the God without, and you have to attend to the alignment of the two of them.
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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.
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Now, we can live in this little, liberal bubble bath where everybody's supposed to like everybody and do all this stuff and understand our pain and know our history. But that, maybe, works in your dorm, that doesn't work in the real world, and people need to get out of all that.
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If we do nothing, the ensuing climate catastrophe will wreck our economy - including wreaking havoc on our food production systems. All credible scientists agree on this point.
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In a two-year period, all my dreams came true: the birth of a son... publishing a best-selling book... launching a successful organization... joining the [Barack] Obama Administration... And then all my nightmares came true.
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Civility isn't just some optional value in a multicultural, multistate democratic republic. Civility is the key to civilization.
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I don't like to comment on a specific local issue because there are plenty of people already working on the problem who know a lot more about it than I do.
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Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?
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The disaster in the gulf shows: relying on dangerous, dirty fuels can at times impose incalculable costs. I have never heard of a wind farm collapsing and causing a massive wind-slick. I have never heard of a solar farm collapsing and leaving behind a catastrophic sun-spill.
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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.
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In addition, black folks need to attend green conferences, too. We just self-segregate and don't go. They might even waive your fee if you apply on a diversity basis, because they'd be so shocked to see somebody from a different background wanting to be a part of the green movement.
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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.
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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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There is great wisdom, there's great strength and there's great beauty in all of our religion, and those should be marshaled for good.
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Any successful long-term strategy will require that the green wave fully and passionately embrace the principles of eco-equity.
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Religion has gotten a bad rap for good reasons. Often, there are a lot of people - women, LBGT, and others - you know, hierarchical monotheism has been a real source of a type of oppression.
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If someone like myself, who is married to a white woman, who has spent my entire life building bridges, can't point out the alt-right whitelash reaction without being accused of being a racial polemecist, we're going to have a big problem.
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We have gotten to the point where we're more like [Donald] Trump than Trump. Trump is hateful. Now you have liberals hating on love. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. There's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes you have to fight fire with water. I'm happy to fight it either way.
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In the fourth quadrant (lower right), working-class people are motivated to take on green-collar jobs and start green businesses.
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There's a level of self-hatred in giving these people too much power. They're sorry. They're corny. They're hateful. They need some help. Help is on the way. We'll help them whether they like it or not.