When we left off with Part I, Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center was asking “who is going to receive the benefits of exploding investments in green industries? What does this all mean for the future? Where do we go from here?” In part II, I’ll outline Van’s vision for the answers to these questions. In the broadest sense, there are three possible future scenarios:1. Eco-apocalypse: This is the scenario relating to business as usual. If we do nothing, we face accelerating environmental catastrophe. It is the fear of these impacts that motivates most activists now.2. Eco-apartheid: This represents the current trend where the affluent use their considerable resources to find ways to mitigate the impacts of environmental damage on their own lives, while the poor and underprivileged are left without a way out. Depsite the progress that has been made, we find ourselves “already staring down the barrel” of eco-aparteid. So what? Well, allowing our society to go down that path would certainly be immoral, but besides that, it won’t work: eco-aparteid is just a speed bump on the way to eco-apocalypse. In order to work, the green economy has to include the majority of people, not just the majority of affluent people. Letting the rich fix their own problems is a quick fix, but not a sustainable solution. So what is the alternative?

3. Eco-equity: Essentially, eco-equity means we need each other. It’s not about charity, guilt trips, or accusations. The overriding message of this imperative is that our children’s children won’t be here if we don’t figure this thing out. Relying on “a free market evacuation plan” is not a viable solution for society as a whole. A “sink or swim” mentality doesn’t work. See: Katrina.“We must reject sink or swim in an age of floods; stand together, be together, thrive together.”

Equal access and opportunity to the best of the green economy is essential for the challenges we face as a society. What is the best agenda to pursue? A green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Given the complexity of these issues, how can green advocates explain them all in a short period of time? A rhetorical device: “The Fourth Quadrant.” (The rest of this explanation really needs some version of Van’s Powerpoint slide to make sense. Until we can get the actual diagram from Van's people, I took the liberaty of drawing it out on a napkin for you. High tech, I know…)On a basic level, people understand the spectrums of ‘gray’ moving to ‘green’ (environmental problems, moving to solutions), and rich to poor, but rarely do they think about where these two intersect. If you plot these on a crossing axis and draw a box around the four endpoints, it creates four quadrants. The altruism afforded by affluence defines the top left quadrant. It is predominantly this type of person who has the time and resources to care about environmental problems that don’t directly affect their daily lives. They are the most active supporters of polar bears, the rainforest, and other such external problems. Are the people who can afford to wrong to focus on these problems? Of course not. When keystone species in ecosystems disappear, we’re next. This line of reasoning may be selfish, but it’s as good a justification for altruism as any. We need people to take up these causes.How, then, do poor people think about abstract environmental problems? Quite simply, they don’t. The bottom left quadrant of this diagram represents the practical environmental concerns of marginalized communities: industrial pollution and the health problems it causes, rising energy prices, and many more issues. It’s not hard to see why polar bears don’t get a lot of traction in the barrio.But defining and raising awareness about environmental problems is only half the battle. In order to avoid disaster, we have to actively move towards solutions. The top right quadrant is defined by the intersection of affluence and green solutions. This includes people who can afford hybrids, carbon offsets, solar panels on their vacation home, and boutique organic products. These people often see green as an investment opportunity.Are they wrong to take this view? Once again, of course not. It is essential for the people with capital to invest in helping the earth with their disposable income. But what about the fourth quadrant? What is the meaning of the green economy for the poor? Until now, this last quadrant has too often been undefined (at best) and ignored (at worst). These people have been locked out of the material benefits of the pollution-based industrial economy. If we are serious about tackling the social and environmental challenges of our times, green collar jobs for the underprivileged and opportunities for community health improvement are the only way forward.So, how does this work in practical terms? If you put up solar panels, you’re on your way to a professional job with union benefits. This is a ‘green collar’ route out of poverty. When you learn how to double pane glass to weatherproof a home or install bamboo flooring, you’re beginning down a path to a career that is sustainable on both personal and social levels. Jobs like these are the first step on ladder towards ownership, entrepreneurship, and empowerment. This is the true win-win of the emerging green economy—but only if we make it happen. (After explaining the Fourth Quadrant, Van closed with the beginnings of a success story. His work on creating a green job corps model in Oakland has become a model for Nancy Pelosi’s Clean Energy Jobs Bill. How did he pitch it to Pelosi? For this and his closing remarks, I’ll let Van’s words speak for themselves; during this part of the speech, I was typing furiously while the audience clapped)

“People have only told poor youth what not to do, never said ‘stand with me, and be at the center of this movement.’ If you do that, Nancy Pelosi, you will change America.”“We can build a real movement again, across the lines of race and class. All of us have been lonely and isolated and frustrated. No one joined the movement to go it alone. We have the opportunity now to move forward and build a coalition greater than the New Deal, but we need to get the government on the side of the problem solvers in our new economy, not the problem makers. And when that happens, it won’t be because of bitching and moaning.” “We want America to lead the world in clean and green solutions, bring a multiracial country together and leads the world to something beautiful again. And when we do that, we won’t be taking America back, we’ll be taking it forward.

Is this too long for you to read? Or did you read the whole thing straight through and want to see more? Either way, this YouTube video is for you.