VanJones.Net

President-elect Barack Obama faces many challenges: Iraq, Afghanistan, the war in the Gaza strip, an economic depression, and climate change. Air America talked with The Green Collar Economy author and environmental activist Van Jones about Obama's environmental team, his green economic stimulus plan and “clean” coal.

TIM EINENKEL:  What are the positives and negatives of the president-elect’s environmental policies?

VAN JONES: Obama is committed to investing $150 billion a year in clean energy and energy conservation. He wants to create five million green jobs. He wants to weatherize one million homes a year. All of those things are good. But he then talks too much about nuclear energy and coal, which are too dirty and dangerous for us to continue using.

TIM EINENKEL:  What does Obama need to do to get closer to the “Green New Deal” you write about in your book?

VAN JONES: He should launch a Clean Energy Corps. Green For All has a proposal for one. This combined service, training and jobs program would be powered by a $33 billion revolving loan fund.  Such a program could put 600,000 people to work, primarily retrofitting buildings. Its existence – reminiscent of FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps or JFK’s Peace Corps – would create a context for people to come together across lines of class or color to rebuild and repower America.

TIM EINENKEL:  In the first 100 days of the Obama administration, what steps should he take to get closer to a green collar economy?

VAN JONES: He should launch a massive campaign to weatherize and retrofit millions of buildings. That is the low-hanging fruit for carbon reduction and job creation. He should also introduce legislation to cap the amount of carbon that the United States can spew. And he should make sure that the homes of low-income people are weatherized first. “Green The Ghetto!” is a slogan we borrowed from Majora Carter. Obama should take steps to get everything from insulation to trees into struggling neighborhoods.

TIM EINENKEL:  What would your environment dream team be for Obama’s administration? Why?

VAN JONES: Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins would share the role of secretary of energy. They would get us using clean energy right away. Majora Carter would be in charge of HUD, and she would put green roofs and solar panels on every housing project. Julia Butterfly Hill would be secretary of the interior, because she would stop the sale of our nation’s natural resources to the highest bidder.

TIM EINENKEL:  What is clean coal and why is the phrase used so much?

VAN JONES: Clean coal is a fantasy fuel. It does not exist. Right now, coal-fired power plants can remove some of the sulphur from the pollution that the plants spew out of their smokestacks. But the carbon –which is our number one enemy, which is the pollutant that is literally cooking the planet – cannot be effectively captured when power plants burn carbon. The technology simply does not exist.

Besides, show me a clean process for strip-mining, or for mountain-top removal.  Coal is not just dirty to burn. It is dirty to mine. The reason we hear all this chatter about clean coal is that the coal industry is dumping millions of dollars into a PR campaign. Clean coal does represent a breakthrough – in the marketing of coal. But it does not represent a breakthrough in the burning of coal.

If we are going to call for clean coal, we may as well promote other fantasy fuels, too. Why not? For instance, lets propose that unicorns to pull our cars for us. Let’s propose that the tooth fairy bring us our energy at night and leave it under our pillow. All three of those ideas – clean coal, cars pulled by unicorn and the tooth fairy bringing us energy – are equally fanciful and ludicrous.

TIM EINENKEL:  What do you think about the cabinet members Obama has picked so far? 

VAN JONES: Carol Browner as energy czar was a genius move. Melody Barnes, who is running the domestic economic agenda, is also a superstar.

TIM EINENKEL:  What are your overall impressions of Obama’s environmental team?

VAN JONES: Without trying to evaluate all the appointees (some of whom I know about only from reading news accounts), I will say that Lisa Jackson and Carol Browner are exceptionally great choices. And we should also include environmental justice heroine and green jobs champion Hilda Solis, at the Department of Labor, as a part of the environment team. She will bring a passion for green opportunity to the Department in a way that is without precedent. I have high hopes.