Green-Collar Work Force

While Beltway wonks have been planning political strategies, a number of nonprofits and big-city mayors (Cory Booker in Newark, Adrian Fenty in Washington) have been trying to initiate green-collar jobs programs. The movement’s unofficial spokesman is probably Van Jones, whose work with disadvantaged youth in Oakland led him to help found Green for All, which seeks $1 billion to create 250,000 new green jobs by 2012. There is a danger, Jones says, that the rewards of a green revolution could be confined to an “eco-elite” of people building solar homes and driving hybrids. That, he says, would be a hollow victory. “Here’s how you know you’re winning against global warming,” he says: “Do you see millions of people working on the problem? If you’re serious about this crisis, you should be able to look out the window and see that.” The new green icon shouldn’t be the polar bear, or the hybrid, he says: “It should be the guy with the green hard hat on, and a tool belt, fixing America.”