Van Jones e-mailed this message to friends and supporters on Tuesday, Sept. 15. It's his first public comment since resigning from the White House on Sept. 6:
Dear Friends:
My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the past week or so. I resigned from the White House on Sept. 6, and I have remained silent since then—in keeping with my promise not to be a distraction during a key moment in the Obama Presidency.
Over the past several days, however, many people have been asking how they can help and what they can do.
The main thing is this: please do everything you can to support both President Obama and the green jobs movement. Winning real change is ultimately the best response to these kinds of smear campaigns.
I ask everyone to:
- Support President Obama’s efforts to fix our nation’s health care, energy and education systems. His victory last fall did not represent the "finish line" in the fight to renew America; his election was just the "starting line." This autumn, it is time to make history again—with victories on health care and clean energy.
- Sign up to support groups that are working for green jobs.
As others seek to vilify or marginalize the movement for a clean energy economy, the leading groups deserve increased support. This is the year to ensure that the clean energy transformation creates good job opportunities for everyone in America.
- Spread the green jobs gospel. The ideas and ideals of the green jobs movement are grounded in fundamental American values—innovation, entrepreneurship, and equal opportunity. My true thoughts can be found in my book: The Green Collar Economy. Check it out from the library—or order a copy and share it with a friend. See for yourself why clean energy and green jobs are good for our country.
- Stay connected and speak up for me via your favorite blogs (e.g., Huffington Post, Grist, Jack & Jill, etc.), on message boards and all of your favorite social networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Supporters have set up a couple of them, to help you stay engaged, including: I Stand With Van Jones and I Love Van Jones.
In due course, I will be offering my perspective on what has happened—including correcting the record about false charges. In the meantime, I must get my family affairs in order and sort through numerous offers and options.
I want to be clear that I have nothing but love and admiration for President Obama and the entire administration. White House staffers are there to serve and support the President, not the other way around. At this critical moment in history, I could not in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. The White House needs all its hands on deck, fighting for the future.
Of course, some supporters actually think I will be more effective on the "outside." Maybe so. But those ideas always remind me of that old canard about Winston Churchill. After he lost a hard-fought election, a friend told him: "Winston, this really is just a blessing in disguise." Churchill quipped: "Damned good disguise." I can certainly relate to that sentiment right now.
Nonetheless, we must keep moving forward. Let’s continue our work to make an America as good as its promise. These are historic times. And we have a lot more history to make.
Sincerely,
Van Jones
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The diary rescue begins below and continues in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.
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CastleMan63 checked out the news that Gale Norton, Bush Interior Secretary, Under Investigation for Corruption: "That federal prosecutors are looking into whether former Secretary Norton abused her power to favor the oil company that hired her after her tenure at the Interior Department ended is not really very surprising. Norton's deputy secretary has already been convicted on obstruction of justice charges arising from his dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff."
A Siegel wrote another in his long-running Energy COOL series, Plastic trash to fuel: "Among the energy holy grails out there are paths to take trash flows and turn them into value. Waste-to-fuel options range from methane digesters to biomass waste power plants to ways to turn trash dump streams into power. Envion, as reported in today's Washington Post, has put up a demonstration facility at the Montgomery County, Maryland, Solid Waste Transfer Station to make synthetic oil from plastics. Envion is not unique in developing paths for transforming trash to fuel, but there are several elements of their approach that raise interest."
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palantir has posted the Overnight News Digest.
Some eco-meta was directed our way by djrekluse in Consciousness, Culture, and Climate: Growing Green: "Despite considerable tension and even aversion in green communities to the subject, we cannot talk about "going green" without making it a discussion about growth through various hierarchies of human development. Really, the subject of growth should come as second nature to ‘green’ thinkers and communities—after all, a blade of grass must grow to two inches before it can grow to six; a tree must grow from acorn to sapling before it can someday become a mighty oak. In much the same way, our consciousness, our values, and our cultures must also move through several distinct stages of growth before we can even begin to even see the problem, let alone care enough to do anything about it. In other words, ‘going green’ really means ‘growing green,’ and represents the crux of almost all the global issues we presently face: it’s not a problem of human imagination, technological innovation, or even political will—it’s a problem of human growth."
RLMiller urged us to See the Forests for the Trees: "In northeastern Minnesota, paper birch trees on south-facing slopes are dying as the prairie moves north. Two University of Minnesota professors studying the 1,700 mile long border between prairie and forest conclude that the border will shift up to 300 miles north: ‘As temperatures increase, droughts, violent storms and fires will become more frequent. Insects, some new to the region, will become more numerous and damaging. Invasive earthworms will continue their march north, consuming the forest floor's protective duff and warming and drying the soil. White-tailed deer will become more numerous, eating away at the forest's ability to regenerate as it otherwise would. It's not just that it will be a few degrees warmer, but all these other threats are going to be more prevalent than they were in the past.’ Many changes are occurring faster than even the forestry professors expected: ‘No explanation other than drought-related climate change appears to make sense.’"
This diary is part of the DK GreenRoots eco-series.
LaFeminista wrote a letter to the rightwing about the coming conference in Copenhagen inClimate Change: The Last Chance Saloon: "Dear Wingnuts: Our Last Chance saloon meeting is in Copenhagen in December and we better be ready this time to make some hard and fast decisions a trigger option is not necessary as we will be pulling the trigger against our own heads if we do nothing. You think economic immigration is bad now? Well if we continue down this path as the song goes ‘b b baby, you aint seen nothin yet’. So rather than supporting corporate special interest with your teabagging how about joining us for you and yours best interests. If we cannot do a simple thing like modernising health care how the hell are we going to manage combatting something that affects every living thing."
Vikingkingq explored Gas-Free Cars and High Speed RailWith the introduction of the Chevy Volt (estimated fuel efficiency - 230 mpg) and the Nissan Leaf (estimated fuel efficiency - 367 mpg), we can begin to see the emergence of a new automotive industry. Eventually, when the Volt and the Leaf and their competitors' models replace existing Accords, Camrys, and Civics, we will wind up with new vehicle fleets that are 100% gas-free. And with the passage of time, eventually every car on the road will be electric. However, on its own, this isn't going to solve America's problems with oil and CO2 emissions. ... To that end, we will need a national High-Speed Rail system, even if technology reduces automotive travel to carbon neutrality. Expanding the diversity of clean transportation options provides advantages: first, it reduces wear and tear on any one system, and ensures that systems are not overloaded - thus, reducing congestion and increasing speed of movement. Second, high-speed rail will work in complement to gas-free automotive transport, as high-speed rail is plainly preferable for longer trips of 100-300 miles, whereas the average commute is 40 miles or less (and in densely-populated areas, high speed commuter rail and mass transit will be more efficient); moreover, high-speed rail will rebound to the advantage of drivers, by luring a significant amount of the traffic off of the road, thus reducing time spent idling in traffic, which is good both for drivers and the environment (idling engines produce a huge amount of CO2 emissions)."
terryhallinan wrote about Dumb Energy: "These guys could make climaticide deniers look brilliant: EU plans 30 cities to lead world on "smart" energy Europe will select 30 cities to pioneer "smart" electricity grids and space-proven insulation as it seeks to lead the global race for green technology, a draft European Union document shows. Who can argue with such noble goals? Unfortunately there is a lot more to the story."