"About The Green-Collar Economy of Van Jones: Green jobs are not enough!"
by Joseph Green (Communist Voice #43, June 2009)
Subheads: What Jones promises How he would achieve it Green jobs won't end unemployment Market-based solutions won't stop global warming The fiasco of cap and trade Neo-liberalism and government spending The need for environmental planning The search for green capitalists For a working-class environmental movement
Text: . The capitalists are dragging their feet while our world comes closer and closer to burning through global warming. It's going to take the pressure of the working majority of this planet if global warming and other environmental crises are to be solved. But for this to happen, environmentalism must take up, as a crucial part of any environmental plan, the problems that workers will face in surviving in the coming years.
. We have continually stressed this point in Communist Voice, writing two years ago that:
"It is impossible to have a planet that is half starved, and half environmentally clean, a planet filled with urban slums on its surface but with pure, pristine forests, oceans, and atmosphere. Only when their efforts to save the environment also ensure their own welfare can the masses be fully mobilized behind environmental planning. And only with the participation of the working masses can the huge tasks required to save the environment be successfully accomplished, and only their participation will provide the oversight over the economy that will ensure that environmental planning is really carried out. "(1)
For the rest of this article, see www.communistvoice.org/43cGreenJobs.html
-- Joseph Green comvox at flash.net