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Archive for April 29th, 2007

Apr 29

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Van Jones and Environmental Entrepreneurship

I enjoyed reading the New York Times article about the Entrepreneurial League System (which says that “a separate website for the ELS in Central Louisiana will be launched in May 2007″) and this from a comment on the post about the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement,

We need a have a serious conversation about energy conservation here in Alexandria. Some people don’t like the idea of conserving or changing their lifestyle habits, and for whatever reason, many people continue to buy the junk science perpetuated by the paid operatives of the oil and gas industry.

Then I came across Michele Godard’s recent questions about the stock market on Cenlamedia:

…how does the “little” guy get ahead and learn from what others do? Do you gather what little cash you have and gamble on the stock market using information from big guys like Buffet?

Or let’s take this a step further and relate the idea to the City of Alexandria City utility rates, can we the “little” guy find out what small municipalities like ours are doing and find a better deal?

The separate threads on entrepreneurship, climate change, and intelligent investments for a city like Alexandria came together in my mind to remind me of a figure named Van Jones. I highly suggest you read this interview with Van Jones on Grist.org.

As insightful as he is visionary, Van Jones has developed a strategy for improving the environment while providing poor urban areas with much needed economic activity. We know that the demand for conservation and innovation will continue to grow as energy costs rise in America. To Jones, “there are too many white environmentalists who continue to believe they can fix this problem by themselves.” He suggests creating so-called “green collar” jobs for the economically disadvantaged. The advantages of such a strategy are compelling:

A lot of downward pressure on workers comes from increasingly intense competition with India and China. The good thing about renewable energy is that it’s not going to be Chinese workers putting up solar panels. It’s not going to be workers in India retrofitting buildings so they don’t leak as much energy. Wind that’s blowing in the United States is going to turn those wind turbines, not wind blowing in Asia. There is an opportunity here to do work that can’t be outsourced.

Creative leaders have been developing programs to address the interrelated problems we face in America today, problems that are or will be issues important to Central Louisiana.

The Entrepreneurial League System reminded me of something called the Social Venture Network, which is also based on innovation and good business techniques but focuses on socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurship. According to Van Jones, “Social Venture Network is home-base for today’s visionary entrepreneurs and activist business leaders.”

Van Jones founded and runs the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California. While the Social Venture Network recruits business innovators, Ella Baker has a program to recruit and train people from low-income backgrounds to gain the skills necessary to work in an environmentally responsible business. This program is called Reclaim the Future and includes the Oakland Green Jobs Corps. A similar program in the South Bronx is called the Green Workers Cooperatives.

To read more about the ideas of Van Jones (who has also written extensively about New Orleans), please read stories by Van Jones on Alternet.org, Yes! Magazine, and his blog on the Huffington Post.

Apr 29

2 Comments

US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

Recently, Jonathan Stokes, a frequent commentator on CenLamar and the owner of Renegade Cashew Productions, wrote a letter to the Town Talk noting that Alexandria is one of only two cities in the State of Louisiana that signed the US Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement (New Orleans is the other city). The agreement was signed by former Alexandria Mayor Ned Randolph. Stokes writes:

While this is almost certainly old news to many Alexandrians, it was the first I had heard of this, and I was thrilled. It was yet one more testament to the ground breaking, bold leadership of former Mayor Ned Randolph. Thank you, Mayor Randolph, for taking such an initiative. I hope the current administration continues to pursue efforts that combat our community’s contributions to global warming.

According to the Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, as of January 2007, “367 mayors from both political parties representing more than 55 million Americans in all fifty states and Washington, D.C. have signed on. Mayors of seven of the ten largest US cities have signed along with mid-size and smaller cities.” The US Conference of Mayors unanimously endorsed the agreement in June of 2005.

The Office of the Mayor of Seattle explains:

Climate disruption is an urgent threat to the environmental and economic health of our communities. Many cities, in this country and abroad, already have strong local policies and programs in place to reduce global warming pollution, but more action is needed at the local, state, and federal levels to meet the challenge. On February 16, 2005 the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to address climate disruption, became law for the 141 countries that have ratified it to date. On that day, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels launched this initiative to advance the goals of the Kyoto Protocol through leadership and action by at least 141 American cities. Mayor Nickels, along with a growing number of other US mayors, is leading the development of a US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement ; our goal was for at least 141 mayors to sign onto the Agreement by the time of the U.S. Conference of Mayors June 2005 meeting in Chicago .

Under the Agreement, participating cities commit to take following three actions:

  • Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;
  • Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol — 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and
  • Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.