I used to be called the "Green Jack Kemp" because of my promotion of entrepreneurial and work-based solutions for poor people.
I'm not calling for redistributing wealth; I'm calling for reinvigorating our stuck energy sector, so some new entrepreneurs can create some new wealth.
The prospects of green economic opportunity is going to be determined to a great extent by politicians arriving at some sort of bi-partisan resolution.
There are about 46,000 jobs supported by the solar industry right now. That's fewer than it should be, too. And you have a whole other set of jobs in energy-efficiency in buildings and in creating the "Smart Grid," as we call it.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we did create Color of Change, an organization which focused on African-Americans in particular, because we felt that there was a big gap there in terms of online advocacy which had left the black community particularly vulnerable.
Though the rampant racial injustices throughout the criminal justice system were offensive to me and to millions of other people, I've never drawn a tight circle around the black community to define the limits of my moral concern. But that narrative tends to get imposed on you, if you're an African-American activist.
I had this radical idea that the police should obey the law. My view was that any human system without adequate checks and balances will tend towards corruption and abuse. That's why you have meat inspectors. Not because you hate butchers, but because of an understanding of human nature.
I saw in the Nineties that we were increasing police power with get tough policies and 3 strikes laws, but without additional oversights.
Back in 2007, I met this white guy [director Peter Byck] with a lot of hair and a video camera, at a conference that I happened to be attending for the launch of an organization called Blacks in Green. I had never heard of him and Peter had never heard of me. We just started talking; he liked what I had to say, so he asked me if I'd be willing to be in this documentary he was doing about carbon pollution. I said, "Sure!" It was kind of a no-brainer.
We should stop calling ourselves environmentalists - and just call ourselves patriots.
Unfortunately, we have a 50% unemployment rate among our urban youth of color. It's not about making green jobs more attractive. It's about making them more available. And that requires Congress passing legislation that will give a real break to the people who want to introduce new technologies to the American marketplace.
There's no higher honor, in my estimation, than being asked to serve in the White House.
There's the God within and the God without, and you have to attend to the alignment of the two of them.
Right now, when you go and hit the light switch in your house, you're participating in a state-protected monopoly. You're being forced to accept dirty power from a single producer.
Too often we think about the green economy as an elite market niche, one in which affluent people spend more money to consume greener and cleaner products.
To make sure we aren't training people for jobs that don't exist, the government should provide companies with loans or loan guarantees. And the government should also directly employ people to do things like coastal restoration, land restoration, reforestation and similar programs that absorb carbon and protect America's beauty.
Higher energy costs are unavoidable in all future scenarios.
The laws of supply and demand drive up the price, inevitably, over time. But solar and wind are abundant and renewable resources.
[I wish no one ever asked me ] "Did you sign that petition implicating the Bush Administration in 9/11?" Because I never signed it, and I hate being vilified for a controversial idea I never espoused.
The more we deploy the technologies to capture wind and solar power, the cheaper those technologies become.
I'm saying you should have the right not only to be an energy consumer but an energy producer. Follow the money to understand why my message keeps getting drowned out. Big oil and big coal are terrified by the green jobs message.
There are some cities that are doing good stuff, but there aren't enough of them. If you don't fight for what you want, then you deserve what you get. And in politics, if you don't ask, you don't get at all.
I think we were naive during the first two years of the [Barack] Obama Administration because the Republicans didn't fight us on this point during the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama and McCain both ran on a clean energy platform. But now, uncontested lies have eroded hard-won public understanding. So, we have to go back and make the case again.
The disaster in the gulf shows: relying on dangerous, dirty fuels can at times impose incalculable costs. I have never heard of a wind farm collapsing and causing a massive wind-slick. I have never heard of a solar farm collapsing and leaving behind a catastrophic sun-spill.
I have many sources of inspiration. I'd have to point to Dr. Martin Luther King, first and foremost. But my parents were good, hardworking folks who kept us in the church and the public schools, and out of trouble, for the most part.
