Van Jonesin’

Van Jones

The Green Collar Economy

The SF Chronicle is reporting today that the U.S. is indeed in a recession.  At the same time, the Big 3 Auto Makers are asking for a bailout only a month or so after the banking bailout.  It seems that throwing money at the problem will only keep the system afloat until the next big solution is found.

Luckily, it is.  Van Jones is the author of The Green Collar Economy.  He is a co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, CA; and he has a clear understanding of turning our failing economy into a comprehensive green economy that also offers opportunities for the disadvantaged.

The dude is genius.

Lately the EcoStudents at SF State have been talking about diversifying the club and doing some outreach projects to do some collaborations with other groups on campus.  A week before break we went next door to the Students of Color and met with their director.  This is where the idea of doing a book-signing came up.  And Van Jones is just the person we would both like to have to represent us.

I need my stunnas, the future looks bright

I decided to start the application process for Teach For America.  This past month I’ve been thinking and rethinking my next year.  I will be graduating from college, and want to move in a productive direction, of course, that’s left me scared out of my wits — “what am I going to do?!”

After doing more course work and traveling, I’ve realized that I want to play a role in development; be it planning, education, or organizing.  Planning in the sense that I want to be the voice that makes sure that local environmental and social impacts are top priority and will remain so for generations and generations to come — making sure that local ecosystems are left unaffected, and that the local people are receiving the full benefits of development without negative externalities.  All of this done in a manner that sustains itself for the long-term and at lowest monetary and social costs.  I also want to play a part in education.  Sharing and facilitating the things that I’ve learned to empower others is one of the greatest rewards I could get from higher education.  And lastly, being that cohesive piece of building partnerships, gathering resources, and gaining trust is such an important role in what I’m going to school for (environmental sustainability and social justice).

Of course each of these things would be at its optimum if it also allows me to pursue my passion of traveling.  I have such a great interest of seeing the rest of the world.  I’ve spent most of my life on the sunny California coast, and a significant amount on the east coast, but there are so many more places I would love to experience; from Centro America, to South America, South East Asia, the Middle East, India, Africa, and on and on.  I must also not forget that seeing the rest of the U.S., i.e. Hawaii and Alaska, and the South would be awesome as well.  By going to these places, I would learn so much from how things are done in different parts of the world, then take those experiences and add them to my mental toolbox so that I could use them with the other “parts” that I have gathered.

Anyway, I started this blog talking about Teach for America.  There is still much I need to learn about the organization, but I love what they stand for:  providing quality education to underprivileged schools around America.  What an awesome opportunity to spread my wings and put this mind to work.

Reflections on a Semester in Hong Kong

Today marked the last day of classes for me in Hong Kong — I turned in the last of my final papers. I’m pretty stoked on the topics I wrote about. They are:

1. A case-study of CSR and mining in the Philippines. (this one was a joint paper with Yussef)

2. China’s move up the value-chain and how this affects other south east Asian countries.

3. How Hong Kong is not an effective democracy.

4. Ecofeminism in the context of e-waste and women in China.

I’ve got to say that I’m quite impressed on the breadth of topics I was able to cover. The semester was quite discouraging for me considering the way classes were conducted. To sum it up, there was little participation from my peers, very few of the locals seemed to actually be interested in the things we were talking about, and most of my professors didn’t seem to mind.

But studying in Asia has definitely been a learning experience. For one, I guess I never really knew how different it is from Western culture. Just going back to the CSR paper: I feel that the things companies get away with out here would never fly in America, but this is certainly changing. In the Philippines, where this mining company is setting up to do major damage, community groups (other than the militia) are very well-organized in getting their concerns out there. Certainly, there still are the typical obstacles that they must overcome (corruption in government, greed), but they’re working hard to achieve what they want. By taking the CSR course at CityU, I learned that companies are becoming aware of this issue in Asia, and that Asia isn’t just going to be the world’s sweat factory of products, raw materials, and other exploitative means.

By the resources made available to me in this CSR course, I also found out that China is working to move up the value chain. They’re shutting down factories and banning the processing trade in their country. This ultimately means that these factories are looking to other places such as Africa and south east Asia to remain in business. I think in being an environmental studies student, my initial reaction to this was quite cynical — that the businesses are just moving their filth across the border. But I was pretty surprised to find that countries, especially Vietnam, are aware of the potential harms that factories bring, and they’re taking steps to prevent this through committees on green business. I’m going to be keeping my eye on this topic.

The next paper had to do with something completely out of my realm, but I developed some keen insights on democracy. HK is working towards universal suffrage and democracy, a major no-no in their one-country-two-systems establishment with the PRC. But a timetable has been set and the Hong Kong people and politicians are taking notice and really working to make it happen. They need some changes first (i.e. voter turnout), but just yesterday I read in The Standard that some members of the Pan-Democrats are stepping down to make room for fresh faces. Such a great move to keep the momentum going, I think. All of this, however, made me question the importance of democracy. Without sounding too much like a traitor to the good ol’ U.S. of A., I don’t see what’s so important for them to do this. Democracy isn’t all that it’s cut out to be unless it’s an effective democracy (something HK, nor the U.S. is might I add). But HK is young and ever-evolving. I say do what the people want! Go socialist! (just kidding about the socialist part)

My last piece had to do with women of course. Newsflash: women are being oppressed in China! I don’t think that the PRC is outright doing this on purpose because they certainly have many laws that protect women to make sure they don’t end up working in the slums of e-waste. But as in many patriarchal societies, money comes before the ladies. Bribes and corruption are still prevalent in China and government officials find many more benefits in cash than making sure little Xu isn’t burning old parts of computers. I couldn’t come up with tangible solutions to this problem, but personally I feel that it will definitely need to incorporate elements of development, technology, and women to fix this.

There’s many more things I was exposed to while studying in Asia, just to name a few: peak-oil, Chinese bloggers, setting land aside in Hong Kong for shipping containers, the possibility of putting patches of grass on the roofs of cars to alleviate pollution, one cargo ship in Victoria harbor gives off the equivalent of 10,000 cars of exhaust, “Hong Kong people are pragmatic,” the PRC can be referred to as ‘grandfather,’ Tai Chi and the watermelon exercise, foot-binding was eliminated in one decade, and stakeholder dialogue is key!