Direction

Hey folks,

The last couple months a lot of people have asked the question, “what in tarnation is Josh doing these days?” It’s taken me a while to answer these people given that I don’t know the definition of “tarnation” and I’ve been in the thick of it at the same time. Well, now I have something of an answer. One that makes some sense and has a direction to it. See, I’m working for Green For All as Partnerships Director for an upcoming conference in Memphis, TN called “The Dream Reborn”. Okay, let’s see. He’s working. That’s positive. It’s about green and he’s directing partnerships and it sounds dreamy. That’s a little vague, eh? So, let me start by revealing the intended direction of my career life. Then I’ll describe this job some more.

Since sophomore year in college I’ve been really interested in two things. The first is kicking the pants off of environmental wastage. The second is restoring justice and fairness in peoples’ lives by promoting discourse and community. Basically, I get all juiced up when I learn about people getting screwed because others are selfish, and I like coming up with solutions that are clean, sustainable, and fair for everybody. Those two overarching principles (let’s call them efficiency and justice) have to some extent guided my career path since helping to start a community bike program in college. There have been some bumps, starting with the frat boys in college who decided that this “free bike” thing was too hippy or too free or something and chose to start tossing the yellow hunks of metal on wheels up into trees around campus. Post-college I ran into the problem of being obsessed with a sweet activist job that paid no money and had to compensate by participating in a few drug studies, working at a soap factory, and getting my brain scanned for $50 a pop. I guess nowadays the personal challenges are smaller.

My impatience for imperfect work environments and desire to grow professionally has led me to quit two good jobs (with Greenpeace and Energy Action) since August 2006, each without a solid gameplan in the works before I left; that is, unless you call scouring the French countryside for ideal agave-farming conditions and wild boar a “solid” plan. Still, I’ve gotten lucky and ended up in places that take care of me well and present lots of opportunities. Which brings me back to this current job I’ve taken with Green For All. It’s not exactly what I was looking for given it’s a 5 month contract position instead of a long-term opportunity and it’s with a start-up organization, rather than somewhere with established credentials that can provide me some much needed mentorship and opportunity for growth. However, it’s good stuff in a lot of other ways.

My job right now is to help coordinate targeted outreach to people and organizations in low-income communities of color that will be part of the new green economy. That is, job-seekers, job-trainers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, activists, and students who believe that putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, and growing natural food locally are not just imperative to stem the climate crisis and make the United States energy independent, but they are also jobs that can and will create pathways out of poverty for those who have for so long been locked out of our pollution-based economy. The concept of this “Dream Reborn” conference is that we must have a green wave that lifts all boats. If it doesn’t, and the jobs instead go to the college buddies of white environmental entrepreneurs and wall streeters, and our poorest communities are left out, there will continue to be places that corporations can call “sacrifice zones” for dumping and polluting and politicians will have an easy out when asked why they can’t support green: “it will hurt poor people”. Anyway, this isn’t really about what’s wrong now. It’s about what’s right for the future.

The Dream Reborn is a national green jobs conference on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis, April 4th-6th, 2008. The conference is intended as a way to launch Green For All nationally, to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, and to honor the new visionaries and leaders who are working for green jobs in their communities. It was envisioned by this incredible guy I get to work with named Van Jones. Van is a co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland and a man I deeply respect. His fight with Green For All is to bring hope and opportunity to ex-prisoners, youth of color, and others too often neglected by the system by bringing them green job training and a solid career pathway. In an effort to ensure that the green jobs movement is one that is created by those it is intended to serve, the outreach we are doing is especially focused in low-income communities of color. It’s not a conference for environmental activists. It’s an event for the practitioners of the new green economy.

So, my mom always tells me I get into activist lingo too much in my writing. This means that I don’t speak enough in terms that most people use. I’m sure I’m doing this a lot in this update. That tends to happen when I start talking about some new project that I’ve been trying to put into inspiring words that will get people to participate. It doesn’t mean I don’t truly believe the descriptions I’m using. Even if they sound vague or hokey to you, the concept itself is pretty damn cool. What I was saying earlier about the efficiency principle and the justice principle, applies perfectly to this conference. It’s about bringing together a broad network of different kinds of people in order to get jobs to people who most need work that are aimed at revolutionizing America’s energy systems and greening our communities. It’s good.

As I said before, this is a 5 month contract job. I am hoping to learn from people at Green For All who are developing and advocating policies for green job training programs, green enterprize zones and other components of the green economy. My long-range intention is to learn about policy-work and get involved in promoting and/or designing smart-grid/decentralized energy systems for cities or states. I enjoy organizing, but often feel the urge to dig deeper into the details of an issue and look at the big picture. We’ll see where this road takes me.

You might be also interested to know that I wrote this from a hotel bed in Gualala, California, which is right off of Highway 1. I’m taking two days of travel with my special lady, Samantha who is working to design marine protected areas off the California coast with a multi-stakeholder group of fishermen, conservationists, and scientists. Tagging along for these meetings once in a while is a great way to see the explosive beauty of California’s coasts while understanding close-up how much of a genius negotiator/advocate/relationshi

p-builder Samantha is. I also get some QT with her extremely personable brown-haired dog, Bengal.

So, that’s the news. Sorry to those who prefer me to keep these updates shorter than a novella. I’ll try to do better next time. No blame if anybody didn’t read every word.

big love,
josh