Part 2 of 2: Retrospective On Our Renovations

Photo Credit: 2 Miles

June 16th, 2012
Claire McEachern

In a relaxed and calm voice, mixed with hints of jest, Van Jones greeted the assembled crowd by saying, "I may be preaching to the green choir, but I want to brag a little bit…"

From the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s recent MBA recipients, to the local green industry veterans, such as Energy Trust, the Sustainable Industries Economic Forum (held June 13th, 2012, in Portland, OR) brought together a keenly interested and progressive audience. Every eye and ear was poised, anxiously awaiting a story of success. One could almost hear the mental buzz of global news, tweets, timeline updates, blog posts, and RSS feeds spooning out messages of doom and gloom into our collective sub-conscious.

Let us not forget to mention that Mr. Jones was also there to promote his new book: Rebuilding the Dream.

He began by reminding us how representatives in DC use the term “job killers” for environmentalists. But the statistics from the past several years show a very different reality. According to Brookings Institute, the green economy has created over 2.4 million jobs and includes the fastest growing sectors. This is in despite of a bad economy and a politically “stuck” world.

Curious then, that there still remains division within the United States and around the world on whether or not to fully embrace and integrate the green economy. How does this division persist when even the most skeptical among us have recently been heard to say, “The weather wasn’t quite like this before…”

Intro: Retrospective On Our Renovations

Before embarking on a trip to Dublin, Ireland, to plan for the rescheduled SustaiNext|EU Summit (October 11 & 12), we thought we'd publish a 2 part series that has us pondering the upcoming trip. How far has this 'green economy' come in the last 3 years. How is its implementation different in the international scene than here in the US? Who will we meet and what perspective will they give us?

Over the next week we plan on sharing thought in those areas and to introduce those queries are these essays. One composed three years ago and the others completed now in the present space and time of June 16th, 2012. Below is a bit more on the source of these writing....

When we saw that Van Jones would speak in Portland, OR for the Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, we gladly shelled out a couple bucks to go see him speak.