Van Jones Quotes

The environmental movement can only survive if it becomes a justice movement. As a pure environmental movement, it will either die, or it will survive as a corporate 'greenwash'. Anyone who's a sincere environmentalist can't stand that role.

Ethics and Equity are at the core of debate of climate change. Debate has to move from Climate Change to Climate Justice.

Since the day he came into office, President Bush has worked to gut more than 34 years of hard work by weakening many of our Nation's standing environmental laws, some of which were signed into law by his father.

But social justice and the environment are very tied together in my head.

To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people

The conservation movement, the environmental movement as we know it, really needed to adopt some of the tactics that the civil rights movement and the anti-nuclear movement were already using successfully.

The future can be just and green - not corruption-mired and polluted.

I began to lead two lives... one being a kid and the other starting to speak internationally about the environment... and advocating for social and environmental justice.

100 years ago, buying something you could make was considered wasteful; now making something you could buy is considered wasteful. I am not convinced this is a step in the right direction.

I was raised with the blessing of being involved with peace and social justice, and the environmental movement. I have my parents to thank for that.

think people get scared that they’re not going to be able to do it perfectly - they’re going to be criticized - they’re going to be like, “Well, I’m not totally green.” Well, you know what? At this point we don’t care... Just a shade of green is enough right now. Move a little bit closer towards this. Because the more people start moving closer and closer to it, that’s something that collectively makes a difference.

We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.

Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.

The sustainability revolution will, hopefully, be the third major social and economic turning point in human history, following the Neolithic Revolution - moving from hunter-gathering to farming - and the Industrial Revolution

Any successful long-term strategy will require that the green wave fully and passionately embrace the principles of eco-equity.

It's too easy only to blame the militarists, racists, sexists and other pushers of violence for the mess we're in. What is harder is self-examination, moving beyond caring by looking inward to ask the personal question: What more should I be doing everyday to bring about a peace and justice based world, whether across the ocean or across the living room?

We share this planet, our home, with millions of species. Justice and sustainability both demand that we do not use more resources than we need.

We were trying to transform America, not triumph over white folk.

A protest meeting on the issue of environmental abuse is not a convocation of accusers, it is a convocation of the guilty. The realization ought to clear the smog of self-righteousness that has always conventionally hovered over these occasions, and let us see the work that is to be done.

A single, one-dimensional way of thinking has created a monoculture of the mind. And the monoculture of the mind has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the root of why we have pitted equity against ecology and sustainability against justice.

Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism.

Until it's understood to involve justice for those in poverty, a future for generations yet unborn, and a commitment to the rest of creation, it's unlikely we'll be able to overcome the status quo.

Even if it remained for 10 more years, it is not the commission that will solve the justice situation, it is us, the Guatemalans, who must see if we truly want to fix our institutions, strengthen them and move forward.

A movement with some lasting organization is a lot less dramatic than a movement with a lot of demonstrations and a lot of marching and so forth. The more dramatic organization does catch attention quicker. Over the long haul, however, it's a lot more difficult to keep together because you're not building solid...A lasting organization is one in which people will continue to build, develop and move when you are not there.