The Green Collar Economy

Customer Reviews

• Leaves much to be desired  Jan 8, 2009 (52 of 59 found this helpful)

  The Green Collar Economy covers a very important issue, at a very important moment in history, so I wish Van Jones had done a better job.
  
  My largest complaint is that so much of this book (the first 65 pages) covers nothing but Hurricane Katrina and race relations. You would never tell from the cover descriptions or introduction that this really is a book about race and class. Van Jones comes across as obsessed with this issue, yet fails to convince me of a real connection between race and the environment.
  
  Van Jones is also very non-specific throughout most of the book. He desperately needs more evidence, comparisons, and statistics to back up his claims. Not until the second to last chapter do we learn of specific policy solutions.
  
  The Green Collar Economy also neglects some of the most important green issues. He dedicates less than one page to suburban sprawl vs. transit oriented development, which is really a paramount topic. Rail as a means of intercity travel is barely mentioned. He hardly mentions Europe, even though the US has so much to learn from them (How can you write book on anything green without drawing comparisons to Europe?).
  
  Bottom line is I'm not sure who this book is for. Environmentalists will be unsatisfied with the lack of new information, and conservatives will remain unconvinced that Van Jones' proposals will actually work.

• Not well researched  May 18, 2009 (19 of 22 found this helpful)

  The author is on the right track in that we definitely need a green revolution, and this could help the economy. Unfortunately, there isn't hard data in the book really backing up much of the author's statistics and data. It is argued, for instance, that we could run out of coal. We supposedly have enough to last 250 years, although coal is only 49% of our electricity, and 22% of our energy. So, if we ramped it up, we could run out in our lifetime (and this would kill the planet). It would have been nice to see more data about fossil fuel reserves, or how much land would be needed to replace coal with solar, or how much battery technology would be needed to store it for night, etc.
  Most glaring is the author's dismissal of nuclear power in one paragraph. The author suggests we could run out of uranium. This is only possible if we use light water reactors. Using Integral Fast Reactors, the fuel supply is unlimited. IFR reactors are 100 to 300 times as efficient, and can use very low grade ores, like uranium in granite or seawater! Obviously, the author is not an energy expert. I would recommend "Prescription for the Planet," by Tom Blees, or "Beyond Fossil Fools," by Joe Shuster, for an alternate point of view that does nuclear justice. The author may be in for a big surprise, since based upon current technology only nuclear plants can meet our energy challenge.

• Reader beware  Dec 7, 2008 (52 of 66 found this helpful)

  As someone who is interested in energy and the environment, I took the book from the library in order to get an in depth view from the "green" side of propositions for rational (economy-wise) "green" policies.
  I was sorely disappointed.
  The book spends a lot of pages on irrelevant racial justice issues. If I wanted to read about the misbehavior of sheriffs of Gretna LA to hurricane Katrina survivors, I would have taken a book on hurricane Katrina.
  On the other side, the book is very light on details. For example, "cutting emissions to California's per capita level would allow the U.S. to surpass Kyoto targets". What are the Kyoto targets, where is California with regard to that, how do you extrapolate from California to the rest of the country.
  It mentions that we may run out of Uranium and coal. When? Based on what rates on consumption?
  A lot of emphasis is given to weatherizing homes. However, the author does not talk how it can be done (e.g tax incentives).
  There is no treatment of the cost of green energy and no mention of the true economical problems with going green (e.g efficient batteries and photovoltaic solar cells).
  In addition to the missing details, there are glaring inaccuracies and biased information. For example, the author mentions that we can be completely get rid of both carbon based energy and nuclear energy by 2020. No mention is made with regard to the economical cost California is paying for its "green" policies, e.g driving heavy industries (and jobs) to other states; insufficient energy generation resulting in blackouts and brownouts; high energy cost (electrical and gas).
  Bottom line: do not waste your time.

• The Reality Check on nuclear power is itself detached from reality  Jan 24, 2009 (23 of 28 found this helpful)

  More nuclear power is produced here in American than in France and nuclear power provides 77 percent of France's electricity. But yet Van Jones dismisses nuclear power in one short paragraph (13 lines). Is he serious that things like more caulk guns will solve our growing energy needs? And if he really believes that there are viable energy solutions contained in this book why didn't he bother to create an index so that they can be found more easily by readers seriously looking for realistic answers to our complex energy challenges?

• Muddled and Simplistic  Oct 14, 2008 (27 of 40 found this helpful)

  "The Green-Collar Economy" muddles this important issue with too many irrelevant side discussions of racial, gender, and economic equality, suffers from poor timing (the current economic downturn and steep fall in energy costs), fails to document key assertions (eg. "cutting emissions to California's per capita level would allow the U.S. to surpass Kyoto targets;" lay out the amount of energy savings available through retro-fitting buildings), is biased against the role of coal (no consideration of the impact of clean coal and new experiments on pollution), and fails to address key underlying impacts of population growth, Free Trade (on our ability to fund new energy initiatives), pays little attention to fuel economy, and is oblivious to the sometimes idiotic transportation of urban garbage hundreds of miles in the name of ecology.
  
  Some important points are raised - eg. the need for more electric transmission lines to take advantage of solar and wind sources, but even that discussion lacks depth. ("How much energy would be lost through transmission?" and its cost is simply referenced vs. the Iraq War - something undefined as well.)
  
  Finally, the book lacks delineation of eg. how buildings would be retrofitted, thereby supposedly benefiting our economy. If, for example, the major benefit is obtained through more efficient electric motors, the bulk of the economic benefit of constructing them would probably end up in China - not the U.S.