TSL: The title of your latest book and the title of your talk at Pomona contain the caption “One solution to our two biggest problems.” What problems and what solution exactly are you referring to, and what is your intention in discussing these with Pomona students?

Van Jones: [We are facing both an economic crisis and an impending environmental disaster. We can either not grow the economy…], then not buy anything. Then your economy goes down. Or you can say we need to make the economy stronger by going back to the old pillage-and-pave-and-drill-and-burn model from the reckless industrialism of the last century. But then you would endanger the planet’s health. The solution is to have green growth, to grow the economy while being respectful to the environment. The short end of that is green jobs, but it’s really a whole approach that says we can have a second industrial revolution, but this time do it using wiser approaches, softer and smarter technologies.

As to what I want to achieve... I really think that the Obama generation, Generation Y, the Millenialists—whatever you want to call them—are underestimating the impact they can have on the national discussion, on the direction of the economy, on a whole range of things. This generation kinda stood up, made a whole bunch of history, then said, “That was easy, let’s sit down.” I think they need to stay standing but start walking, and the whole country will follow.

TSL: Some are skeptical that green jobs will grow the economy in addition to achieving environmental goals, pointing out that every green job created by the state requires an economic sacrifice elsewhere in the economy, and question whether the government’s use of resources is ultimately more efficient and thus growth-inducing and job creating, than the uses that would have persisted in the absence of intervention. How would you respond to this?

VJ: Efficiency is probably not the right term. Efficiency going where? If you’re in a car, and it’s headed into a brick wall at 90 mph, you wouldn’t want to get a lot more efficient. The better question to ask, especially in our energy sector since we already have massive government intervention, I think the real question is, do you believe in free markets or not? Do you believe that a more competitive energy environment will produce better results both in terms of job creation, technology advancement, and consumer choice? The answer to that is definitely yes. So now the question is, will it create more jobs? ... If you diversify America’s energy portfolio and introduce free-market competition, you can create more jobs.

There’s only a couple multi-trillion dollar industries—okay, only one. And it’s called energy. The idea that Americans should embrace the past, protect our existing near-monopolies in fossil fuels, and not lean forward and lead the world in new technologies, is only controversial because you have big oil, big coal [with] huge amounts of money [on] the other side. For everybody else, it’s more choice. Shouldn’t I, as an American, have the freedom and the liberty to be an energy producer and not be forced to be an energy consumer?