Topics in Corporate Responsibility
The Refrigerant Revolution
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Amid growing “controversy” Van Jones announced late Saturday his resignation as special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” Jones said in a statement released to the press. ”They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide. I have been inundated with calls — from across the political spectrum — urging me to ‘stay and fight.’ But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”
Jones has issued two public apologies in recent days, one for signing a petition in 2004 calling for an investigation into 9/11 and possible involvement by the Bush administration as a pretext for war, another for using a derogatory term to describe republicans in a speech he gave before joining the Obama administration.
Jones was founder of Green for All, and advocacy group that works to bring the new green economy to the benefit of all Americans (and of which most readers of this blog are already familiar). Jones also founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights based in Oakland California.
Further reading:
Washington Post
Fox News
New York Times
Climate of Fear (essay)
