Blog Action Day - Poverty and the new Green Economy

Today, October 15th, is Blog Action Day 2008. Thousands of bloggers are writing about poverty today to raise awareness about this issue and encourage others to take whatever steps they can to talk about it and find solutions to this issue of poverty which affects more than a billion people.

I'm participating today because I became aware of poverty after moving to the east side of Austin, TX. I come from a third world country - I thought I knew a lot about poverty. One thing I didn't know is how pervasive it is in these United States. And how easy it is to ignore.

One of the best proposals I've currently come across outlines potential solutions to several of the problems our global society is facing - namely social inequity and environmental degredation. Some solutions come from Van Jones and his recent book, The Green Collar Economy; How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems

The idea is to train people in the emerging green market which includes; weatherizing homes, installing solar panels, training hybrid electric technicians, etc. Bringing jobs to sectors of our economy that have been left behind in the move to protect our environment. We can invent the new technologies, invest in the renewable energy the will power our future economies, and implement conservation efforts. All the while we can make certain that we invest in people through training and new job opportunities paving the way for the poor in this country to build the new economy, invest in their communities and have ownership in the new economy.