"From jail cells to solar cells"

Or "from the present "gulag" economy to the future "green" economy". Nice comment, indeed.

Excerpt from
Alternative visions
Five Bay Area conservationists are thinking globally – but outside the mainstream consensus – about sustainability
By Matthew Hirsch

Joshua Abraham: Green Jobs, Not Jails

The path to peaceful streets and true community safety is not more prisons but ecologically sound economic development. The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights' latest initiative, Reclaim the Future, will help forge public-private partnerships to promote healthy communities.

In the future, we envision eco-industrial parks on land once blighted by brownfields and prisons. We envision nonprofit "solution centers" training young urban workers in new technologies and ancient wisdom. We imagine kids, who are now fodder for prisons, instead creating zero-pollution products. And healing the land. And harvesting the sun. We dream of a day when struggling cities – like Oakland, Watts, Detroit, and Newark – blossom as Silicon Valleys of green capital. We're building a pathway from the present "gulag" economy to the future "green" economy. At U.N. World Environment Day, we are coordinating the social equity track to help ensure the participation of people of color at the eco-summit. In the future, we want to move urban America from jail cells to solar cells.