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It’s official! The Green Jobs revolution is here, and it made a splash at the State House on June 16, when dozens gathered for a rally organized by the progressive AM radio show of the event’s host, Jeff Santos, to highlight both progress being made as well as areas needing improvement.

Speaking for the Green Justice Coalition was Soledad Boyd, senior organizer with Community Labor United. She said that while projected numbers for jobs and economic growth were impressive, the question that residents of disenfranchised neighborhoods like Boston's Grove Hall were asking was, “How many jobs have we created?” She painted a scenario where we replace the current low-paying, polluting industries with a ‘green economy' in which workers “can’t pay rent, can’t put food on the table, and can’t send their kids to college. Is that what we want? I think we’ve had enough of that.” After all, these are taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, she pointed out: "It’s about our money and how it’s spent.” The crowd responded with a standing ovation.

Last Saturday morning, many Bostonians probably slept in late, and then decided how to spend a lazy Spring afternoon. Not these folks.

On May 15, several Boston-area organizations within the Green Justice Coalition brought staff and members to the large, sunny room offered by Project HipHop in Dudley Square, for a strategy and planning retreat lasting several hours. It was the first chance for many to meet members of other GJC groups, and to dig in to the details of the GJC’s work. It also allowed for folks who are not part of the day-to-day decision-making to voice their opinions on the GJC’s direction, and to suggest ideas for how to move forward.

Kalila Barnett, the Director of Alternatives for Community and  Environment (ACE), and Tufts University professor Penn Loh, put out an essay last month called  "Towards “Justainability”: A Colored Perspective on the Green Economy," which explores the nature of the "Green Justice" model that we're developing and implementing here at at the Green Justice Coalition in Massachusetts.

A central finding of this GJC project has been that sustainability and justice go hand in hand; they simply cannot be won without each other. Barnett and Loh ask, "Can sustainability efforts truly succeed without addressing racial and economic injustice? Can the climate be stabilized without a fundamental transformation of the global economy?" They conclude, as we have, that sustainability and justice must go hand in  hand.

The earth is warming. Unemployment is rising. But in Massachusetts, a solution is emerging from the people hardest hit by the economic and environmental crisis.

Over the past few months, polls have shown that fewer Americans believe in man-made global warming, even though the science is telling us that the earth is warming. The last decade was the warmest on record and 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880. The Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009 further emphasized the immense gap between rich and poor nations, a gap that we desperately need to close if we are ever going to solve the climate crisis. This is a lesson we have taken to heart in Massachusetts, where climate activists, low-income communities and labor groups have united to form the Green Justice Coalition (GJC).

In 2008, the Green Communities Act was passed and it set in place new energy efficiency standards that greatly expanded current programs, creating an opening for quality green jobs creation in Massachusetts. In 2009, the state’s utility companies incorporated the GJC’s suggestions to create good quality green jobs, provide pathways out of poverty for local residents and jumpstart global warming reductions in communities around the state. More on the plan after  the jump.