If you haven’t heard Van Jones speak, then do yourself a favour. Find an event where he’s keynoting, and go.

Van is as American as Obama (and with the madness going about at the moment, perhaps I should stress that I mean that with no irony)—he’s a smart, educated Black man with a dream, who’s boot-strapped himself into a position of influence, apparently through that mythical American combo of initiative, self-motivation, commitment and tireless work. When I first heard him speak, he was working with the Ella Baker Center, in Oakland. Now he’s on Obama’s cabinet, because the President invited him to be his advisor on green jobs.

He deserves it. If you haven’t yet read Van’s book ‘The Green Collar Economy’, here’s the executive summary:

The green movement is currently a lifestyle choice that white people can adopt if they have money to spare to buy organic food and hybrid cars. (Guilty as charged, personally.) Marin County, California, is crawling with people like this, including myself. But if you cross the Richmond Bridge and drive down to Oakland, which would take you about an hour, unless the traffic’s bad, you find a different world. In this world, which is majority Black, people don’t have the spare cash to worry about where their greens grew, because they’re looking for a job, or working two, and scrabbling to put food on the table.

If the green movement is going to have any real influence at all, then, says Van, it has to become mainstream, and its issues have to start defining the default choices of ordinary Americans, rather then remaining expensive consumer choice options. At the same time, those ordinary Americans, particularly the African Americans at the bottom of our collective compost heap, need jobs, and the best way to regenerate an economy is through creating green jobs. So if we marry these two problems, they can give birth to a solution. We need to create a green economy that employs the poor and creates a sustainable life for all of us.

Van’s church used (before he moved to Washington) to be the fabulous East Bay Church of Religious Science, in Oakland. The preacher is Reverend Eloise; a feisty, funny, elderly Black woman who channels her deep, loving wisdom directly from the source. The church is a place you can’t step into without a feeling of hope wriggling into some place inside you. It has recently decided to go green.

There’s a modern myth that Toyota defined their Prius market as people with a higher degree, earning six figures, with an active interest in composting. So they targeted Northern California. It’s funny, but it shows you how marginal the green stuff still is.

The East Bay Church does not fit the demographic. It sits on a busy main road in Oakland. It has a security guard on the parking lot. People put one or two dollar donations in the collection basket, because no-one here is flush with bills of any sort. The congregation runs groups on how to get out of debt, and how to become a long term home owner. They marry spirituality with practicality, because when the bottom line is shaky, no bullshit will fly.

And now, in a way that could have been a case history in Van’s book, the East Bay Church congregation has decided to green their church—in a way that will have a potentially huge knock-on effect. They do a lot of work with volunteers, so any knowledge that they acquire will be shared, and seeded into the wider community of Oakland. Who knows how many people, who normally wouldn’t shop at Whole Foods or Gaiam, or even want to own a Prius, will end up knowing about the comparative savings of solar, or how to recycle grey water? Who knows how many will go out and start small green businesses, employing young people in Oakland?

This is community sustainability in action, and it’s no accident that it’s the East Bay Church that’s doing it—in an inclusive, no-price-for-admission kind of way. I’m taking it as a sign.