Obama green adviser resigns

It is hard to work out what to make of the resignation of Van Jones as Barack Obama’s adviser on green jobs. In my Fund Strategy cover story of 2 March I described Jones as a key intellectual influence on the drive to implement a green new deal. This followed some flattering portraits of him in the media as a black community activist and environmentalist (see 18 January 2009 post). But since I wrote my cover story he has been appointed to the Obama administration and now resigned from this position.

Jones resigned after it emerged he had called Republicans “assholes” and signed a petition suggesting the federal government was involved in the 11 September attacks. But it seems likely that the Obama administration is terrified of being connected with any opinions seen as outside the respectable mainstream. However, the extreme fear-mongering and Malthusianism of the likes of John Holdren, his chief science adviser, apparently remain perfectly acceptable (see 14 August 2009 post).