This Brave Nation: Environmental Visionaries

Van Jones was forced to resign from his position as "green jobs czar" in the Obama administration on September 5, 2009 after an organized right wing smear campaign led by Fox News' Glenn Beck exaggerated his political beliefs and past affiliations. This video, originally released in June of 2008, reminds us why he is such a celebrated activist and insightful thinker.

Carl Pope has worked tirelessly in the name of the Sierra Club for thirty years, running the organization - the largest of its kind in the country - since 1992. Van Jones has founded several organizations within the last decade, including The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green For All. They both live in the Bay Area. They both care intensely about saving the environment though they employ very distinct methods. In this first episode of the new documentary series, This Brave Nation, Pope and Jones discuss the myriad issues and movements that have informed and inspired their lives and work.

A kind of "living history" project composed of short videotaped conversations, This Brave Nation brings together the most intelligent, passionate and creative voices of one generation with the activists, journalists and artists of the next to dialogue on loves, lives, politics and history. Each discussion will be produced as both a five-minute video and a thirty-minute mini-documentary, which will be collected in a DVD box set. Starting today, June 1, a new video will be released each Sunday for four weeks leading up to a live event in Los Angeles on July 13.

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