The activist is encourages by green jobs but wants them to be long term in communities of color.

Question: Are green jobs having an impact in Washington?

Kari Fulton: Yeah, I have a couple of different friends, nationwide, actually, who are now... who are doing work around, you know, stuff like bringing energy efficiency to low income communities and now through the stimulus plan they are getting money to actually host those programs. So NDC, Mayor Fenty had a green summer job's program and a lot of different things. So I definitely think it is moving very well and you know, definitely think that more people are getting involved, more people are starting to see it as a real agenda. So, I really hope that...

One time I saw Van speak at... he was at Morgan State in Baltimore and so I went there and this lady stood up and she was like, "all the stuff you're doing is great but in the 70s we already had those programs and then when the government changed over so did that program and there was no more funding for the environment steward programs that were going on." And that's what I hope doesn't happen and that is why it's good when you do have your consumer market that's thinking green just as much as the government is and I hope that we continue building that up because the government cannot hold these programs themselves and a lot of the work that is going on with green jobs is stuff that's kind of temporary, to be honest with you, once you install those energy efficiency products and install those solar panels and all those different things, what's next, what's next?

And that is really where I think we need to remember is that and building up that strategy like I said is that we have to build up that infrastructure that doesn't kill off all these jobs that we started once a new administration comes in or once we figure out, we don't have enough money to support that.

Recorded on: May 8, 2009