Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future

Praise for Charging Forward:  "Charging Forward stresses the importance of social, racial, and environmental justice in this Green New Deal revolution, explores the movement’s effects on the auto industry, and details where it went wrong for the workers and the environment." —Booklist "Over a decade ago, I wrote about how we could save the planet, generate jobs, and ensure justice. This vision is finally being realized and perhaps nowhere more dramatically than in Lithium Valley. Charging Forward brilliantly uses the Valley to illustrate what’s at stake as we move to a clean energy world. Clear-eyed that we cannot change the way we deliver power until we change who wields power, Benner and Pastor offer both hard-headed analysis and hope for a just future.” —Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy “Charging Forward takes us on a highly readable romp through the complexities of a just transition to electric vehicles, offering a microcosm of the larger environmental, racial, and social challenges of a clean energy tomorrow. It’s a must-read.” —Denise Fairchild, Emerald Cities Collaborative president emerita “Two of our most inspired intellectuals bring us an important glimpse into the future—and the choices we face in making a more equitable world.” —Natalie Foster, Economic Security Project president and author of The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America’s Next Economy “Charging Forward covers the planet, exposing the damages of mineral extraction worldwide and finally landing us in a California desert with enough lithium to fuel our national transition to a cleaner future. With companies circling for profits and communities banding for protection, Benner and Pastor offer us a ringside seat to the fights that will determine whether we get the future frontline communities want—and deserve.” —Gloria Walton, president and CEO of The Solutions Project