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Van Jones is a leading environmental and human rights advocate, President Obama’s former “green jobs” special adviser, a CNN contributor, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Green Collar Economy and Rebuild the Dream. Chris Mooney spoke with him by phone as part of our ongoing coverage of how President Obama can tackle the climate issue—and lead—in his second term.

Mother Jones: Obama and global warming—decode his signals for us. Is he really going to take the lead here in the next four years and prioritize this issue?

Van Jones: I think it’s not clear sometimes how America is prioritizing the issue. Four years ago, both presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, ran as climate champions. The only thing that they agreed on was that global warming was real, caused by humans, could be fixed by cap and trade, and that that would lead to jobs. Four years ago, that was common ground, and the only common ground. And four years ago, people were still impacted by Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Well, all of the horrible things that were shown in Al Gore’s film in 2007, you can see on the Weather Channel in 2012. And yet you don’t see people marching down the street, even in the wake of Sandy, even in the face of the drought, demanding change. So I think that’s a factor in Washington, DC, not being as vocal or as visible.

Now that said, I think that’s starting to change, and I think this president is going to have to deal both with the worsening science, and the returning public will to act. And I credit Bill McKibben and 350.org for coming on so strong since the election was over, and also the shock of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath, for I think creating a new moment for climate solutions to take center stage.

MJ: What would real climate leadership look like? You gave President Obama a B or B- on the environment in his first term; what would he have to do to earn an A in the second one?