Last week, GM sent out an email to its employees urging them to demand that Congress pass a $25 billion “loan” for the American auto industry.  For Jake Brewer, a grassroots clean energy advocate and Internet Director for the Energy Action Coalition, the issue is complex and deeply personal.  His father is a GM employee who helped to build the ground-breaking Saturn brand from the ground up.  “On the one hand,” Brewer writes in what amounts to an open letter to his father, “if we don’t bailout your company and the backbone of our economy, it seems we’re doomed. On the other, if we don’t work now for our future and a transition to a clean energy economy, we’re doomed. It’s heart wrenching, Dad.”

He continues:

To some, it would appear that our jobs and our perspectives are diametrically opposed. But as you know, I see us as inextricably linked - whether we were linked by blood or not. It’s crucial that someone like you and someone like me work together to move our country forward. And the grassroots is the place to do it. But it has to stay there. It can’t be [GM executives] Rick [Wagoner] and Bob [Lutz].

Brewer argues that if GM is willing to be bailed out, it has to do its part to bail out the climate, and GM employees should hold the company bosses accountable:

Next week, and the week after, and every week until every dime of that loan is re-payed, you and Troy and all your colleagues and bosses will call your congresspersons and give them updates on how quickly you are retooling your facilities to build the next generation of clean cars and how many people you have put back to work with Green Jobs.

And before you hang up you’re either going to ask for (or thank them for, if me and MY colleagues have anything to say about it) the investment in a new clean energy infrastructure that will not just save a company and an industry, but create an entirely new one.

Article via Michael Silberman.