In exactly one week, thousands of progressive activists will descend on Las Vegas for the fifth annual Netroots Nation convention.

We'll have 70 engaging panels, 30 hands-on training sessions and a host of inspiring speakers coming to talk to--and engage with--you. We're especially excited to announce that Van Jones will return to Netroots Nation for a Saturday morning keynote. He'll then be joined in conversation with The Nation's Ari Melber.

When Van Jones spoke at Netroots Nation in 2008, we didn't yet know Barack Obama would be our president. But Van laid out the crisis we find ourselves in with remarkable clarity:

"Here is our problem. The right-wing has a strategy for getting energy prices down and stable, they want to drill and burn their way out of the problem. And you've heard it now for months. Drill now pay less. That is their strategy and they continue to beat the drum on that and now the Democrats are starting to get weak on the point and we cannot drill and burn our way out of this crisis, if we do we will bake this planet. That is a non-starter. It has to be off the table. We cannot drill and burn our way out….

The next president of the United States should say we're going to have a World War II level mobilization, a crash program to weatherize and solarize America, put up millions of solar panels on every surface we can find and put people to work doing it. That's a way out. We have the technology. We have not had the political will to unleash that technology."

That was Van Jones on July 20, 2008 at Netroots Nation in Austin. We really can't do his remarks justice, so we encourage you to watch his speech from Austin in full.

Van didn't foresee BP causing the worst oil spill in history, but he knew we couldn't "drill and burn" our way out of our energy problem. And he didn't foresee the economy crashing because of the bets companies like Goldman Sachs made, but he knew putting in place a smart energy strategy would create massive amounts of jobs and lead to a new century of American innovation.

It's not too late to turn our backs on the future BP has created and instead embrace the future that Van so elegantly articulated.

Join us as he challenges us to push forward and build a future we'll be proud of.

In addition to Van, you'll hear from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Al Franken, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Elizabeth Warren, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Ed Schultz, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Sen. Ben Cardin, Sen. Tom Udall, Rep. Alan Grayson, Rep. Raul Grijalva, Rep. Jared Polis, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rich Trumka, Jennifer O’Malley Dillion, Jon Vogel, J.B. Poersch, Laura Flanders, Tim Wise, Lizz Winstead, Majora Carter, Markos Moulitsas, Tarryl Clark, Bill Halter, George Goehl, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Deepak Bhargava, Gerald McEntee, Eliseo Medina and many more.