From record wildfires in the Western United States to an extreme increase in catastrophic flooding, hurricanes and tornadoes nationwide, climate change has already wrought untold damage upon American lives and livelihoods, damage that will likely only be exacerbated in the coming years and decades. At the same time, Americans have suffered tremendously from a once-in-a-century pandemic that has resulted in our greatest death toll since World War II, as well as one of the most significant recessions in recent history.
Compounding these difficulties, we have experienced an alarming lack of unity, purpose and trust. For such an overwhelming, multi-dimensional crisis, it seems that we have no adequate solution that could possibly address each of our overlapping issues. However, a promising solution that addresses our environmental, economic and social challenges does in fact exist in the form of a newly reinvented initiative known as the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC).
Hailed by President Biden and Democratic lawmakers, while also attracting broad political support, the CCC draws upon a former government template to coalesce young peoples’ desire for civic service and environmental action into a multi-pronged approach toward national recovery. It should be implemented on a community basis, conceivably involving youth in Chapel Hill, for example, to improve their local communities’ resilience in response to extreme weather events.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps, the original CCC, to revitalize the American economy and promote the environment. Like Biden, Roosevelt realized that focusing on the environment as a key component of America’s economic recovery was crucial to strengthening both spheres. With an impassioned army of three million dedicated young men, the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed much of our modern infrastructure and parks system over the course of nine years, planting nearly three billion trees and developing more than 800 parks across the U.S., according to the National Parks Services website. With countless projects that improved the country’s public lands, forests and parks, the CCC was one of the most significant and enduring components of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
President Biden’s current proposal for the new CCC, which falls under his overarching American Jobs Plan as one of his first executive orders, assigns only $10 billion to its creation—standing in stark contrast to FDR’s $3 trillion in today’s dollars. This gaping discrepancy in funding has understandably stirred considerable progressive backlash, given that a modern CCC is estimated to employ only a fraction of the number of workers employed under FDR’s CCC. Undoubtedly, more funding must be channeled into this effort in order to achieve its full potential. Nonetheless, according to the Columbia Education for the Environment, young workers in the CCC will provide many important climate services geared toward reducing the country’s carbon footprint, expanding the country’s use of renewables, and preserving and protecting natural ecosystems.
Concerning the actual environmental impacts of the corps, climate scientists advise that rather than focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it would be beneficial to emphasize mitigating the effects of climate change. Through widespread improvements to local infrastructure, communities such as our own would be bulwarked against events such as wildfires and hurricanes. Wetlands would be restored to better retain water, invasive species would be removed, and biodiversity would be preserved.
While the specifics of the CCC are still being debated among Democratic lawmakers, the proposed structure would be aligned with existing programs within the Interior and Agriculture departments such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps. Moreover, it would act as a springboard for many young workers to embark upon careers focused on environmental matters.
Though the proposed CCC would share many similarities with its predecessor, there would also be important differences, including its inclusiveness. Composed solely of white males, the original CCC was racially segregated and unavailable to women, whereas the new CCC would make no distinctions based upon race, gender or socioeconomic status, thus mirroring the diversity of our expanding workforce and projecting a more unified vision for our country.
The organization will also provide a livable minimum wage of $15 per hour, in addition to healthcare and other benefits, in contrast to the original CCC, which offered only room, board and very modest wages. While Roosevelt’s program was largely focused on rural areas, modern proposals would also extend to urban areas, where projects could include public park improvements, as well as restoring green spaces and tree canopies in inner-city neighborhoods.
Unlike most current climate proposals, the resurrection of the CCC has considerable support across the political spectrum, which bodes well for its future success. In part due to nostalgia for the predecessor program that employed their own relatives and family members, Americans of all political orientations, desiring a renewed sense of unity and purpose, have supported the establishment of a new CCC. To achieve tangible progress on environmental issues, the importance of such support cannot be underestimated. While other circulating environmental proposals such as the creation of a carbon tax are undoubtedly crucial in the fight against climate change, they generally lack widespread support—a legislative death sentence when climate change presents such a pressing issue. It will take a generation-long national effort to address climate change and mitigate greenhouse emissions, and bipartisan support is a strong indicator of the CCC’s potential to make a substantial contribution.
Perhaps as important as the positive impact of the CCC upon the environment would be the protean social benefits it would also herald. In addition to creating a large number of environmental and outdoors jobs, bolstering both our economic and environmental recovery, this new policy would also help to mend our ailing workforce and bridge divides among young people. By employing thousands of youth across all backgrounds—especially at a time when youth unemployment remains at unacceptably high levels of 8.2%—the CCC could help to unite our young emerging workforce.
While COVID-19 has adversely affected our generation by robbing us of experiences we otherwise might have had—a phenomenon reflected in low college enrollment figures—the CCC could have a unifying effect as its participants find common purpose in pursuit of an overarching goal. As representatives of our future planet, climate change is largely our generation’s battle. With the CCC, we could see not just tangible benefits to climate action, but also many more invaluable benefits to our youth’s advancement, such as a greater sense of camaraderie and social cohesion. As FDR famously noted in 1933, “I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work… More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.” Ultimately, our generation will lead the globe out of this crisis, as reflected by campaigns such as “Our Climate, Our Future.” If adults fail to support youth in the fight against climate change, society will fail to harness the most powerful social influence and engine of forward progress.
Today, in the midst of two interconnected global crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and global warming, the CCC presents an important opportunity to bolster our economic recovery while also mitigating the future devastating consequences of climate change. By recreating a successful program from our past, it is within our power to reshape our future. As FDR noted nearly a century ago, meaningful work provides purpose to people’s lives and thereby strengthens the backbone of our country.
To repair our country through an ethos of cooperation after widespread and ongoing devastation, sustain our workforce and transform our economy alongside our environment, it is imperative that we take a cue from our past and seize this historic opportunity to build back better as well as pioneer lasting change by engaging the full force of our generation, whose collective actions arguably represent our most potent response to the challenge of climate change. Through determination and ingenuity, prior generations overcame the Great Depression, two World Wars, the Cold War, AIDS, and many other great challenges. Now it is our turn.
Main photo by Hammond Cole Sherouse/The ECHO
