The New Conservation Corp May Help Solve Both Climate Change And Unemployment
Mounting unemployment, struggling economy, environmental emergency… These sound like they could be headlines of today. But, in fact, this was the situation that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was confronting almost one hundred years ago. With unemployment at 25% and major flooding and deforestation threatening to derail the progress we’d made as a nation, Roosevelt took an unprecedented step by creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of his New Deal.
President Biden, facing similar economic woes and an increasingly urgent climate emergency, seems to be following in Roosevelt’s footsteps with the announcement of a new “Civilian Climate Corps Initiative” to combat both issues at once.
What was the Civilian Conservation Corps?
During the Great Depression, nearly a quarter of the country was unemployed. Suicides skyrocketed as individuals faced what seemed to be impossible circumstances. Millions of Americans left home so as not to be a burden to their families. Roosevelt created the New Deal in order to get these young people off the streets and give them purpose and a way to sustain themselves.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was one facet of Roosevelt’s New Deal plan. It was designed to put people to work while also improving the environment. President Roosevelt explained that by creating the CCC, “We are conserving not only our natural resources but also our human resources.”
The CCC lasted for nine years. During that time, Roosevelt’s “Tree Army” put 3 million Americans to work planting more than 3 billion trees, paving 125,000 miles of roadways, and erecting 3,000 fire lookouts. Many of the trails and structures we enjoy today at National Parks were first created by the CCC.
What is Biden’s plan?
Drawing from Roosevelt’s example, Biden’s ambitious new plan will seek to employ many of the 18 million unemployed Americans in tackling our mounting climate crisis. According to Biden’s website, projects will include working to mitigate wildfire risks, protect watershed health, and improve outdoor recreation access.
Mary Ellen Sprenkel, head of the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, hopes that the CCC will also engage in community efforts like urban agriculture projects and making buildings more energy-efficient
Sprenkel noted that the thousands of buildings the federal government owns “could even become sources of renewable energy generation with solar or wind power installations.”
What hurdles will the CCC face?
The deep divisions in America will present challenges for the climate initiative. Danielle Deiseroth, a climate analyst at Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, cautions that the program is likely to get some negative press from the conservative media. “It’s very likely that talking heads on Fox News, they’re going to talk about this as, you know, ‘another part of a radical socialist Green New Deal,’” she said.
Deiseroth noted that Biden has been successfully countering those narratives by talking about the tangible benefits of job creation, leaving a more sustainable world for future generations, and making sure the country has clean air and clean water for our kids and grandkids.
The fledgling CCC will also have to make sure to avoid some of the pitfalls that its predecessor encountered, notably racial and gender equity. Despite pressure from his wife Eleanor, Roosevelt limited the Civilian Conservation Corps to men. And, though Black participants were welcome, the camps remained separated into segregated work sites.
While a lot has changed since Roosevelt’s plan, people of color are still vastly underrepresented in the overwhelmingly white field of conservation.
Biden seeks to address these inequities in the newest iteration of the CCC. As his plan states, “The Federal Government must protect America’s natural treasures, increase reforestation, improve access to recreation, and increase resilience to wildfires and storms, while creating well-paying union jobs for more Americans, including more opportunities for women and people of color in occupations where they are underrepresented.”
What the CCC could mean for the future
This new program places the climate crisis at the forefront of American policy, a move that’s long overdue. In order to meet the international goal of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, the United States will need to make massive investments in workforce training. Through the CCC, workers could get the hands-on training that they need to lead the way towards transitioning to an economy based on sustainable energy sources.
If the Civilian Climate Corps Initiative is successful, the generation that faces the biggest climate crisis could be the ones who are employed to work towards solving it.