View the Sunrise Movement Tweet, and short video, here.
President Joe Biden announced a new initiative to train young people for jobs in the clean energy economy.
The American Climate Corps will put a new generation of Americans to work conserving our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, advancing environmental justice, deploying clean energy, implementing energy efficient technologies, and tackling climate change. American Climate Corps members will gain the skills necessary to access good-paying jobs that are aligned with high-quality employment opportunities after they complete their paid training or service program.
The youth jobs corps is a central part of the original program for the Green New Deal. Biden’s announcement comes after a multi-year campaign by the youth climate organization Sunrise – and immediately following large demonstrations in New York and worldwide demanding an end to fossil fuels.
An early example of American Climate Corps program is a partnership between AmeriCorps and the US Forest Service to establish the new AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps.
This is a five-year, $15 million interagency agreement, with the first cohort of 80 members to begin service in the summer of 2024. The AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps will deploy across America to conserve national forests and grasslands, mitigate risks of wildfires in high-risk regions, and support reforestation efforts and wildfire crisis response.
To allay fears that Climate Corp jobs might supplant existing union jobs, LNS President Joe Uehlein suggests that explicit language in regulations for the program require that the jobs created must be new jobs — not replacement of existing workers.
For how to join the Climate Corps: https://www.whitehouse.gov/climatecorps/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email