One approach to combatting climate change that would produce great results in a short time and leave an indelible impact in the public’s consciousness would be a sabbatical year for the Earth. During this year, a massive labor force would be trained and engaged in building the nation’s new energy grid using all renewable energy. For this labor force, and for the public who followed their efforts, this year would be like no other—it would form a break from the tedious routines that blur one year with the next, and would be a year that they would recall with pride in years to come, a year that cemented their place in history alongside the Greatest Generation as they worked to save the planet. This labor force would come from two sources: members of the military who could be spared for the work, and all students of a certain age.
It is widely known that the United States spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined (in other years it has been more than the next ten or twelve). Much of that money goes toward employing a bloated armed service, many of whom are stationed abroad in peaceful countries. Many billions of dollars are also spent each year on expensive military equipment, much of which is unnecessary, and even at times startlingly inefficient (like the F-35 Join Strike Fighter). Imagine what could be accomplished if this budget were to be maintained for this sabbatical year, but redirected towards a national green grid.
The Army Corps of Engineers, a natural fit for this undertaking, would be requisitioned for it, and the members of the other armed services who can be spared from their duties for a year would work alongside them. Engineers from each branch should be given leadership and planning roles so that the entire project is not dominated by the Army Corps of Engineers or any other single group. Members with or without technical expertise can be trained according their capacity and given meaningful work to do in the year building the grid.
The money typically spent on multi-billion-dollar warships, aircraft, and ordnance would be used instead to purchase or manufacture the materials needed for a new green infrastructure. The military may wish to create its own solar panel production facilities and the like, or if we insist on maintaining the current military-industrial complex with its handful of behemoth defense corporations who run billion-dollar industries manufacturing modern tools of destruction, the money can be given to those companies to produce these green energy technologies instead, with the additional hope that when the year is complete, these companies will continue to manufacture renewable energy tech in America rather than reverting 100% to military production. There is also the preferable option of giving the money that would usually go to defense manufacturers to emerging American green technology companies, instead, helping to boost a more humane business sector and put our green tech companies into a position to produce large quantities of needed materials in future years.
The nation’s intelligence chiefs have long concluded, and have warned the administration many times, that climate change is a serious security threat, and one that needs to be addressed. The most effective and just way the nation can begin to grapple with this security threat is by controlling our own emissions here at home. A year of building our grid to help eliminate our reliance on climate-destabilizing fossil fuels is clearly within the mandate of defense. Since 2001, we have spent nearly two decades fighting costly wars fighting Islamic terrorism, while doing little to mitigate the threat that has been at least partially responsible for Hurricanes Sandy, Harvey, and Maria, along with the rampant wildfires in California and the flooding that has shaken the Midwest and destroyed miles of crops along the Missouri River. As the intelligence chiefs have demonstrated, the unchecked threat of climate change will continue to bring natural disasters of increased ferocity and destructive capacity, and the destabilization unleashed by droughts, sea level rise, and other disasters elsewhere will create waves of millions of refugees and eventually generate wars over increasingly scarce resources. The sensible policy is to act now and act urgently. A temporary reapplication of the military would go a long way. In addition to building a new energy grid powered by renewable sources, much could be done to construct physical defenses against floods and sea-level rise.
The other untapped pool of resources for this project is the nation’s millions of students, all of whom will be affected by climate change in their future. (Some of them are certainly being affected by it already, particularly if they live in areas hit by flooding or wildfires.) Many among them are already starting to feel the specter of climate change coming between them and their futures. The aptly named Extinction Rebellion captures the angst and foreboding of the younger generations as they watch the world unraveling before their eyes while their governments do little to address the crisis. Their involvement in the year-long sabbatical for the Earth would make a tremendous impact in creating a green energy grid for the country, and would make them an active part in a better future that holds more promise for them.
During this sabbatical year, high school students (and possibly university students) would not go through a regular year of schooling, but would instead be involved in working directly to build the grids. Students would continue to receive an education as they worked, and they would gain valuable real-world, hands-on experience, with much of their education taking place outdoors for the year. Teachers would incorporate mathematics and engineering into the projects students worked on, and environmental science and engineering would be taught for the year. History classes would include a history of environmental policy in the United States and elsewhere, teaching students how we have arrived at the critical situation we are now in, while English classes would include hallmarks of American environmental and civic writing like Thoreau’s Walden and “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” and would include opportunities for students to write to newspapers, legislators, and publish their own blogs.
There are precedents for both this massive mobilization and the incorporation of student work into the country’s efforts at saving itself. In World War II, the economy was mobilized nearly overnight to produce war materials for the US’s efforts in Europe and the Pacific. Whole industries were created and many women joined the labor force, while students helped in their own ways at school through donation drives and resource conservation initiatives. The successful concerted effort the nation made in a time of war shows that we can do the same to combat an even greater threat, a dangerously destabilized planet.
In Japan, during World War II, students worked on a number of labor projects instead of continuing their normal path of education. Students in Hiroshima were out trying to create firebreakswhen the atomic bomb was dropped.
In Nigeria, the Igbo population traditionally incorporated themselves into three-year “age groups,” where people between the ages of, say, 12-14, 15-18, and 19-21 were each treated as a group that performed vital community functions. The group of 15-18 year olds might be assigned to, say, clear a path for a road, while an older group might have been in charge of organizing a community festival. Each three-year age group within a village was a cohesive unit and would be given a project to work on together, so that vital work got done and everyone was able to contribute to the well-being of the village.
My own grandfather grew up on a farm in Maine, where he was exposed early to hard work and creative problem solving. He then went to school with the Christian Brothers, where he and his fellow students actually helped to build the school they would learn in. My grandfather, who was trusted by the school staff due to his extensive experience on the farm, was given control of land-leveling machinery, and even dynamite, and led his classmates in creating a baseball field, among other projects. Students in suburban and urban America tend to be sheltered and kept away from outdoor work, heavy machinery, and real-world independent projects, but all that is required is the opportunity to engage in meaningful work for these habits to be reversed. Just because they have not done anything like this yet, does not mean they are not capable of doing it. Looking at the experiences of young people in other times and places shows that they are up to the challenge, and will thrive under it.
Rather than “losing” a year of school, these students will live what might be the most memorable and meaningful year of their young lives, in which they play a vital role in preserving their own future and the planet we all live on. They will gain valuable skills, an appreciation of the crisis they face and the roles they can play in solving it, and a greatly expanded worldview. The real-world, hands-on experience they will receive will only benefit them in the future when it comes time for college. Imagine all that they will be able to put on their resumes.
It will be said that these ideas are “impractical,” or politically unpopular. But where have our practicality and our political popularity gotten us? We have brought our planet to the brink of utter catastrophe by choosing to focus on business and maintain our quietly destructive routine, which we are now afraid to break. An article in New York Magazine, David Wallace-Wells’s “The Cautious Case for Climate Optimism,” contained suggestions for a number of possible “long-shot” technological solutions to avert the worst possible effects of climate change. One of these “solutions” was to deliberately release prodigious quantities of sulfur into the atmosphere, clouding the entire earth, changing the color of the sky, and blocking much of the sun’s rays in order to prevent future warming. The long-term effects of such a move, of course, are unknown, and could potentially result in extinction events to rival climate change itself. Why are we more willing to engage in geoengineering, tampering with the laws of nature, which we have not written and will never fully comprehend, rather than social engineering, revising the laws made by man for the benefit of man, our ephemeral, intangible creations whose generation is recent and whose duration is uncertain? Why do we feel as if it is the Earth that must change—and it is indeed changing for the worse right now, under our direction—rather than us?