The counterplan is the key mechanism for ensuring workers enter green jobs. That solves nutrient pollution.

The Job Guarantee matches unmet needs with available resources. Because it aims to address the social deprivations of people, communities, and the environment, it is not only a green policy, but can be viewed more broadly as a care policy. Large swaths of the population, even in developed countries, face shortages of vital goods and services. Food deserts, where millions of people lack access to healthy and affordable food, blanket the US. So do medical deserts – nearly a quarter of all residential areas lack acute-care hospitals and 80% of rural areas are designated as medically underserved. [20]

All the while, the planet is burning. Perennial fires, floods, hurricanes, droughts are intensifying. Air, soil and water pollution are preconditions for the accelerating and at an unprecedented rate of species extinction, according to a recent UN report. [21]

[21]United Nations. (2019). ‘Nature’s dangerous decline… Environmental work is endless and urgent. It includes investment and rehabilitation projects that are small and large. The Job Guarantee is one key mechanism for ensuring that the work is being done. A global tree army can repair the lungs of the planet, provide green infrastructure in dense urban areas, and help restore biodiversity. Rural areas can benefit from sustainable agriculture investments, drought prevention, and other public services. The examples are many.

Global recycling programs can help save the oceans from plastics and other polluters. The climate crisis is an existential threat to fishing communities that help feed the planet. Meanwhile, mangroves, wetlands, tidal marshes, seagrass, seaweeds sequester carbons effectively and up to five times more than tropical forests. [22][22]

Smith, B., Bowman, J. and Johnson, A.E. (2019). ‘Seafood, blue… Restoring them is an urgent and labor-intensive task. The Job Guarantee can be a springboard for implementing sustainable fishing and regenerative ocean farming practices. Reef reconstruction and habitat restoration can reverse the impacts of coastal development on coastal marine ecosystems and vulnerable (and often indigenous) communities. Wetlands are natural embankments that often provide better protection than seawalls. Coastal communities often suffer mass unemployment and underemployment. The Job Guarantee would employ the unemployed and underemployed to do these critical tasks. And the program would be well targeted, as coastal communities often have some of the highest unemployment and underemployment rates nationwide.[/22]

A similar approach would help impoverished rural communities, who have born the ill effects of commercial agriculture. Firm concentration in agriculture (known as Big Ag) has led to some of the most abusive labor market practices of any industry (wage theft, dangerous working conditions, substandard housing for workers) and has consistently produced environmental hazards (methane emissions, water crises, soil erosion), public health concerns (antibiotic resistance, food born illnesses, dwindling nutritional content), and unfair competition wiping out small family farms (raising monopoly pries of patented seed and equipment, while lowering purchase prices for crops and cattle for sale). As noted above, despite the increased agricultural output, food deserts are ubiquitous around the globe. But corporate farms have been especially detrimental for working people. Agriculture has reliably produced some of the most precarious and poorly paid jobs. Big Ag often relies on cheap migrant labor that in many countries is exempt from basic labor protections like minimum wages, work contracts, or collective bargaining. Yet sustainable agriculture is critical from a strategic point of view (communities need to know where their food comes from), from an environmental point of view (sustainable agriculture relies on regenerative farming) and from the point of view of workers (community supported agriculture CSAs create more and better paid local jobs). The Job Guarantee can help multiply CSAs, farm cooperatives, and community garden initiatives. Because it is a program that creates jobs where they are most needed, by focusing on sustainable agriculture, it can be an effective method for wiping out food deserts while creating living wage employment opportunities.

The problems with agriculture are connected to the problems of water pollution. Agricultural runoff contaminates underground water tables as well as river, takes and beaches, poisoning marine life and destroying the habitat. Small infrastructure projects in every farming community can help reverse these effects. Fencing cattle appropriately, recycling wastewater, planting vegetation and fortifying wetlands can help with runoff. So can basic landscaping that diverts stormwater in communities where construction has built impervious surfaces (roads, parking lots, sidewalks) and overwhelmed the natural environment’s capacity to deal with flooding.

Commercial development in wildfire prone zone have meant loss of life and livelihoods. Building residential communities so close to wildlands has increased the incidents of human ignition and conflagrations (eg, virtually all fires in California – more than 90% – are caused by humans, often along roads or buildings from use of flammable invasive grasses). Meanwhile, fire prevention investments have not kept pace with the rate of construction. A program of massive retrofitting with the latest fire-resistant materials is needed, as well as the construction of effective evacuation routes, and implementing building restrictions in certain areas. In the meantime, while communities are regularly incinerated, the work of fighting the fires and cleanup is daunting. A 21st Century Fire Brigade and Firefighter Reserve can provide well paying jobs in many communities.

The discussion above barely scratches the surface of the kinds of work that could be done with a Job Guarantee. In the US, lack of universal healthcare has been compounded by lack of accessible healthcare. Public health deserts can be remedied by building a network of community health clinics which can provide basic preventative care on ongoing basis for free. These can be important sites for on-the-job training opportunities for Job Guarantee workers and internships for young people, who wish to transition into better-paid employment opportunities in healthcare. Coupled with other educational and certification programs, the Job Guarantee can be a springboard for anyone facing obstacles to paid employment. While there are many easily identifiable areas of critical need, addressing the climate crisis alone, requires an all-handson-deck approach. And while the Job Guarantee is a key piece to a comprehensive climate strategy, environmental and community care needs are ongoing, thereby necessitating ongoing public service employment.