SMPIL Consulting applauds the administration’s proposal for a new Civilian Conservation Corps. In particular, we approve of the approach the administration and former EPA head and now White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy are pursuing. They are proceeding from the principle that infrastructure programs must necessarily involve natural infrastructure — marshes, forests, rivers. Native habitat.
They are focussing on local efforts, on hiring locally, on having neighbors working with neighbors to communities work together to rebuild not just our roads, bridges and tunnels, but our rivers, forests, lakes, marshes, and bays. In West Virginia, local action could involve addressing the issue of abandoned mines or strip mined mountains. On Long Island, there’s a great need to repair our creeks, ponds and bays, to remove invasive plants like English Ivy and Japanese Mile-A-Minute. In cities, it could involve green roofing, pocket parks, and culverts. For us to proceed towards climate justice, communities need to be given the means to revitalize local nature. If all politics is local, all environmental politics is doubly so. Environmentalism is about local stewardship.
Go Local, Go Native!
Going local is how this succeeds. It has to be “by and for the community,” putting people to work to assure that community’s future. Native infrastructure is the only infrastructure investment that appreciates over time. Despite what people say, there is a lot of work to do in the future. Restoring our earth in every community is the work of generations. Given the size of our problems, environmental, economic, and civic, we need to commit to succeed. The investment needs to match the challenge.
Many trillions are needed globally over the coming decades to convert our planet into one that is sustainable. While some are concerned that the traditional coal mining state and its Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, would not want to support this proposed climate bill. West Virginia , though, has been ravaged by mining, It is a beautiful place, as John Denver sang, and will be even more so as America makes its investment in local efforts.
This is the biggest threat mankind has faced — and its greatest opportunity. We just need to get to work.
SMPIL Consulting has long advocated for local stewardship. Every yard is an opportunity to restore native habitat and local beauty, and to help our local creatures survive to the next generations. As per Prof. Douglas Tallamy, Prof. of Entomology and New York Times Best Selling Author of Nature’s Best Hope offers, either we return the native plants, or we lose our native animal species as well — birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals. Native insects require native plants for food. We have lost 45% of our insects globally since 1974. We lose the rest, we have but months to live as a species, according to E.O. Wilson.
Restoring native habitat then is not just helping our fellow creatures and returning beauty, it’s of existential urgency. No price tag then is too great, for the return is immeasurable.
Urge your leaders to not shy from this monumental task. We need an army, one deployed everywhere.
Is there a place you want to revert to nature? Contact SMPIL.