The Climate Case for a Jobs Guarantee

Say it’s the very near future, and you’re a worker put out of work in the declining oil industry. You’re highly educated, and you’ve been well-compensated, but as it becomes clear that burning more oil will wreck Earth and civilization, the stuff you make gets properly priced to reflect that reality, and quickly your industry ceases to exist. Good for the planet, but you’re out of a job! What to do?

You go to the local job center, which tells you the U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring a public-private company to build direct-air-capture factories. Now instead of pumping a source of carbon dioxide out of the ground, you get to suck CO₂ out of the atmosphere and inject it back underground. You already know how to work with pumps and pipes from your old job, and though CO₂ removal is a new industry, it’s scaling up fast. And you have a real right to work, as stated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights—and, ever since passage of the Great Pandemic Recovery Act, as stated in federal law, too. A good job is a good job.